Rojgar Job News

My law partner, Gabe Jiran, talks today about whether it’s all that easy to change the terms of a collective bargaining agreement.  Is it just as easy as a vote? Or does it require something more? The answer has implications for all employers.   With all of the talk about the financial difficulties faced by the government, I, and others in here, sometimes get the question of whether the State of Connecticut or other states might try to change the laws on collective bargaining or try to pass legislation to alter the terms of its existing collective bargaining agreements. Other states have started down this road, but it is not that easy. Recently, the Connecticut Attorney General was asked to opine on whether the General Assembly could statutorily change the contracts covering State employees to address the fiscal crisis.  A link to the opinion is here. The short answer is that the State could do so, such as by passing a statute that wage increases be delayed or elimi...

Shorter is better. Why? The slang TL;DR comes to mind. But it turns out there’s an educational component too — at least according to the results of a new study that examined workplace contracts. In the study, published in the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology and recapped by Insights by Stanford Business School, “the researchers found that workers whose contracts contained more general language spent more time on their tasks, generated more original ideas, and were more likely to cooperate with others. They were also more likely to return for future work with the same employer, underscoring the durable and long-lasting nature of the effect.” In other words, contracts that contained pages upon pages of specific do’s and don’t for workers, ended up harming the employment relationship. Instead, researchers found that “the more general contracts increased people’s sense of autonomy over their work.” This isn...

Suppose there’s an old employment agreement between the employer and employee. Then the employer fires the employee. But there’s been a few intervening events and it’s not exactly clear that the employment agreement still applies. Indeed, there’s another contract (let’s call it an supplier agreement) that seems to provide an independent basis for ending the relationship. Nevertheless, the employment agreement contains an arbitration provision.  Are the parties still required to go to arbitration even when one party (namely the employer) argues the contract is void? Yes, says a new Connecticut Appellate Court decision called Stack v. Hartford Distributors, Inc.. (For background, the employment lawyers out there should look first at a 2007 Supreme Court case that established the strong preference to enforcement of arbitration provisions, which you can find here.  The rest of us can carry on.) For the court, it noted that the employer appears to ...

Later today, I’ll be speaking to the next group of startups chosen to participate in the Accelerator for Biosciences in Connecticut, or ABCT.  ABCT is a Branford-based program spearheaded by Design Technologies LLC, which supports Connecticut’s aim of being a bioscience hub. It’s an exciting time for new businesses in Connecticut like those chosen to participate in the program. But employment law issues are often an after-thought for startups.  They shouldn’t be. I’ll be talking in more detail to the startups in my presentation but here are three things I’ll be talking about for startups and new business ventures: Startups should document the relationships with new employees.  Offer letters or, in some instances, contracts should be set up so that new employees know the terms and conditions of their employment.  Even more important, the documentation should detail all forms of compensation — whether salary, bonus, equity etc....

I was going to save this post for the Yankees run into the World Series, but with the Yankees losing last night, it seems quite possible that they might not get there this year.   Employment law contracts typically are not that complex. Oh sure, they may LOOK complex but most of the time, you build them with the same building blocks. As it turns out, even baseball contacts have their own formula. Turns out it’s not that hard to find — if you know where to look. The uniform baseball contract can actually be found at the end of the collective bargaining agreement between the players association and the 30 baseball clubs which you can download here.   It’s on page 350 of the CBA so you might not have stumbled upon it, but it makes for a fascinating read because the building blocks there look different than other contracts.  So what are some interesting terms? Players are paid on a semi-monthly basis but only during the “championship season...

As someone who grew up in Connecticut and watched Channel 3 news religiously (at least before the internet), Denise D’Ascenzo, the local news anchor who passed away suddenly on Saturday, was one of a kind.  She was professional, authoritative, knowledgeable, and humble. I loved watching her both on the news and during the yearly Muscular Dystrophy telethons that she and weatherman Hilton Kaderli used to host every Labor Day. I didn’t know her other than meeting briefly at a local event or two, but like many viewers, she became one of those people who could you rely upon in times of need.  It’s hard for me to imagine local Hartford news without her steadying presence. It is a testament to her amazing career that her connection to one of the most famous employment discrimination cases in the state is now merely a footnote. Back in 1999, former Channel 3 news anchor Janet Peckinpaugh prevailed in an $8.3 million jury verdict contending that her replacement as th...