Will work for beer

According to Boy Genius Report, archeologists in Iraq recently discovered a 5,000-year-old Mesopotamian tablet, which the site artfully describes as a “pay stub for beer due.” If the interpretation of the tablet is to be believed, ancient Mesopotamians were paid in beer for their labor.

“That was 3000 B.C., and this is 2016 A.D.,” you’re saying to yourself. “What possible relevance does this story have to modern employers?” The answer may surprise you.

$15 minimum wage is unconstitutional, says Ohio Attorney General

The drive to push local minimum wags in Ohio municipalities to $15 an hour may have hit a significant snag—Ohio’s Constitution.

According to an advisory opinion [pdf] issued by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, a municipal ordinance may not require an employer to by a to pay its employees an hourly minimum wage rate that is in excess of the statewide hourly minimum wage rate.

Employment at-will is dead

Last week, I suggested that the “FMLA is not a personnel-file eraser.”

One does not return from an FMLA leave with a clean performance slate. Instead, one returns with the same warts with which they left. And, if those warts merit discipline, or (gasp) even termination, then so be it.

In response, one commenter cautioned about being too cavalier with discipline or termination in the wake of an FMLA leave.

http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-09-08

WIRTW #419 (the “ramen” edition)

Today I bring you greatest (only?) love song ever written about ramen noodles.


Here’s what I read this week.

FMLA does not excuse poor performance

Earlier in the week, I discussed Tilley v. Kalamazoo, in which an employer took one on the chin for disciplining an employee for not doing his job while on an FMLA leave. That case, however, does not mean that the FMLA excuses prior poor job performance, or that an employer must ignore or excuse an employee’s performance deficiencies once an employee takes FMLA leave. Indeed, as Checa v. Drexel University [pdf] points out, it’s just the opposite.

Your employees are social media-ing at work, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it

A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center confirmed what I have long thought. Your employees are using social media a work — 77 percent of them. And I believe even that number is low.

http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/06/22/social-media-and-the-workplace/pi_2016-06-22_social-media-and-work_0-01/

FMLA leave means leave, period.

FMLA leave means leave. That is, an employee exercising rights under the FMLA to take protected time-off from work must be relieved of their job functions, and an employer cannot hold such an employee responsible for job tasks uncompleted during such a leave of absence.