Federal and state mandates require employers to post some notices
displaying labor laws in their workplaces to be easily accessible by the
employees. The ultimate purpose of these posters is to educate the employees
regarding their rights and privileges and to safeguard their interests. While
ensuring compliance with poster requirements is mandatory for all employers
having at least one employee, they need to post both state and federal labor law posters.
The labor law posters must be posted at conspicuous places where
employees visit and pass through frequently including lunch room, conference
room, and place where the attendance system is maintained. If an organization
has its branches in more than one location, the posters must be displayed in
all of the locations independently. Compliance laws require employees to convey
the labor laws not only to their employees, but also to the new applicants. For
instance posters including the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEO), Family
and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA)
notices must all be displayed for applicants and also for employees. The
employee will be required to post both state
and federal labor law posters since the employees will see them and get
to know which one is applicable in their case. Employers participating in
e-verify program need to post both English and Spanish versions of the E-verify
and right to work notices to be viewed equally by applicants and employees.
If the state minimum wage is higher than the federal minimum wage,
then the employers will still have to display the federal minimum wages poster
since there might be some employees who are not covered by the state laws in
this regard. For instance the state and federal laws might differ in cases of
overtime and tipped employees. Therefore, it is mandatory that employers post
both the state and federal labor law
posters while they pay either the state or the federal wages whichever
is higher.
Employers need to go for bilingual posters wherever there are a
significant number of Spanish speaking employees. For instance, employers in
the 32 states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia,
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine,
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada,
New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington need to post bilingual posters
in Spanish and English.
Failure to post state and
federal labor law posters will result in fines up to $17,000 per
location in addition to citations and penalties. The employers will be
subjected to maximum fines if they have knowingly or continually violated the
poster compliance law. One of the largest fines for not displaying a poster
might be up to $7,000 for example. If there is any litigation by employees at
times when the employer has not complied with poster requirements, the
consequences can be severe. Therefore, employers need to keep themselves up to
date with poster requirements. Employers can take the assistance of a number of
compliance poster firms that publish state
and federal labor law posters.
No comments:
Post a Comment