Real Life Employment Law
Nearly every day, executives and managers, and the in-house counsel and Human Resources professionals who work with them, are confronted with unanticipated questions regarding the workforce. Just when they think they have "seen it all," along comes a new and often stranger scenario involving an odd twist to an area they thought they fully understood. These individuals often find themselves back at square one when trying to construct an appropriate response and devise a creative solution to the problem presented. Sometimes these "Quirky Questions" can be resolved easily; other times, they implicate practical and legal issues that are not immediately apparent.
This Quirky Employment Questions Blog addresses unanticipated questions regarding the workforce.
We encourage you to submit your thoughts and reactions to the questions presented. We also encourage you to submit questions that you would like to see addressed, subject to these guidelines.
Stephen D. Bell
Michael Droke
Joseph W. Hammell
Sarah Andrews Herman
Ryan E. Mick
William J. Miller
Melissa Raphan
Gregory M. Saylin
Gabrielle Wirth
David C. SingerBLOG CONTACT INFO
E: Wirth.Gabrielle@dorsey.com
P: 714.800.1455
Question: I am an HR manager working for a US company that sends employees on long term assignment abroad. One of our senior assignees recently rang me to say how worried he is about Greek politics and the potential effect on the Euro. He wanted to know what I was going to do about it. I was a bit puzzled...
Question: I am a New York employer and I have heard about some onerous requirements to furnish wage notices to all employees. Is this law taking effect soon?
Question: We are a California employer. After all the publicity surrounding class actions over meal and break periods, we instituted automatic warnings if employees take too long or too short a meal or rest break. Is anyone really enforcing this kind of discipline or are we wasting our time?
Question: My company was in a tight spot last month with cash flow and we had to delay payroll by a few days. We did end up paying everyone what they were owed. I now have an employee, however, who is claiming the late payment violated her rights and that we owe her more money. We paid her all the...
Question: We operate a warehouse in Minnesota where the employees work two weeks on / two weeks off. They work 10 hours per day, 7 days per week when they’re on at an hourly rate of $30. The employees also ordinarily receive a non-discretionary year-end bonus of 10% of total compensation, which is meant to compensate them both for their...
Question: Our company awards prizes at holiday parties and, from-time-to-time, at employee appreciation events. The prizes range from company logo t-shirts to $50 gift cards and cameras worth about $125. Do we need to report any of these items as compensation on Form W-2 for the employees who win these prizes?
Question: We are a large Minnesota employer and we have a non-exempt employee who is asking for breaks to express her breast milk multiple times every day, and each break takes a long time. We let her do so in her office, and she tapes a “not available” note across the window on her office door, but the door doesn’t...
Question: We have an employee who is claiming that he should be paid for time cleaning up his work station after logging out of our electronic time keeping system each night. Literally, he spends one or two minutes straightening his piles of paper and on other trivial similar tasks. Another company HR representative said that every minute an employee spends...
Question: We have offices in 13 states, a headquarters in Iowa and a manufacturing facility in Alaska. Several employees have used our “open suggestion box” to request that we allow them to work through lunch so they can go home earlier. I am aware of California’s unique laws which require that non-exempt employees be offered meal periods of at least...
Question: Each year, we provide our employees with a Christmas bonus of varying amounts. We’ve always done this because we want to reward our employees for a hard year of work and also spread a bit of holiday cheer. We were recently told by someone that we may have to pay additional overtime wages if we keep giving our employees...
Erica ChenErica is an associate in the Costa Mesa office of Dorsey & Whitney and a member of the firm’s Labor and Employ...
Jack SullivanJack is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor & Employment group, where he focuses his practice on employment adv...
Ieva AubinAs an employment and business immigration attorney, ...
Michael DrokeMike started his career as a client, not a lawyer...
Matt DurhamMatt defends employers in Utah and throughout the ...
Aaron GoldsteinAaron is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor & Employ...
Josh HughesJosh’s experience spans trial and appellate advoc...
Jillian KornblattJillian is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor & Employ...
Laura LestradeLaura began practicing at Dorsey in 1992 and has s...
Ryan MickFor more than a decade, Ryan has counseled corpo...
Nick PappasNick litigates and counsels with respect to com...
Melissa RaphanMelissa is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor and Employ...
Gabrielle WirthEmployers turn to Gabrielle for guidance on how they...
