U.S. Employment Law & Regulations Flashcards
What are statutes
Statues refer to actions passed by legislative bodies, such as Congress and state legislatures, and by local government units, such as cities and counties
What are Regulations?
Regulations are proposed, adopted, and enforced by administrative agencies to whom government units have delegated specific rule-making authority. Regulations reflect how laws will be implemented and often have the force of law.
What are Agency Guidelines?
Administrative agencies may also issue guidelines that interpret how laws and regulations will be enforced. Such agency guidance includes agency interpretations, policy statements, letters, and advisory materials to supplement or explain regulations and statutes.
What are executive orders
An executive order is a directive by the chief executive of a governmental unit (for example, the President of the United States) telling that governmental unit how it will act or interact with members of its community.
What is common law?
Common law is based on court decisions, rather than statutory law, and is recognized on the federal level and in whole or in part in nearly all states. Those court decisions are often referred to as precedent.
What is the highest law in the country and the foundation on which all US law has been built
The Constitution
What is EPLI (Employment Practices Liability Insurance)
EPLI is a type of liability insurance covering an organization against claims by employees, former employees, and employment candidates alleging that their legal rights in the employment relationship have been violated.
What is the purpose of an EPLI policy
To protect a business against the risk of heavy financial losses resulting from employment claims and lawsuits. EPLI transfers the risk of losses associated wit employment litigation during the entire employment life cycle, from recruiting through termination, to an insurance carrier.
What is the Immigration Reform and Control Act
the IRCA of 1986 is designed to accomplish two somewhat divergent purposes. IRCA prohibits discrimination against job applicants on the basis of national origin or citizenship and, at the same time, establishes penalties for hiring undocumented workers, with certain exceptions.
IRCA is enforced by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, a special branch of the Department of Homeland Security.
What are the two categories of visas are available under immigration laws?
Immigrant Visas and Nonimmigrant visas.
What are the three categories of Immigrant Visas
First Preference - Priority Workers: EB-1
Second Preference - EB-2
Third Preference - EB-3
What is a Priority Worker EB-1 Immigrant Visa
Employers do not need to test the U.S. labor market (or file a labor certification application) to determine that there are no minimally qualified U.S. workers for these jobs.
What is an EB-2 second priority visa?
In most cases for this category, employers must test the U.S. labor market through a labor certification application to determine whether there are minimally qualified U.S. workers for the position. Foreign nationals in this category are required to have job offer. The job must require at least a master’s degree or equivalent
What is an EB-2 third preference Visa?
This category is for jobs that require at least a bachelor’s degree or skilled worker positions that require at least two years of training or experience. (A small number of EB-3 immigrant visas are available to unskilled workers.) Employers are required to complete the labor certification process for people in the EB-3 category.
What is a Nonimmigrant Visa?
Nonimmigrant visas are available to aliens who want to come to the U.S. for a temporary period of time. Some of the nonimmigrant visas that are typically used by organizations are as follows:
Business Visitor
Specialty Occupation Worker
Intracompany Transferee
Treaty Investors
Australian Free Trade/Specialty Occupation Workers
Students
Exchange Visitors
O Visas
Q Visas
North American Free Trade Agreement
What is an O Visa?
O visas are temporary visas available for persons of extraordinary ability in the arts, sciences, education, business, or athletics that has been demonstrated by sustained national or international acclaim.
What is a Business Visitor Visa?
B-1. Business visitors may be permitted to enter the United States for the purpose of engaging in business activities (including but not limited to attending meetings, seminars, or conferences or negotiating contracts) but may not be gainfully employed by a U.S. organization.
What is a Specialty Occupation Workers Visa?
H-1B. This visa is reserved for professionals (including but not limited to engineers, computer scientists, biotechnologists, university professors, marketers, and health-care professionals) who come to the U.S. for a limited amount of time. The alien must have a baccalaureate degree (a foreign equivalent or equivalent experience may also be acceptable), and the degree must be a usual requirement for the position. H-1B workers must be paid at least the same wage rates as are paid to US workers who perform the same types of work or the prevailing wages in the areas of intended employment. This category is subject to yearly numerical limitations imposed by the USCIS.
What is an Intracompany Transferee Visa?
L-1. Aliens who work for a foreign employer and are transferred to the US to work for a parent, subsidiary, or affiliate organization qualify for L-1 visas if they have had specialized knowledge, management, or executive position during one of the last three years before entering the US.
What is a Treaty Investors and Traders Visa?
E-1 and E-2. These visas are reserved for aliens in countries with which the US has commerce, navigation, and investment treaties. These aliens come into the US to work for companies based in their home country that are investing or trading in the US.
What is the Australian Free Trade/Specialty Occupation Workers Visa?
E-3. This category is specific to Australian citizens and applies generally to positions very similar to those covered by the H-1B visa category.
ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA)
Amendments to US Americans with Disabilities Act covering the definition of individuals regarded as having a disability, mitigating measures, and other rules to guide the analysis of what constitutes a disability
Adverse impact
Type of discriminations that results when a policy that appears to be neutral has a discriminatory effect; also known as disparate impact.
Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)
US act that prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of age
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
US act that prohibits discrimination against a qualified individual with a disability because of his/her disability
Bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ)
Factor (such as religion, gender, national origin, etc.) that is reasonably necessary, in the normal operations of an organization, to carry out a particular job function.
Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth
US court ruling that distinguished between supervisor harassment that results in tangible employment action and supervisor harassment that does not.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
First comprehensive US law making it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Civil Rights Act of 1991
US act that expands the possible damage awards available to victims of intentional discrimination to include compensatory and punitive damages; gives plaintiffs in cases of alleged discrimination the right to a jury trial.
Comparable Worth
Concept that jobs filled primarily by women that require skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions comparable to similar jobs filled primarily by men should have the same classifications and salaries.
Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA)
US act that provides individuals and dependents who may lose health-care coverage with opportunity to pay to continue coverage.
Davis-Bacon Act
US act that requires certain contractors and subcontractors to pay laborers and mechanics no less than the locally prevailing wages and fringe benefits for corresponding work on federal contracts.
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
US act that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman and permitted states to not recognize same-sex marriages recognized by other states; ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court
Disability
Physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one’s major life activities
Disparate impact
Type of discrimination that results when a policy that appears to be neutral has a discriminatory effect; also known as adverse impact.
Disparate treatment
Type of discrimination that occurs when an applicant or employee is treated differently because of his or her membership in a protected class.
Drug-Free Workplace Act
US law that requires federal contractors with contracts of $100,000 or more as well as recipient of grants from federal government to certify that they are maintaining a drug-free workplace.
Electronic Communications Privacy Act
US act that made it unlawful to intercept messages in transmission, access stored information on electronic communication services, or disclose any of this information.
Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA)
US act that prevents private employers from requiring applicants or employees to take a polygraph test for preemployment screening or during the course of employment, with certain exceptions.
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)
US act that established uniform minimum standards to ensure that employee benefit and pension plans are set up and maintained in a fair and financially sound manner.
Employees
Individuals who exchange work for wages or salary; in the US, workers who are covered by FLSA regulations as determined by the IRS.
Employment at-will
Principle of employment in the US that employers have the right to hire, fire, demote, and promote whomever they choose for any reason unless there is a law or contract to the contrary and that employees have the right to quite a job at any time.
Employment practices liability insurance (EPLI)
Type of liability insurance covering an organization against claims by employees, former employees, and employment candidates alleging that their legal rights in the employment relationship have been violated.
Equal Employment Opportunity Act
US act that amended Title VII and gave the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission authority to “back up” its administrative findings and conduct its own enforcement litigation.
Equal Pay Act (EPA)
US act that prohibits wage discrimination by requiring equal pay for equal or “substantially equal” work performed by men and women.
Essential Functions
Primary job duties that a qualified individual must be able to perform, either with or without accommodation.
Executive order 13672
Amends Executive Orders 11478 and 11246 to include gender identity and sexual orientation
Exempt employees
Employees who are excluded from US Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage and overtime pay requirements
Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act)
US act that frees employers who use third parties to conduct workplace investigations from the consent and disclosure requirements of the Fair Credit Report Act in certain cases.
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
US act that protects privacy of background information and ensures that information supplied is accurate.
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
U.S act that establishes minimum wage, overtime pay,
youth employment, and record-keeping standards
affecting full- and part-time workers in the private sector
and in federal, state, and local governments.
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
U.S. act that provides employees with up to 12 weeks of
unpaid leave to care for family members or because of a
serious health condition of the employee.
Faragher v. City of Boca Raton
U.S. court ruling that distinguished between supervisor
harassment that results in tangible employment action
and supervisor harassment that does not.
Gender identity
Refers to one’s internal, personal sense of being a man
or a woman (or boy or girl), which may or may not be the
same as one’s sexual assignment at birth.
General Duty Clause
Statement in U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Act
that requires employers subject to the act to provide
employees with a safe and healthy work environment
Genetic Information
Nondiscrimination Act (GINA)
U.S act that prohibits discrimination against individuals
on the basis of their genetic information in both
employment and health insurance
Griggs v. Duke Power
U.S. case that set the standard for determining whether
discrimination based on disparate impact exists.
Hostile environment harassment
Occurs when sexual or other discriminatory conduct is so
severe and pervasive that it interferes with an individual’s
performance; creates an intimidating, threatening, or
humiliating work environment; or perpetuates a situation
that affects the employee’s psychological well-being.
Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)
U.S. act that prohibits discrimination against job
applicants on the basis of national origin or citizenship
and establishes penalties for hiring undocumented
workers.
Independent contractors
Self-employed individuals hired on a contract basis for
specialized services.
Labor Management Reporting
and Disclosure Act (LMRDA)
U.S. act that imposed regulations on internal union affairs
and the relationship between union officials and union
members.
Labor-Management Relations Act (LMRA)
U.S. act that imposed several restrictions and
requirements on unions.
Lechmere, Inc. v. NLRB
1992 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
an employer cannot be compelled to allow nonemployee
organizers onto the business property.
Ledbetter v. Goodyear
Tire and Rubber Company
2007 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
claims of sex discrimination in pay under Title VII were
not timely because discrimination charges were not filed
with the EEOC within the required 180-day time frame.