As my colleague Keith Ashmus recently noted, most employers currently ask job applicants for their salary histories. This is a reasonable question, and one that employers find useful to help attract and retain talented employees. Given recent legislative initiatives and judicial decisions on this topic, however, employers should tread carefully.
In the past few
The annual Frantz Ward Labor & Employment Seminar is consistently a great learning experience for both clients and guests and for the presenters from our Labor & Employment Practice Group. This year’s program, at the new Stillwater Place facility at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, was no exception. Our audience of HR professionals, business owners, and
In Ohio, the default rule governing employment relationships is employment at-will. Absent a legally recognized exception, an employer can terminate the employment of an at-will employee for any lawful reason, without cause or notice, and not incur liability. One of the lesser-known exceptions to the rule of employment at-will relates to the termination of minority
Federal law has long protected owners of patents, copyrights and trademarks from infringement of those intellectual property rights. Trade secret owners, however, traditionally had to rely on state law to protect their trade secrets from improper use or disclosure. Congress has now given trade secret owners an additional avenue for protecting their intellectual property: the
Based upon information received from a number of sources, it now appears that the Department of Labor’s controversial changes to the rules governing the white collar exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act will be finalized and published in the coming weeks – potentially as early as next week. Once published, it is expected that
On June 30, 2015, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued proposed rules that will significantly increase the minimum salary threshold required for an employee to be classified as exempt for purposes of overtime pay under federal law. It is expected that nearly 5 million additional workers will become eligible for overtime pay within the first
Following last year’s issuance by the EEOC of controversial criminal background check guidelines, the EEOC has filed a number of lawsuits attempting to enforce these guidelines. Late last week, Judge Roger Titus, United States District Court District of Maryland, dismissed the lawsuit EEOC filed against Freeman, holding that the EEOC failed to present a prima
From an employer’s perspective there are many unanswered questions.
Continue Reading President Obama Announces New Immigration Policy
This post was co-authored by Inna Shelley.
Employers should have counsel review their non-compete agreements in order to ensure that a merger or other restructuring would not affect the successor company’s right to enforce the agreement. On May 24, the Ohio Supreme Court decided Accordia of Ohio, LLC v. Fischel, a case in which
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has just issued new Guidelines on employers’ use of criminal records to make employment decisions. Despite the opposition of employer groups, its guidelines represent a significant restriction upon what the EEOC thinks employers can do, and how employers can justify to the EEOC their use of