Employment Laws

Employment law covers all rights and obligations within the employer-employee relationship — whether current employees, job applicants, or former employees. Because of the complexity of employment relationships and the wide variety of situations that can arise, employment law involves legal issues as diverse as discrimination, wrongful termination, wages and taxation, and workplace safety. Many of these issues are governed by applicable federal and state law. This is FindLaw’s collection of Employment Laws articles, part of the Human Resources section of the Corporate Counsel Center. Law articles in this archive are predominantly written by lawyers for a professional audience seeking business solutions to legal issues. Start your free research with FindLaw.

Human Resources

Employment Laws Articles

Old Law, New Trick: Why Wage and Hour Laws Are Biting Employers

You don.t have to pay overtime to your salaried employees. Right? Not so fast. Many myths surround the federal Depression-era law known as the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and its state law counterparts, which govern questions of overtime pay ...
Read More »
Oregon Wage Laws

Under Oregon Law, If You... , your wages are due on your final day of employment.If your employer failed to follow the law you may have a claim for penalty wages equaling up to 30 days pay. Generally under Oregon law, you must give written ...
Read More »
OSHA Issues Working Draft of Proposed Ergonomics Program Standard

On March 4, 1999, OSHA issued what it calls a "Working Draft of a Proposed Ergonomics Program Standard". OSHA has decided not to wait for the National Academy of Sciences to complete its follow up study of work related repetitive stress injuries ...
Read More »
OSHA Penalty Pitfalls

Kaspar Wire Works, Inc. was cited by OSHA for more than 400 alleged willful and serious violations, mostly OSHA 200 recordkeeping violations of various standards with some $41 million in proposed penalties. OSHA used its disputed authority to make ...
Read More »
OSHA Seeks to Step Up Enforcement of Criminal Penalties and High-Gravity Citations

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is making it clear that in 2005 and 2006 it will be devoting additional resources to criminal prosecutions of management, and that it intends to focus more of its enforcement efforts on ...
Read More »
OSHA Targets for 2005

Although it seems OSHA has been in hibernation from inspecting manufacturing employers, the agency has turned its attention toward construction-industry inspections, targeted employers with high workers' compensation injury rates and expanded its ...
Read More »
Other People’s Money

Davenport v. Washington Educational Association had all the ingredients of a blockbuster: a campaign finance case with First Amendment speech and association claims, important federalism implications, and major players with significant resources (a ...
Read More »
Out With The Old, In With The New: Sweeping Changes to Overtime Regulations On The Horizon

At last, the Department of Labor has proposed new regulations to help employers in the struggle of properly classifying employees as "exempt" or "not exempt" from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"). The United States ...
Read More »
Outside Employee Investigations Must Comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act

The Federal Trade Commission has determined that an employer who hires an outside firm to conduct an employee investigation must comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Typically, these obligations are triggered when the need arises to ...
Read More »
Outsourcing Your Human Resources

Of the many recent changes in the workplace, perhaps none is so dramatic as the trend towards outsourcing of the human resource function. While temporary and contract employees have been used for many years, there has been an explosion in this area ...
Read More »