Employment Law Resources Archives - Page 5 of 11

Don’t Join Joni Mitchell and Not Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone

You can’t protect what you don’t know you have. And if any of it’s on a computer, it could disappear or be taken before you know it if steps aren’t taken to protect it. So, in addition to the advice we provided in the article that just went out on cybersecurity, here is a sisterRead More

Like a Stephen King Novel, IT Scares Us

In preparation for the Central Maine Human Resources Association’s program on what employers need to know about IT, we wanted to get everyone thinking about IT policies that any company might have. Most companies use computer-based equipment for some number of tasks, even if they don’t think of themselves as dependent on tech. For example,Read More

Don’t Compete and Don’t Tell

If you want to have a non-compete agreement, you can do that with an employee . . . but not an independent contractor. Remember, you can’t control an INDEPENDENT contractor. Moreover, a truly independent contractor must have their own company doing their own work separate from your own company. If you have people working forRead More

Avoiding Workers’ Compensation Discrimination Claims in Maine

When an employee is injured at work, competing interests make it easy for an employer to improperly handle the injury on the front end. An employer’s compliance mistakes and taking a “wait-and-see approach” to work injuries can give rise to expensive claims of workers’ compensation discrimination under the Maine Workers’ Compensation Act (the Act). DespiteRead More

Are Protests Protected Activity Under the National Labor Relations Act? Maybe.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)’s general counsel ruffled a few feathers last month by finding that employees who skip work to protest could be protected from termination under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). This has the potential to be a pretty startling finding for employers with politically active employees . . . soRead More

Independent Contractor Violations Continue: How to Avoid the Heat in 2018

Hiring someone to work for your company that you call an independent contractor can be risky, particularly because making a mistake can lead to so many federal and state agencies pouncing on a mistake. The bottom line – to be an independent contractor, they really need to have their own company, that they have beenRead More

Update: Don’t Forget About Your Interns… Should You be Paying Them?

Should you be paying your interns? The federal Department of Labor (“DOL”) isn’t forgetting about this issue, and you shouldn’t either. Last year, we published an article on the factors the DOL was using to determine whether interns should be paid or whether a company could legally not pay their intern hire. Last month, theRead More

Drug Testing?

Thinking about doing drug testing or expanding existing testing? Maine law contains strict rules about testing – in fact, you can’t do drug testing in Maine without state approval. The Central Maine Human Resources Association will be addressing the issue of drug impairment in the workplace on February 20 (go to www.cmhra.org), a helpful first step if consideringRead More

Harassment Policies and Best Practices

In Maine, there are particular issues that must be addressed in a sexual harassment policy. The requirements are spelled out in the law (26 MRS § 807): the illegality of sexual harassment; the definition of sexual harassment under state law; a description of sexual harassment, utilizing examples; the internal complaint process available to the employee;Read More

New Maine Requirements on Harassment: Get Your Train Game On

In 2017, the Maine Legislature amended the law requiring harassment training, adding in record-keeping requirements and penalties, updating the poster needed, and tying a compliance checklist to the program that employers must develop. There are now penalties for failure to put up the poster as well as a failure to provide the required training. Fortunately,Read More