Vigilant Blog

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) may not have immediate plans to include a musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) column on the OSHA 300 Log, but their interpretation letters keep inching closer to employers having to record MSDs anyway. In its most recently released Tips: This interpretation letter comes just a few short months after…

According to a recent press release characterizes this planned wage increase as modest. However, many employers in our area have had to impose wage freezes and reductions in recent years. If your employees are reading these headlines, what are their expectations going to be for 2012? Are you prepared to compete with the organizations that…

Failing to give a salesperson returning from military service a similar book of business that would yield the same commissions he enjoyed before leaving for active duty was a violation of the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), according to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The employee returned from military service…

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has pushed back the requirement for employers to post the new employee rights announced that the new implementation date will be January 31, 2012 (it was previously November 14, 2011, as Vigilant reported in our September 2, 2011, newsletter). The poster explains the rights of most non-management employees under…

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has issued a If your business depends on income from federal contracts, pay close attention to any obligations you may have as a federal contractor. Although job-related tests can be a helpful tool to fairly compare candidates, the OFCCP is highly suspicious of any test that has…

The National Labor Relations Board has released the new poster that most private employers will be required to display as of November 14, 2011. The poster explains the rights of most non-management employees under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to band together on issues related to wages, hours and working conditions.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /?>…

According to an OSHA 300 Log. The letter asked OSHA to weigh in on whether a work-related injury should be recorded when an on-site health care provider recommended that the employee do exercises for only a short period of time. Specifically, the letter questioned whether the exercises should be considered medical treatment beyond first aid…

Verizon Communications is paying big bucks to The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires employers to engage in the interactive process to make an attempt to reasonably accommodate an employees disability. See our Legal Guide, ADA: Reasonable Accommodation Quick Reference (

For example, your risk management officer may need to see workers compensation information for purposes of creating a light duty position for an employee, but has no reason to see Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) medical certifications unrelated to the workers comp claim. By keeping all medical records in one location, including an electronic file, and then granting…

The U.S. Supreme Court has thrown out a proposal to lump together one and a half million current and former female employees as class action plaintiffs against Wal-Mart. The lawsuit alleged that the company violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by discriminating in pay and promotions against female workers. To the companys chagrin,…

An employee sought time off for post-traumatic stress disorder. She gave her employer a partially completed WH-380E form, along with a prescription and a letter from her psychiatrist, but the form failed to identify any medical facts in support of the diagnosis. The doctor had simply indicated that the employee needed to have 120 days off work for her condition,…

A recent survey by an online business journal, McKinsey Quarterly, indicates that as many as 30 percent of employers will “definitely” or “probably” stop offering employer-sponsored health insurance after 2014. Among the other surprising findings, the Like it or not, health care reform is here to stay, whether on the state or the federal level,…