Day: January 29, 2014

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Climbing Trees on WC Not a Great Idea

A Texas man who reported he sustained a job-related injury while driving a truck and received income benefits from an insurance company was found driving a truck while collecting. Not a huge surprise. What was surprising was that he was also found to be climbing trees as part of a side business! Texas Mutual Insurance […]

Obama Unveils ‘Starter’ Retirement Savings Bond in State of Union Speech

A new type of “starter” retirement savings account for smaller balances that’s backed by the federal government but administered by employers was promised by President Barack Obama in his 2014 State of the Union address on Jan. 28. The president said he would use an Executive Order to direct the U.S. Treasury Department on Jan. […]

Supreme Court favors employer in donning, doffing case

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the employer in a closely watched donning and doffing case. The high court ruled on January 27 that U.S. Steel Corp. did not have to pay a group of employees for time spent changing into and out of certain protective gear. In Sandifer v. U.S. Steel […]

Health Care Reform: Individual Mandate Penalties Further Refined

In proposed rules issued Jan. 27, the IRS clarifies how participants in employer-sponsored plans are to count employer contributions to HRAs and wellness program incentives when calculating their contributions to employer-sponsored coverage. In those rules, the IRS also allows temporary exceptions to health care reform’s definition of minimum essential coverage for government-sponsored limited-benefit plans, giving […]

Keys for Training Supervisors to Avoid Lawsuits

While you are at it, Schickman adds, make sure that your practices match your policies. Schickman is a partner with Freeland Cooper &Foreman LLP in San Francisco. He offered his tips during a recent webinar sponsored by BLR® and HR Hero®. Supervisor Training Highlights Be sure your training covers the following, says Schickman: Basic rules […]

Company Raffle Sends Employees to Amazon—River, Not Website

A most unusual workplace raffle sends the winners, not to a posh resort, but to a remote part of the Amazon—and not for a vacation, but to work hard! Crius Energy, based in Stamford, Connecticut, told the Hartford Courant that it has been committed to the Amazon Preservation Project, started by Crius’s Viridian Energy division, […]

‘Jobocalypse’ Will Make Most (Human) Workers Obsolete

Robots and androids will replace the majority of human jobs in the next few decades, according to the new book, Jobocalypse: The End of Human Jobs and How Robots Will Replace Them, by British author and futurologist Ben Way.  Where will that leave “human” resources? Even jobs that were considered “safe” from outsourcing may be […]

Micro-units: fermenting new labor problems

by Martin J. Saunders The cornerstone of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) is employees’ right to self-organize in a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining. The NLRA confers on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) wide discretion to determine in each case whether the unit appropriate for purposes of collective bargaining is […]