The Workplace Report with Ancel Glink

Earlier this week, the Appellate Court found a former Skokie firefighter to be PSEBA eligible after he suffered heart problems when lifting a cardiac patient. Firefighter Patrick Cronin had been diagnosed with a heart condition in 2012 but continued to work without restrictions. A year later, while assisting in transporting a cardiac patient, he felt tightness and pain in his chest, along with other symptoms of heart problems.   He ended up being transported to the hospital and a few months later had valve replacement surgery. He later applied for a disability pension claiming he had become disabled due to an occupational disease. He described his inability to return to work as resulting from his continued symptoms after surgery. This type of disability is characterized differently than a line of duty disability. Despite his application, the pension board awarded Cronin a line of duty disability. He then applied for lifetime health insurance benefits pursuant to th...

Employers should keep their eyes on HB 3394 , which was passed by the Illinois House of Representatives in late March and is now making its way through the Senate. The bill, introduced by Ancel Glink’s own Chris Welch , would require publicly held corporations (i.e. those listing their stock on a major U.S. stock exchange) operating in the state to have at least one woman and one African-American on its board of directors by December 31, 2020. The bill would allow companies to increase the size of their boards of directors in order to comply. The bill sets out sizable penalties for employers who fail to comply with its provisions, including penalties of up to $100,000 for a first violation and $300,000 for any subsequent violations. The seats must be held by a woman and an African-American for at least a portion of the year, so if one of these board members left in the middle of the year, the company would not face any penalties. Whether H.B.3394 will become law is not tot...

We are frequently presented with the question of whether an employee can decline FMLA leave in favor of using benefit time for circumstances which would otherwise qualify as FMLA leave. The scenario often goes like this: An employee is having knee surgery and will need to be off from work for about eight weeks. Their spouse is expecting to give birth a few months after that. The employee, who has diligently accrued quite a bit of sick leave over the years, wishes to use sick leave only for the knee surgery so that they can save all of their FMLA leave for the birth of the baby. Although the knee surgery is FMLA qualifying, they notify their employer that they wish to decline FMLA. The employee obviously wants to “save” their FMLA leave for the birth of the baby. The employer is confused because, after all, FMLA is an employee protection and how does an employer force a protection on an employee. A recent  Department of Labor opinion letter  answered the question of wh...

It is generally beneficial for an employer to classify a worker as an independent contractor rather than an employee. An independent contractor is someone an employer hires sporadically to perform a particular task, while an employee is someone who regularly works for the employer and performs a wider variety of tasks under closer supervision of the employer. Classifying a worker as an independent contractor instead of an employee allows the employer to avoid paying payroll taxes (which are 7.65% of the employee’s wages), unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation insurance, and in many cases providing health care. However, misclassification of an employee as an independent contractor carries hefty punishment. Doing so mistakenly, can lead to back taxes and fines up to 40% of the worker’s wages and doing so intentionally could lead to jail time. Therefore, employers should be sure that they are properly classifying their workers. A recent case from the Seventh Circui...

What happens if you issue an employee a paycheck and he or she doesn’t cash it? Most paychecks are void after 90 days, and it costs money to reissue them. Plus, it is a hassle not being able to reconcile your balance sheet because of the outstanding paychecks. Can you force the employee to sign up for direct deposit? Can you charge the employee for all of the expenses you incur because the employee can’t get around to cashing the check? What about firing the employee? It might sound counterintuitive, but the only thing you are legally allowed to do is that last option. You cannot require an employee to sign up for direct deposit , as the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act prohibits employers from doing this. It also requires employers to give employees a paycheck if the employee wants it. What about offering to pay the employee in cash? An employer can do this (although if the employee wants a paycheck the employer is required to provide one), but the Wage Payment and...

If you are an employer, supervisor, or anyone who has managed other people, you will probably at some point get a phone call inquiring about a former employee who has listed you as a reference. This can be awkward, especially if the former employee was not exactly the best at his or her job. Here are some suggestions for anyone who finds him or herself in this situation: Be Honest. We’re all nice people, and we don’t want to hurt anyone’s job prospects. But giving a former employee a glowing review just to be nice is not a good idea. If that former employee might pose a danger to others or is totally unqualified for the position he or she has applied for and you fail to disclose this when asked, you could find yourself a defendant to a lawsuit. A previous employer can be held liable for failing to disclose an ex-employee’s potentially violent, dangerous, or irresponsible tendencies when that employer knows about them and is asked. So if you supervised bus drivers, and one of y...

The First Amendment protects a number of rights of public employees-speech, political affiliation and the like. Rarely, if ever, have we heard of an employee who claimed that they were discharged in violation of their First Amendment right to intimate association. It happened recently in Iowa. Tamela Muir, who was an at-will employee serving as a jailer and dispatcher for Decatur County Sheriff’s Office, was married to Bert Muir, who became the elected Sheriff of Decatur County. Ben Boswell became Muir’s Deputy Sheriff.  Boswell received a complaint from a female dispatcher who alleged that Bert had sexually harassed her. An investigation followed and uncovered additional allegations of harassment. A petition, supported by six affidavits of Sheriff’s employees, was presented to Bert to remove him Sheriff . Bert immediately resigned. Boswell was named acting Sheriff, and placed Tamela on administrative leave upon advice that “problems” might arise if Tamela “was allowed t...