Question

• What is the Family and Medical Leave Act and what does it require?

• Can your employer dock your pay if you are required to serve jury duty?

• What is the benefit to the employer in having a written progressive discipline policy? What are the potential problems with this?

• Under the employment-at-will doctrine, can your employer terminate you for your political beliefs? Do your First Amendment rights to free speech apply to a private employer?

Answer 1

Answer 1.

Family and Medical Leave Act: The Family and Medical Leave Act 1993, is a United States labor law act that requires larger employers (those are covered in the law) to provide unpaid leave for family medical or health issues with job security to eligible employees.

It requires to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a year.

It also required that the group health insurance should be maintained in the leave time.

The health and medical issues could be as per the below list,

• The birth of a new child and to take care of the child.
• Employees own serious health condition.
• Employee's family member's serious health conditions.
• In the case of child adoption by the employee.

The Family and Medical Leave Act applies to the employee who has worked with the employee for at least 12 months, in the last 12 months at least 1250 hours and the employer should have at least 50 employees in his organization.

The Family and Medical Leave Act provides job protection and group health insurance.

Answer 2.

Jury Duty: Jury duty is a duty performed by a citizen in the USA as a juror that would be selected by sending Jury summons to that person with a particular date and place of the court. A jury summons is sent by the local or state court to any person in the USA that is asked to be available in the court on a particular date and time. In the Jury duty, the person will be a part of the jury team and hear a court case and will decide if the accused person is guilty or innocent in that case. It is the right and obligation of any person in the USA.

There are different situations of the payment if the employee has attended a jury duty. As per the situation, the employer is required to pay or deduct the payment for the employee if he was the part of the juror team. These conditions are discussed as per below,

a. An employer cannot deny or stop employees to serve on a jury. It is the right and obligation of the employee to serve on a jury when he is asked to attend jury duty. So the employer is required to provide time off employees to serve jury duty.

b, As per the Federal Laws, the employer is not required to pay to his employee if the employee is not working that also include Jury Duty.

c. But as per the State laws of some states (such as Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Colombia, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Tennessee) require to pay compensation to the employees if they are serving to Jury duty. Each state will have there own rules of full payment of partial payment of employee compensation.

d. Even if the employer is not required to pay the jury duty compensation as per the federal or state laws, but still the employer to free to pay to an employee as compensation for jury duty. It provides financial stability to the employees.

e. There is one another and important condition if the employee is exempt or non-exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). If the employee is non-exempt under the law and the state is also required not to pay, the employer is not required to pay compensation for the time the employee was at Jury duty.

f. If the employee is exempt under the law, the employer is required to pay to the employee in the case of Jury Duty irrespective of the Federal or state laws.

Answer 3.

Progressive Discipline Policy: Progressive discipline policy is a system or procedure to provide notices to employees if they are failed in expected job performance and not behaving properly at work. Progressive discipline policy is designed to provide correct actions or processes of an undesirable performance and behavior of the employee at the job.

This policy is used to solve job-related behaviors of the employees who are not meeting with the expected job performance in the organization. Progressive Discipline policy follows 4 steps of notices to the employee, The first is Verbal warning, second is Written warning, the third step is suspension without pay from the duties, and forth and the last step is the termination of the employees.

The benefits of having written progressive discipline policy are as per below,

a. Help in mentor and train employees: Progressive Discipline policy to find out the reason that employee is facing at the workplace or if needs any mentorship or training. Not all employees are wrong but sometime they can't perform as they need some training from the organization. At the time of discussion of issues with the employee, the manager can find out the issues and provide the required help to employees.

b. Help employees to trust in the process: Employees will have trust due to this policy that the organization will listen to and help at the time of any performance issues by them. They will not be fired at the first step but will be given a chance to improve themselves.

c. Help in future legal issues from the employee: Many times employee can take legal action against the employer. Progressive discipline policy will help the employer to frame legal documents as per the steps taken by him before terminating employee from the work.

d. Help to terminate employees in the right way: This policy will help the employer to prepare before firing employees as there are chances that the employee can improve after a first verbal warning by the employer. So it is not right to terminate an employee at the first step.

e. Set standards for managers and supervisors: Progressive Discipline discipline help manager and supervisors to follow the process and make standards that benefit employee and employer both. It can create a better relationship between employees and the managers and that benefit organization in longer way.

There are below-mentioned issues with the Progressive Discipline policy,

a. The policy is not flexible as there might be a situation where the manager and supervisor have to terminate an employee for his serious negative behavior in the organization.

b. For a small business, it creates issues that it is not practical for an employer to work with the employee who is not performing well of his duties or running the business with a suspended employee.

c. This policy should be used consistently with all the employees irrespective of their position or duration in the organization. If it is not working consistently with all the employees, it can create discrimination.

d. Progressive discipline policy is a time-consuming process.

Answer 4.

At-will doctrine employment is an employment agreement that is stated for the employment duration for an indefinite time period and both the employee and employer are free to terminate the contract for any reason. It helps employees to quit the organization at any time without any reason and also allows an employer to fire or terminate the employee for any reason.

Yes, under the At-will doctrine employment contract, an employee could be fired for his political view or belief for any particular party. Because at-will doctrine employment policy allows the employer to terminate an employee without a reason.

The first amendment guarantees freedom of speech but it does not apply to a private employer. At private workplace freedom of speech does not apply and an employer is free to take any legal action against a worker what he said and written at the workplace.