Obama expected to sign Executive Order to ‘ban the box’ for federal employers

President Obama is expected to sign an Executive Order on Monday that would prohibit federal employers from asking job applicants questions about potential criminal records until significantly later in the hiring process. In a previous post, we shared that both the House of Representatives and the Senate are also currently debating bills that propose ban-the-box…

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Food chains under fire for wage theft, illegal background checking

Restaurant and food-delivery chains have been under fire lately, as Chipotle, Waffle House and Papa John’s Pizza have all been slapped with lawsuits recently. Four current and former Papa John’s franchises reached a settlement with New York employees and former employees after admitting that they had not paid fair wages to 250 workers in the…

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Labor Dept. in minimum-wage catch-22 for home health care workers

the Department is now putting that decision on ice while it sees if it can get an industry-wide ruling from the Supreme Court. Previously, home health care workers — who primarily take care of elderly patients in their own homes — were generally thought to be employed through agencies or directly by the family itself,…

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Labor Department sues fundamentalist group over child labor

Wage and Hour Division sued the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) and several employers within the sect for continuing to violate child-labor laws after a 2007 court order demanded they cease the employment of minor children for pecan harvesting. The Wage and Hour Division had been investigating the FLDS church for…

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Department of Labor implements back wages website

The U.S. Department of Labor has introduced a new website to help employees — who may not have received proper overtime pay or minimum wages — to receive back wages. The site, Workers Owed Wages, is run by the Wage and Hour Division, and is a nationwide database where employees can receive recovered back wages…

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$15 minimum wage not a win for all, says Bureau of Labor Statistics

New York state — have managed to raise wages for employees to a $15-per-hour minimum, the Bureau of Labor Statistics warns that many businesses underpaid their workers even when the minimum wage was lower. The Bureau stated that in 2014, employers failed to pay up to 1.7 million workers the federal minimum wage of $7.25…

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EEOC: sexual orientation now a protected class under Title VII

by federal law, discriminating against an individual on the basis of sexual orientation for employment purposes is illegal. In its ruling in Complainant v. Foxx, the EEOC stated, “Indeed, we conclude that sexual orientation is inherently a ‘sex-based consideration,’ and an allegation of discrimination based on sexual orientation is necessarily an allegation of sex discrimination…

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Oregon: drug-testing policies won’t change for state jobs

went into effect at the beginning of July, many state employers have begun releasing memos re-stating their drug policies and reminding employees that nothing is likely to change in those policies. Employers are still allowed to conduct drug tests, and ensure their employees show up for work sober, though some acknowledge that what an employee…

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Fingerprint background checks mandatory for preventing Medicaid fraud, says CMS

released a letter early this month to Medicaid directors, which stated that beginning August 1, some providers must begin fingerprinting employees at locations that are considered “high-risk” for Medicaid fraud. This fingerprinting provision was actually part of the regulations for the Affordable Care Act, and was passed in 2011 in an attempt for the Department…

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