Stressed out from her job as the manager of Brewed Awakening, a Houston-area coffee shop, Mary Jane Blunt heads to Colorado with her family for a well-deserved Spring Break ski vacation. Blunt is excited to learn that Colorado recently legalized marijuana. While on vacation, Blunt fully enjoys Colorado’s beautiful slopes and relaxed drug laws. Responding… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Employment & Labor
Subscribe to Employment & Labor RSS FeedHave Gun, Will Travel? [Part Two] – Owner’s Liability to Employees for Violent Acts
Posted in Constitutional Rights & Issues, Criminal Law, Employment & LaborLast month Tilting pondered an owner’s liability to customers from violence at the midnight showing of “Paladin – the Gentleman Black Knight” – the remake. Patrons and employees alike were ambushed at the Orpheum Theater. According to news reports the Paladin look-alike bought a ticket. After the movie started he slipped out through an emergency… Continue Reading
Part Time Work – Part Time Healthcare?
Posted in Employment & LaborBy the end of 2013, The Codfather Seafood Restaurant’s workforce of over 400 full-time employees must be reduced to less than 50 full-time employees. Willy Fry, owner of the Codfather Seafood chain, is also requiring his managers to limit all part-time employees to less than 28 hours a week. Why? Willy believes the Patient Protection… Continue Reading
You Have the Right to Vote MY WAY: Can Companies Influence their Employee’s Vote?
Posted in Around the Holidays, Constitutional Rights & Issues, Employment & LaborBarack Romney owns a timber and building products business. Earlier this month he mailed his employees a packet suggesting that many of the company’s more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer consequences of higher gasoline prices, runaway inflation, and other ills if we elect a candidate who want to “spend money on subsidies,… Continue Reading
Coming Up Short: Is it the Height of Prejudice Not to Hire Short People?
Posted in Employment & LaborWanting to bolster attendance for his newly acquired and struggling Marfa baseball team, the Giants, Bick Benedict sent his scout team looking for someone who was extremely short. Bick settled on Jett Rink. Anticipating that Major League Baseball would reject Rink, Bick got the contract approved late on a Friday. When Jett stepped up to… Continue Reading
Avoiding Job Applicants Who Tip the Scales
Posted in Employment & LaborKev Orkian the CEO of Muleshoe Medical Center decided all hospital employees’ physique “should fit within a representational image or specific mental projection of the job of a healthcare professional.” Kev decreed that any job applicant with a body mass index over 35 (245 pounds for someone 5-foot-10) was obese and need not apply. Beyond… Continue Reading
Immigration – In or Out?
Posted in Constitutional Rights & Issues, Employment & LaborSean D’Leer and Patty O’Door are the proud owners of STD Contractors, a heavy construction business in Texas. They are starting to see more large commercial development activity and are considering hiring more laborers to staff up for what they hope to be a sustained economic recovery. However, all of the recent news about immigration… Continue Reading
ObamaCare: Is it Really Out of the Woods?
Posted in Constitutional Rights & Issues, Employment & LaborDan Driver’s rapidly growing computer IT business Byte Back is busier than ever and needs help. Not forgetting his cash flow crunches of 2007, Dan is watching labor costs steadily rise. Healthcare insurance is his #2 greatest expense behind wages. All of this talk about employee healthcare insurance has left Byte Back paralyzed as an… Continue Reading
Workers’ Compensation Insurance – Buying “the Shield” or “Going Bare”
Posted in Employment & LaborRocky Haire (the actual name of an attorney in town who gave permission for it to be used in this article) is thinking about opening his own small business Fine and Dandy Confectioners. He is considering purchasing medical and wage benefits for his employees because he expects the 8-10 new employees will stack crates head… Continue Reading
“Whistleblower” Lawsuits
Posted in Employment & Labor, Legal Risk ManagementTatt L. Tale was beside himself. His company FreshLike Grocers was the largest supplier of food sold and shipped to U.S. troops in the Middle East during the Iraq war. One day, Tatt caught his boss Kot “Red” Handid changing the “use-by” labels on the food it was supplying. Freshlike Grocers did nothing to stop… Continue Reading
Employers liability for Employee’s Conduct
Posted in Employment & Labor, Legal Risk ManagementSales representatives of Bedlam Pharmaceuticals invited a client’s employee Fonda Looney to join them for lunch. After lunch and an afternoon of drinking at Sam n’ Ella’s Pub & Cafe, a heavily intoxicated Nurse Looney drove home at speeds up to 95 mph when she rammed into another car killing the infant in the passenger… Continue Reading
Publishing Trade Secrets
Posted in Employment & Labor, Social Media & The InternetPopeye Church, a budding chef, wanted to revive “country cooking,” with fried chicken as his signature dish. However after many tries, he failed to create a great recipe and became obsessed with cracking the code of the best-kept culinary secret in the fried chicken industry – the inimitable 11 herbs and spices of Pennsylvania Fried… Continue Reading
Independent Contractor vs. an Employee
Posted in Employment & LaborAs a result of the economic downturn, business at the Bedrock Granite Quarry was not rocking along. Mr. Slate, the owner of the quarry, was forced to reduce his workforce and hire “independent contractors”, like Barney Rubble, to perform work on an as needed basis. Rubble has been working at the Bedrock Granite Quarry since… Continue Reading
Avoiding Getting Sued for Spam
Posted in Employment & LaborChris P. Letus doesn’t like burgers, shakes or Spam*. In 2008, Letus received an e-mail inviting him to King Burger to “taste the savory new bacon-loaded steak burger.” Letus immediately replied, “unsubscribe.” Two months later, King Burger sent Letus another e-mail about the bacon-loaded steak burger boasting about its “irresistible aroma.” Yet another e-mail was… Continue Reading
Un-Paid Internships 101
Posted in Employment & LaborBoisterous Billy Clint is a TV and film director in Los Angeles. With the economic downturn, times are slow in the film business. Billy laid off most of his corporate staff last year just to keep the doors open. Hoping to get the rights to produce the next big show, Billy still has administrative work… Continue Reading
Hair Care Meets Obama Care
Posted in Employment & LaborIvana Cut owns Curl Up & Dye, a successful chain of hair salons. Curl Up & Dye currently employs 47 full time stylists and, with the promising positive turn around in the economy, is planning to hire 5 new employees within the next year. The company does not currently provide health insurance benefits to its… Continue Reading
Supervisors and FLSP Overtime Exemption
Posted in Employment & LaborFor over ten years Dudleydil E. Gent has been the purchasing manager for Effervescent Electronics, at one time supervising as many as ten purchasing agents. Due to the failing economy and lagging sales and in a desperate attempt to save his company, the Effervescent owner Julius C. Dithers directed four forced layoffs in the last… Continue Reading
Dangers of Employee Cell Phone Use?
Posted in Employment & LaborDaneka Dodgy blamed a low-flying pelican and a dropped cell phone for her veering her sponsor’s million-dollar sports car into on-coming traffic near Galveston, crashing into Wilma Woondednee’s car and overturning it so that Wilma’s driver’s side hit and then slid along the roadway. The luxury French-built Bugatti Veyron provided to Daneka by her sponsor… Continue Reading
Recognizing Employees’ Holidays
Posted in Around the Holidays, Employment & LaborGurglin’ Guideon Cavatelli is upset with his boss Shank Brisket. Cavatelli and his fellow believers at the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster celebrate the third Wednesday in December by taking a pilgrimage to the Great Pasta Patch to try to catch the Flying Spaghetti Monster rising up to spread carbohydrate girth and mirth to… Continue Reading
Explanation of bills that did, and did not, get passed
Posted in Constitutional Rights & Issues, Employment & Labor, Legal Risk Management, Property IssuesThe 81st Texas Legislature that began in January ended with an exhausting five-day filibuster of the voter identification bill, a legislative logjam of other major legislation left for debate until late in the session, a frantic last ditch attempt to save much of that legislation, and a final-day meltdown in the Senate. The 2009 session… Continue Reading
What Happens in Vegas Stays on Facebook
Posted in Employment & LaborWith unemployment rates skyrocketing, Ivana Hyre, the HR manager for Binge and Purr Cat Food Company, was facing a swell of well-qualified job applicants for three recently advertised positions. With her department already short-staffed, Hyre knew that interviewing all of these candidates would take weeks. To sort through the mountain of resumes, Hyre searched social… Continue Reading
Covenants Not To Compete: Still Enforceable!
Posted in Employment & LaborFor most of the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was considered nearly impossible to have an enforceable non-compete in Texas. After clarification by the Texas Supreme Court in 2006, non-competition agreements in Texas found new life. This April the Texas Supreme Court again affirmed that noncompetition agreements are alive and enforceable in this great… Continue Reading
March Madness Basketball Gambling
Posted in Criminal Law, Employment & LaborIt’s March and NCAA Madness is in full swing. Cindy Rella, your office manager, is now a water cooler fixture bragging about her imminent victory in the office basketball bracket. Sitting at your cubicle bitter that your team lost in the first round, and even more bitter that Cindy, the office sports idiot, used the… Continue Reading
Workplace “Love Contracts” Acknowledging Unmarried Relationships
Posted in Employment & Labor, Family IssuesValentine’s Day is over and, despite the fading roses on Connie’s desk, Dale Dalliance and Connie Canoodle were adamant that they have no romantic involvement. That is, until the new company security camera caught them in a compromising situation in the warehouse last week. To compound the problem, Dale is married and is a line… Continue Reading