Houston Employment Law Blog

Some employees in the Houston area who work on-call hours may be entitled to overtime pay they are not getting. A nurse in Ohio filed a claim against her workplace where she was required to be on call on alternating weekends. The hospital paid her regular rate.

The woman worked an average of 25.4 hours during that on-call shift doing tasks such as reviewing reports and meeting with patients. A court found that she was eligible for overtime for two reasons. One had to do with the amount of time she spent doing the tasks and the nature of the tasks. The hospital had argued that since she was not working for the entire period, she was not eligible for overtime. However, the court ruled that this would only be the case if the employee was able to mostly engage in personal activities during the on-call shift. It found that the time she spent on work meant she could not attend to those personal activities.

You may not have any of the telltale signs of a disability, but when it comes to trying to live the same kind of life as the people around you, it becomes clear that your health condition has more control over your life than you do.

What may have started as a minor pain or discomfort, has changed and transformed. The progression of your condition may have been exactly what your doctor predicted, but it still has started to impact your daily life in ways you never imagined. Now you find yourself unable to work and dependent on safety nets that you hoped you would never need.

Despite the efforts of feminism, women are still paid significantly less than men. Women earn 83 cents for every dollar men earn in the U.S. The World Economic Forum also estimates it will take 168 years to close the gender pay gap in North America. Women also hold fewer leadership positions within companies, even though they have 60 percent of the undergraduate degrees in the country.

For women in the workplace, reading numbers like these can be incredibly disheartening. However, there are certain steps women can take to fight for pay and gender equality in their workplaces.

The Department of Labor recently strengthened the procedural safeguards governing claims for disability benefits provided by employee benefit plans. The new regulations are designed to ensure that all claims and appeals for disability benefits are given a full and fair review. For example, an adverse benefit determination must include: (1) an explanation of the basis for the decision; (2) an explanation of the scientific or clinical judgment underlying the adverse determination or an offer to provide such explanation free of charge; (3) the rules, guidelines or other criteria within the benefit plan relied upon to deny benefits; (4) a statement that the claimant is entitled to receive upon request and free of charge copies of all records, documents and other information relevant to the claim for benefits; and (5) a description of the applicable appeal procedures. A failure to comply with these disclosure requirements may result in the claimant's right to seek immediate relief in federal court.