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

The South Carolina Court of Appeals Rethinks its Broad Interpretation of Public Policy Cases

South Carolina courts have long recognized the doctrine of at-will employment, which allows either the employer or the employee to terminate the employment relationship at any time for any reason or for no reason. Since 1985, the South Carolina ...
Read More »
The Splitting of the AFL-CIO: What It Means to the Nation’s Employers

In a widely anticipated move, three major labor unions -- the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) -- have split from the AFL-CIO. We ...
Read More »
The Statutory Employer Defense Is Alive And Well In Pennsylvania

The most potent defense law available to construction contractors sued in Pennsylvania by workers injured on their projects is the statutory employer defense. In recent years, this doctrine has been criticized as an archaic rule of law from the days ...
Read More »
The Taxation of Tips under the Federal Insurance Contribution Act

A range of benefit programs under the broad umbrella of the Social Security Act is financed largely from taxes paid by employers and employees under the provisions of the Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA). The Internal Revenue Code requires ...
Read More »
The Time for Preparing for Increased Reporting on Form 8-K is Now

On August 23, 2004, the SEC's expanded Form 8-K reporting requirements go into effect. The new requirements nearly double the number of significant events reportable on Form 8-K and include new filing requirements for, among other things, creation ...
Read More »
The Time Has Come to Train Supervisors on Preventing Workplace Violence

Workplace violence has significantly escalated to the point where managements need to include a focused program on preventing, recognizing, and resolving workplace violence. It is no longer a potential. There are real numbers. Nearly two million ...
Read More »
The Top Ten Legislature Bills Affecting Oregon Employers

The regular session of the 2003 Oregon Legislature officially began in January. Since then, a number of bills have been introduced into the House or Senate that, if passed, could impact many employers. The following is our "top ten" list of bills ...
Read More »
The Whistleblowers’ Protection Act does not Protect a “Perceived Whistleblower”

The Michigan Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Whistleblowers' Protection Act (WPA) does not protect an employee who is erroneously perceived by his employer to be a whistleblower. In Chandler v Dowell Schlumberger (January 21, 1998) an ...
Read More »
Things To Consider Before Including An Arbitration Clause In Your Contract

1This article is adapted from other articles by the author appearing in Lawyers' Mutual Insurance Company Bulletin (A Report on Legal Malpractice Prevention Issues), Vol. 13, No. 1, April, 1998 ("Clauses in Attorney-Client Retainer Agreements ...
Read More »
Three Overtime Nightmares

Most employers understand their basic obligation to pay overtime compensation. They know there are "exempt" employees to whom overtime requirements do not apply (commonly, albeit erroneously, understood to encompass only professionals and ...
Read More »