Finally someone said it!

One of the most disturbing stories following Hurricane Sandy was about a nursing home in Rockaway Park, Queens, that “failed to provide the most basic care to its patients,” according to a story in the New York Times.

“As waves slammed against the building for hours, patients remained inside in the dark, growing steadily more hungry and cold,” the article stated.

That’s the kind of scenario that worries anyone who has a mother or father in a nursing home, and it probably had many wondering how they can better care for their parents.

To often as a society we only focus on how young parents are able to deal with issues of work and children, giving little thought to elder care. But caring for mom and dad will become a major issue for many of us.

I remember interviewing a female top executive at an insurance company for a New York Times story I wrote many years ago, and she told me she never had to worry about having a flexible schedule because she didn’t have children. But now, in her late 50s, she confided in me, she was suddenly taking time off for an aging parent, and it was impacting her career. (more…)

At a time when the unemployment rate for returning veterans has been showing signs of hope, a growing number of companies are breaking the laws that protect the employment of returning veterans.

Vets, including National Guard and Reserve soldiers, have faced numerous deployments and calls to duty during the years of war over the past decade, and many have returned to find they no longer had jobs they expected to return to. Some contend they have faced discrimination on their return, or retaliation for their military service.

Such actions are illegal under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, or USERRA, which is supposed to help protect veterans when they return to the workforce.

But some employers either don’t care about the law or are ignorant of it.

“The number of new USERRA cases handled by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Veteran Employment and Training Service (DOL VETS) and the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) rose 10 percent from 1,438 to 1,576,” according to Department of Labor data provided by employment law firm Tully Rinckey, one of the top firms in the country focused on veteran workplace rights. (more…)

Hurricane Sandy shuttered or disrupted operations for thousands of businesses on the East Coast, and that’s already hit workers’ wallets.

Some companies continued to pay workers, while others decided it didn’t make economic sense, and still other employers are pondering what to do. The Wall Street Journal calls this the “Disaster Dilemma” in an article published today.

This from the piece:

Companies largely excused worker absences immediately after the storm, which left millions without power and tens of thousands temporarily homeless. But as businesses around the region return to normal, managers are grappling with how much, and how long, to pay employees who cannot make it in to work.

Clearly, companies are going to make decisions based on their own financial situations, and also based on their ethics, but employees should know what the law says in these cases before just accepting what bosses decide. Not everyone is going to follow the law, and some employers are just ignorant about it.

Here’s a good overview on your rights from Patrick Bannon, C.J. Eaton, Loren Gesinsky and Barry Miller, all employment lawyers for Seyfarth Shaw: (more…)