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The EEOC recently cobbled together a quorum of its Commissioners and that will enable the Commission to engage in official actions. The EEOC is in charge of enforcing laws like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Those first two examples (Title VII and the ADA) explicitly do not apply to tribal employers while the third example (ADEA) is silent regarding [...]

Tribal employers must navigate the difficult question of whether an employee should be educated, disciplined or terminated for statements in social media posts.  When this issue arises in your workplace, do you have a framework for determining when the tribe should take action and when the tribe should not.  This article is based, in part, from the Workforce Bulletin, a blog published by law firm Epstein Becker Green.  More specifically, by lawyers Nancy Gunzenhauser, Lauri [...]

Richard McGee richard@richardmcgeelaw.com richardmcgeelaw.com 612-812-9673 Your lawyers like at-will and your employees like for cause. Is there a middle ground between the views held by legal counsel and devoted employees? Yes.  At-will employment creates a low threshold for employees and employers to end the employment relationship.  Employees can leave you without any reason and employers can discharge employees for any reason unless it violates the law or employer policy. For cause or just cause employment [...]

Richard McGee richard@richardmcgeelaw.com richardmcgeelaw.com (website) 612-812-9673 Yes, it matters. Big Brother, The Man and the Government believe that when employers classify a worker as an independent contractor the employer is making that choice to intentionally avoid employer responsibilities to the worker, the government and others.  By intentionally misclassifying workers as independent contractors, the employer can avoid minimum wage and overtime, taxes and some liability for the contractor’s actions.  Of course there are other employers misclassifying [...]

What is Your Strategic Plan for Your Department in 2024? Richard McGee 612-812-9673 richard@richardmcgeelaw.com As 2024 begins now is the time to discuss whether your department will improve or maintain its status quo.  Improvement comes from being proactive on some goals and objectives that will make your department a little bit better (or a lot better) over the next 12 to 18 months.  If you choose to improve in 2024 it will not be easy [...]

Federal Vaccine Mandate for Employers Weeks ago President Biden asserted that his administration will require employers with more than 100 employees, health care workers and employers engaged in federal contracts to require their workers to be vaccinated or be tested for COVID on a weekly basis.   As to federal contractors that promise was met via a guidance issued by the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force.  A regulation, that likely will provide more details, is [...]

My two day investigations training is scheduled for April 22 and 23 by Zoom.  There are available spots if you and your team want to attend.  The training costs $495 for each participant.  NNAHRA kindly approves this training as credit hours toward recertification. Please write or call if you want to attend:  richard@richardmcgeelaw.com or 612-812-9673. Thank you.

Should employers suspend performance evaluations in 2020 because of COVID? Answer:  No.  That is my answer but others disagree. In a recent Wall Street Journal article titled Pandemic Produces a Kinder, Gentler Performance Review, the question presented was whether performance evaluations should be suspended because both employers and employees have had a difficult year.    The article discussed a pandemic-driven management style called empathetic leadership.  Empathetic leadership involves recognizing and evaluating the whole person and [...]

Can tribal employers compel employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19? My email inbox has received this question numerous times in the last week and therefore I thought it was a good time to address the question.  Answer:  Yes with some likely exceptions.   Tribal employers start from the premise that the tribe defines the terms and conditions of employment as an exercise of the tribe’s inherent sovereignty.  Accordingly, if the tribe mandates vaccines for its [...]

As human resources professionals there is a significant range of skills, talents, attributes and virtues needed to navigate the myriad workplace challenges.  On the subject of virtues required for human resources professionals, the following article appeared in the Employment & Labor Insider blog written by lawyer Robin Shea.   HR Virtue No. 1: They have "spider sense." By the time the lawyers get called in, the harm is often done already and all we can do is grab [...]

101 Things Everyone Should Know About Tribal Employment After discrimination and harassment, our most popular training session is 101 Things Everyone Should Know About Tribal Employment and the materials for that session are now a published book, a power point presentation, a 50 plus question quiz and a summary of the 128 takeaways from the class.  The book's front cover is below.  A huge thank you to our friend Tal Moore who made meaningful suggestions [...]

101 Things is my most popular training sessions.  The written materials are now updated with significantly more detail and analysis.  I wanted to make sure that the session provided the 101 things promised by the title.  After counting, the session provides 128 things, but I like the 101 Things title and will be sticking with that.  Below is a summary of the 128 things your administrators, directors, managers and supervisors should know about working for [...]