For invitations to our events and updates on key legal issues and business concerns
Please Click HerePosted on May 15, 2014 by Ruder Ware Alumni
As you may have seen in several news reports, President Obama is today directing the Department of Labor to re-write the regulations that identify who is exempt from overtime pay requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Fair Labor Standards Act does not apply to executive, administrative and professional employees. There are certain minimum […]
Posted on May 15, 2014 by Ruder Ware Alumni
A number of activities over the past several months have suggested that obesity is on its way to being considered a disability and therefore protected under federal discrimination laws and possibly the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act. No decision has been made holding that obesity is a disability under Wisconsin law, but several things at the […]
Posted on May 15, 2014 by Ruder Ware Alumni
Football players under scholarship at Northwestern University can unionize based upon a decision from the Regional Director of the National Labor Relations Board. This is a touchdown in the first quarter for the student athletes as this is the first stage in a litigation that will likely run for several years. The Regional Director held […]
Posted on May 15, 2014 by Ruder Ware Alumni
The National Labor Relations Board will be holding public hearings on April 10 and April 11 regarding the proposed “quickie election” rule that would expedite the election process and reduce the ability of an employer to campaign against a union representation election. Several prior blogs have addressed some of the elements of the proposed rule, […]
Posted on May 15, 2014 by Ruder Ware Alumni
Several recent stories have talked about huge layoffs because of a loss of federal contracts and a decline in available work. Companies are looking at large layoffs to reduce costs and survive the cutbacks in revenue from the loss of contracts. A reduction in the workforce can open the door for age discrimination claims if […]
Posted on May 14, 2014 by Ruder Ware Alumni
Wisconsin has always been a little different because it required employers to keep a record of the hours worked by a professional employee who was exempt from the overtime pay requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. This requirement also applied to other exempt employees such as administrative or executive employees that were considered exempt […]
Posted on May 14, 2014 by Ruder Ware Alumni
Two recent events have refocused a concern about becoming a successor owner of a company in a setting where the company is being acquired/purchased. Situations arise on a regular basis where a company will purchase another business with the intention of operating the business as it has been previously operated and simply becoming the new […]
Posted on May 14, 2014 by Ruder Ware Alumni
A recent decision from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has opened the door to the argument that an employer must provide a reasonable accommodation of allowing an employee to work from home instead of being at the office. In this decision, the Court of Appeals held that an employer cannot automatically require […]
Posted on May 14, 2014 by Ruder Ware Alumni
Are employer-mandated anger-management counseling sessions considered compensable “hours worked” for purposes of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act? What if the employee attends anger-management counseling outside of his or her normal working hours? These questions came up recently during a roundtable meeting of an HR group of which I’m fortunate to be a part. Several […]
Posted on May 14, 2014 by Ruder Ware Alumni
The definition of misconduct under the Wisconsin Unemployment Compensation Law was changed as of the first of the year. We are now starting to see decisions under this new standard that limit employees from receiving unemployment benefits when being terminated from employment due to inappropriate conduct. For many years, an employer was not able to […]