New Jersey Employment Lawyer Blog

Paulette Brown, an African-American female lawyer from the State of new Jersey is slated to head up the NJ Bar Association. Ms. Brown is an employment lawyer and was previously awarded Young Lawyer of the Year Award by the Bar Association. Talk among the Bar Association is that Ms. Brown will sail smoothly in to the position. Ms. Brown was educated in a segregated school system in Baltimore, earned her undergraduate degree from Howard University and law degree from New Jersey's Seton Hall. Read more.

New Jersey Employment Lawyer Reports: In the absence of a claim notice, a former police officer's retaliatory discharge lawsuit against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was properly dismissed, a state appeals court held Wednesday. By statute, sixty (60) days' notice is required before filing against the interstate agency "any suit, action or proceeding for the recovery or payment of money," even suits based on laws that have no notice requirement. The plaintiff "has not cited a single reported or unreported case in which a complaint was allowed to proceed in derogation of the notice provision or time limitation," the court stated in Santiago v. Port Authority. Follow New Jersey Employment Lawyer Reports here and at the Law Firm's Website.

New Jersey Employment Lawyer Reports. We are seeing an increase in the number of employers adopting policies on social media in the workplace. It seems that the separation between personal life and work life is getting blurry as more employers are addressing problems in the workplace with Facebook, Google Plus, and other social media sites.

New Jersey employment lawyer reports on recent Supreme Court ruling, Nitro-Lift Technologies, L.L.C. v. Howard. The state court's holding, that the existence of an arbitration agreement in an employment contract does not prohibit judicial review of the underlying agreement, disregards Supreme Court precedents on the Federal Arbitration Act, which provide that while the validity of an arbitration provision is subject to initial court determination, the validity of the remainder of the contract is for the arbitrator to decide.

Employers in New Jersey adopting polices that randomly test workers returning from leave after self-identifying alcohol dependency are at risk of being sued for disability discrimination under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. In a recent case, the New Jersey Appellate Division ruled that Absent good cause or a business necessity to test an employee, such as an office worker, employers may fun afoul of New Jersey's liberal stance on discrimination. This is a must read if you are a New Jersey employment lawyer.

EEOC looking for comments to the shift the enforcement paradigm from complaint-driven to priority-driven. New Jersey employment lawyers have an opportunity to comment on the EEOC's efforts to target class-based hiring discrimination and facially neutral hiring practices.

Finally, someone has decided to write about the difference between an employment lawyer and labor lawyer. Having practiced employment law in New Jersey for over 17 years, I can say that this short article sums up the life of an employment lawyer best.

The Supreme Court for the State of New Jersey ruled that the State is legally permitted to limit the amount of unused sick time for administrators. A lawsuit was filed challenging the constitutionality of NJ public employee compensation regulations. The regulations cap the payment for accumulated sick time at $15,000 for certain school administrators. .
The restriction was enacted by the State Legislature in 2007. The Act sought to prevent the issuance of excess benefits for clothing allowances, chauffer services, and sick-time payments in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Employment lawyers for the New Jersey Association of School Administrators filed a lawsuit and challenged the law. The Association argued that the state could not arbitrarily reduce employee compensation.

The New Jersey Supreme Court disagreed with the Association. In New Jersey Association of School Administrators v. Schundler, the NJ Supreme Court stated: "We conclude that the Legislature had the authority to modify terms and conditions for future contracts for public employment in a manner that did not raise constitutional concerns," the court ruled in a 5-0 decision.

Does an employee have the right to inspect their personnel file in the State of New Jersey? The answer is no. New Jersey Employment Lawyer Blog reports: employees do not have the right to inspect personnel files in the State of New Jersey. According to the blog, most employees, and even some employers, are of the mistaken belief that an employee has the right to inspect their personnel file. Some states do permit access, but not New Jersey. Employee access to a personnel file will have to come by way of a subpoena in a legal proceeding if the employee desires to see the documents in the file.

Can an employer ask for your Facebook password? Whether the answer is yes or no, it's happening in New Jersey and all over the Country. Employers are combing through their current and prospective employees social media pages. Pictures of employees at the bar, partying and most anything else in an individual's personal life is fair game for the employer. So far, there isn't any specific law that prohibits such a request. Sure, a prospective employee can claim that an individual's age may be revealed in a Facebook search. But an age discrimination claim is a longshot for the prospective employee when an employer claims it is not interested in the candidate's age while conducting a search, but instead, the character.

The real question is whether Congress or the State Legislature will act on these new developments in employment law. My guess is that Congress will not enact any laws preventing employers from seeking such information. Instead, the courts will have to sort out the legal issues on a case by case basis.

Yesterday, the NJ State Assembly Labor committee advanced a bill that would raise the minimum hourly wage for tipped workers.

Restaurant owners oppose the Bill.

The legislation states that: after June 30, 2012, an employer may claim a credit for gratuities or tips received by an employee against the hourly wage rate paid to the employee in an amount not to exceed 60% of the minimum hourly wage rate required by law. After June 30, 2013, an employer may claim a credit for gratuities or tips in an amount not to exceed 31% of the minimum hourly wage rate required by law.
The bill effectively requires employers to compensate their employees at an hourly rate of at least 40 percent of the minimum wage and an hourly rate of at least 69% of the minimum wage ) after June 30, 2013 and beyond. The remainder of the employee's compensation may be comprised of tips or gratuities, as long as the employee earns at least the current minimum wage required by state and federal law.

USA Employment Lawyers, the website created by David A. Krenkel, Esq. of Krenkel & Krenkel, LLC, is now on Twitter. Catch updates on the latest labor and employment topics by following USA Employment Lawyers on Twitter.

New Jersey's newest and hottest Casino is Revel. Not only will Revel offer cutting edge entertainment in the NJ gambling market, but the new mega casino will jump into a new controversial employment practice, now known as "term limits". That's right. Term limits for "at will" employees. Revel is testing it out, despite the number of critics from the Plaintiff's Bar for Employee Relations. Sat tuned to find out how the inevitable litigation plays out in the courtroom.

New Jersey Employment Lawyer has launched a new platform for reporting New Jersey Employment Law News, as well as Labor and Employment Law News form other states. The new site on Facebook is called USA Employment Lawyers.

Krenkel & Krenkel, LLC, with a practice dedicated to litigating labor and employment matters in the State of New Jersey has joined Twitter. Using Twitter will provide a great opportunity for the Firm to continue reporting on recent changes in the field of labor and employment law in the State of New Jersey.