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| The U.S. Supreme Court sharply criticized public-sector unions for using money from nonmembers to fund special political campaigns, stepping into the intense political debate about such unions and signaling that new constitutional limits may be coming. The justices ruled that the Service Employees International Union in California violated the 1st Amendment rights of its dissident members by taking extra fees from their paychecks in 2005. |
| (Source: Los Angeles Times (free reg. req'd), 2012-06-22) |
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| In April, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission signaled that it would begin to crack down on employers who use the criminal histories of job applicants to discriminate against them illegally. But to judge from conversations with business owners, labor lawyers and human resources consultants, many small businesses had no idea there was anything wrong with practices like a blanket ban on hiring anybody with a criminal record. |
| (Source: The New York Times, 2012-06-20) |
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| Government officials have adopted a series of recommendations to streamline federal immigration courts, where a record-high number of backlogged cases has brought the "fairness and effectiveness" of the courts into question. Changes proposed by the Administrative Conference of the United States are aimed at easing the more than 300,000 pending cases in the courts, where it can take an average of 519 days from introduction to a judge's decision. |
| (Source: Arizona Daily Sun, 2012-07-01) |
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| One day after the Supreme Court struck down three parts of Arizona's immigration law -- but upheld one -- states that have enacted tough immigration provisions similar to Arizona's indicated a cautious optimism about their own immigration laws. Five states in addition to Arizona -- Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana and Utah -- will be directly impacted by the ruling, but the road ahead is not entirely clear. |
| (Source: CBS News, 2012-06-26) |
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| Big companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Wipro have become global outsourcing powers. Most of their workers are in Bangalore, Mumbai, and other Indian cities, but, like smaller rival MindTree, the largest companies also need to have employees on the ground for "onshore" work. |
| (Source: Bloomberg Businessweek, 2012-06-26) |
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| Two U.S. cities could provide a national model for combating workplace discrimination because of obesity, according to a new paper. Urbana, Illinois, and Madison, Wisconsin, are among six cities across the United States that prohibit discrimination against people because of their weight, much as Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion, or national origin. |
| (Source: Futurity, 2012-06-25) |
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| Nine out of ten Americans mistakenly believe that there is a federal law that prohibits employers from firing someone because the individual is gay or transgender. But no such law exists, and this type of discrimination is legal in the majority of states. |
| (Source: The Atlantic, 2012-06-21) |
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| Thanks to the sweeping executive order that President Obama signed, at least 700,000 young illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. before they were 16 and have graduated from high school no longer have to fear impending deportation. What does their future look like, now that they can come out of the shadows? |
| (Source: Bloomberg Businessweek, 2012-06-18) |
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| Google's Australian office has been responsible for some of the company's key innovations, and now it's delivered another update -- a new app that allows employers to track their employees through Google Maps. The new tool will cost $15 a month for each employee, and will allow employers to track employees wherever they are. |
| (Source: Smart Company, 2012-06-22) |
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| Hundreds of thousands of small businesses are excluded from claiming a health-care tax credit, and many blame overly narrow restrictions. In addition to the average wage limits, the credit restricts many family businesses and firms that cover less than 50 percent of individual employees' premiums. |
| (Source: The Wall Street Journal, 2012-06-21) |
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Mark Ford
William Shakespeare may well have been right when he wrote the following dialogue for Dick the Butcher: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Henry VI, Part II, Act IV. This was not some idle observation by the Bard. If alive this moment, he would surely write of employment litigation and how it continues to be fertile ground for the nearly absurd. An over-zealous EEOC failing to so much as consider how heavy-handed it appears in a discovery dispute with an employer or an exotic dancer perhaps less than forthcoming in her employment application – it doesn't matter! Each is merely focused on the legal process without even a wink and a nod in the direction of common sense.
I trust the reader may spare us from the clutches of Dick the Butcher, but go ahead and marvel at the following two case reports. |
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U.S. companies face an onslaught of payroll practice-based litigation which, because of class action and collective action aspects, risks ruining any company so attacked. This primer on the applicable state and federal wage and hour laws will help you spot and direct your operation away from areas of legal danger and non-compliance. Join us, along with the Indiana Chamber on Thursday, July 26 for the Indiana Wage and Hour Law Seminar. Visit the Indiana Chamber’s website to register and learn more. |
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TPOC Dollar Thresholds for Worker's Compensation
Changes to the Medicare Secondary Payer Act have made settling claims with Medicare beneficiaries more difficult because Section 111 MMSEA includes mandatory reporting requirements. If the settlement has the effect of resolving medical issues, the parties must now report certain settlements to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
CMS published an alert dated June 20, 2012, to clarify the Mandatory Total Payment of Compensation (TPOC) Dollar Thresholds for Worker's Compensation claims. The current $5,000 reporting threshold remains the same. This threshold will decrease to $2,000 in 2013 and to $300 in 2014. These reporting requirements are separate from the requirement to report ongoing responsibility for medical care related to a compensable claim.
These thresholds supersede the content of the User Guide (version 3.3) and will be incorporated into the next version of the User Guide.
If you have any questions about how to consider Medicare's interest when settling a claim with a Medicare beneficiary, contact any Ice Miller Workers’ Compensation attorney. |
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