Hostile Work Environment Definition
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Is Time Off On FMLA Really Time Off? (Or, do you have to maintain your full-time work load while working a reduced-time schedule?)

May 20, 2008 By Leave a Comment
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Case: Lewis v. School District #70 (April 17, 2008) A federal court case established for the first time that your employer can NOT expect you to maintain a full time work load when you are off work under the FMLA. The Federal Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit held that employees using their FMLA rights to be away from work cannot be held to the same requirements as full-time employees who are at work all day. Your company violates federal law if it tries to discipline or fire an employee who is on FMLA leave because he or she is isn’t producing as much work as the employees who are not on leave. A Good Worker Must Live Through Bad Times The worker in this new case was Debra Lewis. Debra began working for Illinois School District #70 in September of 1997 as a bookkeeper and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: FMLA, Legal Strategies Tagged With: Bad Boss, FMLA, Medical Leave
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10 Signs You Are Bullied and Abused at Work

May 14, 2008 By 7 Comments
Two Women Having At It

Are You Bullied At Your Workplace? Did you know that experts estimate more than one in three U.S. workers have been mistreated severely enough at work that their health has been damaged? That’s 54 million people! This is according to a 2007 Zogby International survey. Many employees privately complain that their company won’t stop bullying bosses or retrain them to treat employees with respect. It may be easier to ignore the problem of abusive supervisors, but in the end the company will lose money from its passive approach to this workplace problem. Companies that do not address the problem of workplace bullies do pay a price. Such companies suffer higher employee turnover, higher absenteeism, and more frequent workers compensation claims. Furthermore, a severe bully boss will … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Signs You're Abused at Work Tagged With: Bully Boss, Hostile Work Place, Signs You're Abused
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Do You Want Sundays Off Work?

May 9, 2008 By Leave a Comment
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Do you want to have Sundays off? Does your job require that you work on some Sundays, or every Sunday, even though you would prefer not to? Now you can stay home from work on Sundays whether your boss wants to let you or not. But there is a catch: You have to tell your boss that you are going to stay home and watch TV. That’s right, a court recently ruled that an employer had to accommodate a worker who wanted to stay home from work on Sundays and watch TV – church TV. The worker, a woman named Kimberly Bloom from Pennsylvania, asked to be excused from her grocery store cashier position on Sundays for “religious reasons.” But she did not want the day off of work to go to church. She wanted the Sunday off so she could stay home and watch church on TV and spend time with family … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Attendance, FMLA, Retaliation
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Learn How To File an Unemployment Claim

May 5, 2008 By 16 Comments
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Economy Down, Unemployment Claims Up With our economy the way it is, I decided to prepare a guide to filing for unemployment benefits. My idea was to explain how the unemployment system works, what the standard is for accepting or rejecting claims, and then add in stories from my own experience about what the best tactics and common mistakes are in filing for unemployment benefits. Scam "Services" In researching what others were already saying on the internet, I was alarmed to find "businesses" selling something that at first looks like legal services for people who want to file an unemployment claim. However, after you fill in your information (I did it just to see what the site was really offering) you have to check a box agreeing to a long waiver -- where you agree you are not … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Claim Unemployment Tagged With: Add new tag, Unemployment Claims