New Federal OSHA Standards Could Impact Occupational Disease Claims
July, 2000
The Federal Government’s Occupational Safety & Health Administration (“OSHA”) issued proposed regulations in November of 1999 dealing with alleged repetitive motion disorders and ergonomics. If adopted, these regulations would require many employers to establish comprehensive plans geared toward ending what OSHA refers to as work-related “musculoskeletal disorders” (“MSD”).
New Funding Source Proposed For Dredging
June, 2000
Ever since the Supreme Court held that the Harbor Maintenance Tax on exports to be unconstitutional in United States v. United States Shoe Corporation, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 1290, 140 L.Ed2d 453 (1998), Congress has grappled with finding an alternative means to fund maintenance dredging of the nation’s harbors. In the last Congress, a…
Preparing a Workplace Violence Prevention Program
June, 2000 | By Donald F. Burke
Recent shootings in Georgia (9 killed in July), Alabama (3 killed in August) and Hawaii (7 killed in November) are a chilling reminder of the vulnerability of America’s workplace. These are the high profile cases which make the nightly news. The sobering truth is that in the United States, homicide is the second leading cause of death in the workplace. For women, it is the leading cause of workplace fatality. Each day in the workplace three people are killed and sixty-one are seriously injured. The attackers are often coworkers, customers, or patients.
Workers’ Compensation, The ADA, And FMLA – Recent Developments
| By Donald F. Burke
(Labor & Employment Newsletter – 2000) Three sources of employment-related disability rights (Workers’ Compensation laws; The Americans with Disabilities Act; and The Family and Medical Leave Act) frequently intersect and sometimes collide. The key to making defensible personnel decisions is an independent analysis of each law in light of the facts of any given case.…
Recent Developments In Wage And Hour Law
May, 2000
The U.S. Department of Labor has revised the “white-collar” exemptions to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) with the final rules published in the Federal Register on April 23, 2004. .
How To Be And Remain Union-Free
April, 2000 | By Donald F. Burke
Unions are a mere possibility. They are not inevitable. Since their heyday in the 1950s, the organized workforce has shrunk from around 35 percent to approximately 10 percent of the total private-sector workforce. This trend is continuing and instructs us that employers who take the threat of unionization seriously and have a true commitment to reducing this threat by lawful means are likely to be, and remain, union-free. The key to remaining union-free is “doing what is right and fair” to employees. “Doing what is right and fair” results in a clear advantage to the employer faced by union organizing activities. As a consequence of “doing what is right and fair,” employees will ask the organizer, “who needs the union anyway,” and “why should I pay for what I already have?”