Workplaces in the United States must display this poster explaining the Employment Polygraph Protection Act to employees.
The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988 (EPPA) is a United States federal law that generally prevents employers from using polygraph (lie detector) tests, either for pre-employment screening or during the course of employment, with certain exemptions.
Under EPPA, most private employers may not require or request any employee or job applicant to take a lie detector test, or discharge, discipline, or discriminate against anybody for refusing to take a test or for exercising other rights under the act. However, the act does permit polygraph tests to be administered to certain applicants for job with security firms (such as armored car, alarm, and guard companies) and of pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, and dispensers. The law does not cover federal, state, and local government agencies.
In addition, employers are required to display a poster in the workplace explaining the EPPA for their employees.
A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked and answers a series of questions. The belief underpinning the use of the polygraph is that deceptive answers will produce physiological responses that can be differentiated from those associated with non-deceptive answers; however, there are no specific physiological reactions associated with lying, making it difficult to identify factors that separate those who are lying from those who are telling the truth.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is a regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces. The United States Congress established the agency under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which President Richard M. Nixon signed into law on December 29, 1970. OSHA's mission is to "assure safe and healthy working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education, and assistance." The agency is also charged with enforcing a variety of whistleblower statutes and regulations. OSHA's workplace safety inspections have been shown to reduce injury rates and injury costs without adverse effects on employment, sales, credit ratings, or firm survival.
Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. The term is also used for the pay received for this time. Normal hours may be determined in several ways:
In United States labor law, at-will employment is an employer's ability to dismiss an employee for any reason, and without warning, as long as the reason is not illegal. When an employee is acknowledged as being hired "at will", courts deny the employee any claim for loss resulting from the dismissal. The rule is justified by its proponents on the basis that an employee may be similarly entitled to leave their job without reason or warning. The practice is seen as unjust by those who view the employment relationship as characterized by inequality of bargaining power.
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) is a United States labor law requiring covered employers to provide employees with job-protected, unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons. The FMLA was a major part of President Bill Clinton's first-term domestic agenda, and he signed it into law on February 5, 1993. The FMLA is administered by the Wage and Hour Division of the United States Department of Labor.
A background check is a process a person or company uses to verify that an individual is who they claim to be, and this provides an opportunity to check and confirm the validity of someone's criminal record, education, employment history, and other activities from their past. The frequency, purpose, and legitimacy of background checks vary among countries, industries, and individuals. An employment background check typically takes place when someone applies for a job, but it can also happen at any time the employer deems necessary. A variety of methods are used to complete these checks including comprehensive database search and personal references.
An employment contract or contract of employment is a kind of contract used in labour law to attribute rights and responsibilities between parties to a bargain. The contract is between an "employee" and an "employer". It has arisen out of the old master-servant law, used before the 20th century. Employment contracts relies on the concept of authority, in which the employee agrees to accept the authority of the employer and in exchange, the employer agrees to pay the employee a stated wage.
The rights and duties for employees, labor unions, and employers are set by labor law in the United States. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the "inequality of bargaining power" between employees and employers, especially employers "organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association". Over the 20th century, federal law created minimum social and economic rights, and encouraged state laws to go beyond the minimum to favor employees. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 requires a federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 but higher in 29 states and D.C., and discourages working weeks over 40 hours through time-and-a-half overtime pay. There are no federal laws, and few state laws, requiring paid holidays or paid family leave. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 creates a limited right to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in larger employers. There is no automatic right to an occupational pension beyond federally guaranteed Social Security, but the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 requires standards of prudent management and good governance if employers agree to provide pensions, health plans or other benefits. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 requires employees have a safe system of work.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971), was a court case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on December 14, 1970. It concerned employment discrimination and the disparate impact theory, and was decided on March 8, 1971. It is generally considered the first case of its type.
Disparate impact in the law of the United States refers to practices in employment, housing, and other areas that adversely affect one group of people of a protected characteristic more than another, even though rules applied by employers or landlords are formally neutral. Although the protected classes vary by statute, most federal civil rights laws consider race, color, religion, national origin, and sex to be protected characteristics, and some laws include disability status and other traits as well.
Equal employment opportunity is equal opportunity to attain or maintain employment in a company, organization, or other institution. Examples of legislation to foster it or to protect it from eroding include the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to assist in the protection of United States employees from discrimination. The law was the first federal law designed to protect most US employees from employment discrimination based on that employee's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 is a U.S. labor law that protects employees, their families, and communities by requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to provide notification 60 calendar days in advance of planned closings and mass layoffs of employees. In 2001, there were about 2,000 mass layoffs and plant closures that were subject to WARN advance notice requirements and that affected about 660,000 employees.
The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 was passed by U.S. Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Bill Clinton on October 13, 1994 to protect the civilian employment of active and reserve military personnel in the United States called to active duty. The law applies to all United States uniformed services and their respective reserve components.
Employment discrimination law in the United States derives from the common law, and is codified in numerous state, federal, and local laws. These laws prohibit discrimination based on certain characteristics or "protected categories." The United States Constitution also prohibits discrimination by federal and state governments against their public employees. Discrimination in the private sector is not directly constrained by the Constitution, but has become subject to a growing body of federal and state law, including the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Federal law prohibits discrimination in a number of areas, including recruiting, hiring, job evaluations, promotion policies, training, compensation and disciplinary action. State laws often extend protection to additional categories or employers.
A work permit or work visa is the permission to take a job within a foreign country. The foreign country where someone seeks to obtain a work permit for is also known as the "country of work", as opposed to the "country of origin" where someone holds citizenship or nationality.
The Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (CAA), the first piece of legislation passed by the 104th United States Congress, applied several civil rights, labor, and workplace safety and health laws to the U.S. Congress and its associated agencies, requiring them to follow many of the same employment and workplace safety laws applied to businesses and the federal government. Previously, agencies in the legislative branch had been exempt from these laws. The act also established a dispute resolution procedure as an alternative to filing claims in federal court. The act is administered and enforced by the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights.
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 29 U.S.C. § 203 (FLSA) is a United States labor law that creates the right to a minimum wage, and "time-and-a-half" overtime pay when people work over forty hours a week. It also prohibits employment of minors in "oppressive child labor". It applies to employees engaged in interstate commerce or employed by an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, unless the employer can claim an exemption from coverage. The Act was enacted by the 75th Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938.
United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303 (1998), was the first case in which the Supreme Court issued a ruling with regard to the highly controversial matter of polygraph, or "lie-detector," testing. At issue was whether the per se exclusion of polygraph evidence offered by the accused in a military court violates the Sixth Amendment right to present a defense.
The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the United States Department of Labor is the federal office responsible for enforcing federal labor laws. The Division was formed with the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The Wage and Hour mission is to promote and achieve compliance with labor standards to protect and enhance the welfare of the Nation's workforce. WHD protects over 144 million workers in more than 9.8 million establishments throughout the United States and its territories. The Wage and Hour Division enforces over 13 laws, most notably the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Family Medical Leave Act. In FY18, WHD recovered $304,000,000 in back wages for over 240,000 workers and followed up FY19, with a record-breaking $322,000,000 for over 300,000 workers.
A whistleblower is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public. The Whistleblower Protection Act was made into federal law in the United States in 1989.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
