This morning there are a couple of interesting privacy stories that serve as good reminders of best practices in this area. The first arises in connection with a union arbitration over discipline meted out to an employee of a municipal liquor store in Paynesville, Minnesota. As you know, these types of arbitrations usually depend largely [...]
According to a new survey by health insurance company HealthPartners, health care costs are the biggest obstacle to business expansion for Minnesota businesses.
Almost two-thirds of companies said health costs jumped 10 percent or more in the past two years, with a quarter reporting costs increasing by more than 20 percent
Many employers blame employee lifestyles for [...]
The Obama administration is seeking to extend the subsidy of COBRA premiums. Currently, many employees who were laid off between September 2008 and February 2010 receive a 65 percent subsidy of their health care coverage for up to 15 months. The President’s budget proposal would extend that subsidy to employees who lose their jobs in [...]
You may have missed it during the holiday rush, but on December 21 Congress passed an extension through February 28, 2010 of the popular COBRA subsidy. More information about the extension, as well as some employer fact sheets, are available on the DOL’s website: www.dol.gov/cobra.
Plans subject to the Federal COBRA provisions must provide a General [...]
The Supreme Court seems likely to accept a case involving background checks on employees who do contract work for the government, a legal hodgepodge which one judge has analogized to a turducken (a turkey stuffed with a duck and a chicken).
The case was brought by a group of scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion [...]
Two interesting stories on privacy issues this morning.
First, Acorn is having even more problems because a republican activist did a little dumpster diving behind its offices in San Diego and came out with a bunch of documents containing social security and driver’s license numbers of its members and job applicants. Ouch!
Second, Sen. Patrick Leahy is [...]
The Department of Labor announced Friday that it has hired an additional 250 wage and hour investigators to respond more quickly to complaints and undertake more targeted enforcement of wage and hour laws.
In the past three months, the Labor Department has brought two enforcement cases that resulted in the recovery of nearly $2 million in [...]
The new federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) takes effect for employers with over 15 employees this Saturday, November 21, 2009. Some are calling this the “most important new anti-discrimination law in two decades.”
The new law prohibits employers from requesting or considering genetic testing or genetic background information in hiring, firing or promotions. More specifically, [...]
Minneapolis-based UnitedHealth Group is taking some heat for providing form letters to its 75,000 U.S. employees opposing aspects of the health care reform bill working its way through Congress. The company also urged employees to write letters to local newspapers and then share those letters with the company’s lobbying arm.
One of the form letters provided by UHG makes [...]
The Equal Employment Opportunity Ccommission (EEOC) has released an update to its required “Equal Employment Opportunity is the Law” posting. The new version reflects current federal employment discrimination law, and adds information regarding the new Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) and ADA Amendments Act regulations. The revised poster also includes updates from the U.S. Department of Labor.
The [...]
