In a case decided last week, Staub v. Proctor Hospital, a unanimous United States Supreme Court finally addressed the application of the “cat’s paw” theory of liability to employment discrimination claims, holding that an employer can be liable for an employment action motivated by a non-decision maker’s discriminatory animus ...
The decision by an employer to offer a pension plan to its employees is an important one. Various types of pension plans may be offered, and the financial risk of the employer depends on the type of plan chosen.While unions and employees generally prefer defined benefit pension plans,(1) employers are now very reluctant to implement such plans because of the financial liability they entail ...
The facts of the case In 1987, the Hudson’s Bay Company (“HBC”) sold one of its divisions to the North West Company (“NWC ”). In the context of that transaction, some 1,200 HBC employees were transferred to NWC (the “Transferred Employees”). On October 7, 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered its judgment in the Burke v. Hudson’s Bay Co. case ...
The business community has been placed on notice. OSHA has been actively pursuing its regulatory agenda, while also arming its arsenal to enforce compliance. This alert explores the highlights of OSHA’s initiatives in 2010 and what companies can expect in 2011. OSHA 2010: Expanded Enforcement and an Active Commission OSHA’s efforts throughout 2010 included expanded enforcement, a negative publicity campaign, and clearance of several legacy cases from the OSHA Review Commission (“OSHRC”) docket ...
Website accessibility is a requirement of the Equality Act 201. The first of a two-part article explaining Equality Act 2010 to websites. In our last article, Website accessibility: Industry standards and best practice, we considered how the Equality Act 2010 would be implemented, and considered what the new BSI Standard for website accessibility might look like ...
Concents : * Technology Licences in the Event of Bankruptcy * New Quebec Business Corporations Regime * The Shareholder Agreement: the "Specifications" of the Private Corporation Shareholder Technology Licences in the Event of Bankruptcy Sive Burns [email protected] The owner of a technology protected by an intellectual property right (copyright or patent) or protected by secret (trade secret) may grant a licence to a licensee ...
Over the last ten years, Quebec society has frequently been called on to establish means for integrating human rights in the workplace, particularly with respect to accommodation matters ...
OSHA is implementing several changes to its administrative penalty calculation system. Many of the agency's current penalty adjustment factors have been in place since the early 1970's, resulting in penalties which are often too low to have an adequate deterrent effect. Administrative penalty adjustments will therefore be made to several factors which impact the final penalty issued to employers. These factors include: 1 ...
Combined EAD/Advance Parole Cards Citing security and durability, USCIS announced last week that it is issuing combined employment and travel authorization on one card. Currently, applicants are issued two separate approval documents – a card for employment authorization and a paper approval for advance parole ...
Here we go again! Consistent with its retaliation decisions over the past five years, the United States Supreme Court has revisited and expanded the scope of protection from retaliation under Title VII. In an 8-0 decision issued January 24, 2011, the high court expanded the scope of Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision by concluding that in certain situations, the statute allows an employee who has not personally engaged in protected activity to lodge a retaliation claim under the statute ...
The Federal government’s legislation to control spam and other ills of the electronic age with the oh-so-catchy title of An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and
The Obama National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”)1 has started to make its mark on the labor laws through a series of changes that collectively may have a significant impact on the labor law environment ...
After launching a National Emphasis Program (“NEP”) on recordkeeping in 2009, OSHA has focused increasingly more on recordkeeping compliance when conducting workplace inspections. Recently, the Assistant Secretary of Labor, David Michaels, noted that the recordkeeping NEP has supposedly uncovered recordkeeping violations in almost 60 percent of the 192 inspections OSHA has carried out to date under the program ...
1. How can the government’s attitude and approach to internet issues best be described? The attitude of the Belgian government can be described as positive and their approach is proactive. In 2003, the Belgian authorities announced the introduction of ‘egovernment’ ...
“Never a dull moment” – 2010 was an eventful year for Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) jurisprudence in the Fifth Circuit and across the country ...
In the second of a two-part look at issues arising out of the tender process we consider what can happen when that process is poorly run. Part 1 of the series can be found at IT tendering: Leveraging the benefits. A typical tender process involves the customer analysing and documenting its requirements in a Request for Proposals (RFP) to which interested suppliers will prepare a response ...
February 20, 2011, will bring a significant additional burden for many employers using the H-1B, H-1B1 Chile/Singapore, L-1 or O-1A category to sponsor a worker. Petitioners, even those entities not typically involved with technology subject to U.S. Government export rules, will be required to make an export control compliance statement under penalty of perjury on USCIS Form I-129. The statement is to certify that the foreign employee will not be allowed access to controlled U.S ...
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received more than 12,000 charges in 2009 from employees claiming sexual harassment—a 6 percent increase from three years ago. Although harassment claims are on the rise, Haynes and Boone continues to secure significant sexual harassment victories for its clients, and employers overall ...
On November 9, 2010, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) issued its much-anticipated final rule implementing Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (“GINA”), which applies to all employers covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), namely, employers with fifteen or more employees, as well as unions, employment agencies and labor management training programs ...
In a recent article we looked at some of the employment risks for customers associated with cloud computing. Following on from Cloud computing: Employment law implications, we now consider how best to assess the other risks associated with cloud computing ...
1.Redundancies in Japan 1 ...
A new version of the “Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act,” or DREAM Act, was filed on November 30, 2010. The DREAM Act was introduced for the first time in 2001, and has undergone many changes since its inception. The essential premise of the bill is to provide a path to lawful permanent residency for individuals who entered the U.S. as minors and do not have legal status ...
The U.S. Supreme Court began its new 2010-2011 term on October 4, 2010 with a number of employment-related cases on the docket, many of which have already been orally argued, that could potentially impact employers concerning such matters as arbitration, retaliation, immigration, and employee benefits ...
Signaling a possible further relaxation of the strict in-person non-immigrant visa interview requirements, the U.S. Embassy in London has indicated that beginning in December the Visa Reissuance Program may be extended to include key business categories such as “H” and “L” and exchange visitors/students under “J” and “F.” The U.S ...
Last August 3, the Honourable Paul Mayer of the Superior Court of Québec dismissed the motion for authorization to institute a class action filed by Mr. Michel Dell’Aniello (“Dell’Aniello”) against Vivendi Canada Inc. (“Vivendi”), the succ essor of his former employer (Seagram) ...
