A city employee must be paid for off-duty hours time spent attending weekly counseling sessions which were recommended as a condition of her continued employment. The U.S. Court of Appeals recently affirmed this ruling in a case involving the City of Aurora, Illinois.

Kari Sehie worked as an emergency dispatcher for the city; her primary duty was to field 911 calls. At the end of one eight-hour shift, she was instructed to stay and work another shift because a co-worker was sick. Sehie protested. A half-hour into the new shift she became very angry and upset because she was working another shift and abruptly left work. When Sehie returned to work, she reported the absence as a work-related injury.

The U.S. Labor Department has issued new regulations that spell out employers’ responsibilities when reinstating employees who return from military leave. The new regulations do not impose any new requirements under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), but they do clarify existing rules and emphasize that employers apply the law liberally in favor of service members (emphasis added). The DOL regulations became effective on January 18.

USERRA prohibits discrimination against past and present members of the uniformed services and establishes reemployment rights for service members who want to return to the jobs they held prior to service. Compliance with USERRA and state laws affecting military leave has become an increasingly important issue for employers as a growing number of employees have left employment for periods of military service following September 11, 2001.

On January 23, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review an appeals court ruling upholding a Labor Department regulation that the Family and Medical Leave Act's 75-mile requirement is measured in "road" miles, (distance to be measured by surface miles, the shortest route on public roadways and waterways), rather than "as the crow flies."

January is the month in which employers are required to meet certain reporting obligations. Among other responsibilities, employers are reminded to do, before the end of the month, such things as determine the Social Security wage base to be used for the current year; File Form 941 with the IRS for the last quarter of 2005; match year-end wage data on the 2005 W-2s with cumulative totals on employer's quarterly Form 941s.

Approaching Deadlines for Human Resource/Payroll Professionals

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