Ogletree Deakins will continue to provide updates and reminders on significant changes in immigration compliance on a regular basis. With all of the changes, stops, starts, delays and new rules, it is difficult to recall what changes are effective, which ones have been discontinued and which ones are soon to become effective. Below is a status report on significant compliance developments:

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Thirty percent of all American women have dealt or will deal with some kind of abuse during their lifetime.  Many of these women are working women.  What happens at home often goes into the workplace.  A lot of organizations do not understand how domestic violence affects them. 

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Mistakes in drafting and enforcing employment policies can help a union to organize your institution. During union organizing drives, unions regularly look for legal violations by the targeted employer, including employment policies and practices that may violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Unions pursue and publicize such violations to undermine employee confidence in management and taint employer defenses to other charges that the union may file during the organizing drive.

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On April 6 the U.S. Department of Labor issued an opinion letter addressing the misperception that employees have two business days from learning of their need for FMLA leave to provide notice to their employers, even if the employee could have provided notice more quickly.  Employees are actually required to give notice as “soon as practicable” which, depending on the circumstances, the Department states should generally be within the time prescribed by the employer’s policy on reporting absences.  For example, if employees...

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Many companies are expediting their efforts to develop safeguards to protect personal data in response to the rapid emergence of data privacy and security regulations. The New Jersey Identify Theft Protection Act, the Massachusetts data security regulations, the federal “red flag” regulations, and the recent amendments to the Health Insurance Portability...

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The term stress was coined by Hans Selye, a Canadian endocrinologist, in the 1930s. He defined stress as the physical or emotional reaction to a perceived or real threat. Today, the threat that worries most workers is uncertainty regarding organizational changes with relation to the economy.

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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued Proposed Regulations on Internal Revenue Code Section 125 plans, commonly referred to as “cafeteria plans,” in 2007. Final regulations are still pending. However, the Proposed Regulations forecast that major changes will be required for cafeteria plans when the IRS issues the Final Regulations.

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The Internal Revenue Service this week issued proposed regulations that would permit the reduction or suspension of safe harbor nonelective contributions (SHC's) by an employer that sponsors a "safe harbor" 401(k) plan if the employer incurs a "substantial business hardship" (as described in the...

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