Michelle Simson of the country’s Liberal party was annoyed with the behavior of Dean Del Mastro (a Conservative) during a committee meeting.

In response, she took the not-so-savvy political move of complaining on Twitter — insulting Del Mastro as well, all while staying well under the site’s 140-character limit.

She wrote: “Del Mastro should grow up (not out).” Del Mastro, as Reuters notes, is not a slim man.

Simson apologized, but only after Del Mastro stood up in front of Parliament and demanded she say she was sorry.

Have you or any managers ever caught an employee insulting a co-worker online? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Here’s what happened:

An employee told his boss he needed FMLA leave to care for his newborn son, who was  in the hospital. He had worked for the company for less than a year, but would have been employed for 15 months by the time he’d use the leave.

The boss said he’d look into it. However, before any decision was made about his FMLA request, the company decided to let him go, citing an inadequate skill set.

The employee sued, claiming he was fired because he requested FMLA leave.

The company tried to have the case thrown out because the employee wasn’t eligible for FMLA when he was terminated, so he had no standing to sue.

But the court didn’t buy it. In addition to people who use FMLA, the law says employees who “attempt” to use it — meaning, according to the worker, people who ask for FMLA leave but are turned down. Those employees can still make a case for retaliation under the law.

That means managers need to be careful that documentation backs up any action taken against employees who’ve asked for FMLA leave — even if those employees weren’t eligible.

Cite: Reynolds v. Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair

Here’s what happened:

An employee told his boss he needed FMLA leave to care for his newborn son, who was  in the hospital. He had worked for the company for less than a year, but would have been employed for 15 months by the time he’d use the leave.

The boss said he’d look into it. However, before any decision was made about his FMLA request, the company decided to let him go, citing an inadequate skill set.

The employee sued, claiming he was fired because he requested FMLA leave.

The company tried to have the case thrown out because the employee wasn’t eligible for FMLA when he was terminated, so he had no standing to sue.

But the court didn’t buy it. In addition to people who use FMLA, the law says employees who “attempt” to use it — meaning, according to the worker, people who ask for FMLA leave but are turned down — can still make a case for retaliation under the law.

That means managers need to be careful that documentation backs up any action taken against employees who’ve asked for FMLA leave — even if those employees weren’t eligible.

Cite: Reynolds v. Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair

If an employee has taken FMLA leave, that can make the situation even more complicated. Take this recent case as an example:

A sales rep had been highly regarded by his employer. Three out of his four most recent performance evaluations rated him as “exceeding expectations.”

That changed after he took a month of FMLA leave to be treated for alcoholism.

Two weeks after he came back, it was time for his next review. His boss noted that his sales had dropped and there had been problems with his communication skills. The review concluded the employee failed to meet expectations, and he was placed on a 30-day performance improvement plan.

When he failed to bring his numbers back up in time, he was fired — and he sued the company. He claimed he was a good employee and was unfairly terminated because he took FMLA leave.

The employer argued that despite his previous success, his performance started to slip, as his most recent review showed.

But the company lost the case.

The reason: The court wasn’t convinced he would’ve gotten a poor review if he hadn’t taken leave. As the judge noted, missing a month of work must have caused his sales to suffer. The company should have adjusted its standards to account for the time he was gone.

Managers need to be careful about how they evaluate employees who return from medical leave. Even if bias isn’t intentional, companies can still get in trouble when an adverse action is in any way tied to an employee’s use of FMLA.

Cite: Burris v. Novartis Animal Health U.S., Inc.

In two recent cases, judges sided with returning veterans who filed suit against their employers under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).

In the first case, a National Guard major ran into difficulties after she returned from her second military deployment, when she was greeted with anonymous complaints about her leadership style.

In the second case, the former police chief of an Oregon city was fired when he refused a demotion after he returned from military service.

In both cases, judges decided the claims should go to trial. The key: Both employees proved there was a possibility their military activities had figured in their adverse employment actions.

That’s the lesson in these cases: Appearances count. No matter how fair an employer’s motivation may be, the slightest hint of impropriety can tilt the case the wrong way.

Cite: Reed v. Honeywell

Japan’s Canon, Inc., wants its employees to do their part in helping the nation by leaving work early to go home and procreate.

The country’s 1.34 birthrate is far below the 2.0 needed to hold the population at an even rate, so executives are sending employees home to give them more family time and inflate those numbers.

One stat to note: Japan’s population is shrinking and aging faster than any other country because of employees’ notorious 12-hour workdays.

Even though Canon is sending its workforce home early twice a week, on average, those employees are still putting up numbers well over a 9-to-5 pace.

The Department of Labor (DOL) discussed that issue in a recent Opinion Letter. An employer asked for the DOL’s opinion on this situation:

Because of a drop in business, the company started putting employees on furlough. Workers are first asked to volunteer to take time off. Then, if there aren’t enough volunteers, the company chooses employees on a rotating basis to take mandatory leave.

In both cases, employees are given the option of using accrued PTO. If they don’t have any accrued leave or choose not to use it, the time off is unpaid.

The problem: The mandatory leaves are often shorter than a full week. So the company asked the DOL: Can an employer deduct less than a week’s worth of exempt employees’ salaries when they’re forced to take time off?

No, the DOL responded. Salary deductions can be made when an exempt employee takes a day off for personal reasons. But, according to the Fair Labor Standards Act, “if the employee is ready, willing and able to work,” deductions can’t be made because the employer decides to keep them home.

Employers are also allowed to reduce employees’ weekly hours and change their salaries accordingly. But if hours and pay fluctuate from week to week, the employees will no longer be considered exempt.

Read the entire Opinion Letter here.

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A recent study looking at soldiers returning to work found alarming – and rising – rates of mental illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and severe depression. A reported one in five soldiers returing from the war in the Middle East are diagnosed with PTSD or depression.

The study also looks at how employee assistance programs can help ease the transition back into civilian work.  The average two-year treatment cost per case to an employer is about $10,000. But the potential cost of ignoring the problem is much higher.

Click here to access the  free report.

The survey by WatsonWyatt found that 62% of companies that have made hiring freezes and 69%  of those that have made salary freezes plan to eliminate freezes within the next 12 months. And 48% that have reduced their employer 401(k)/403(b) matches plan to reinstate them over the next year.

More responses predicting 3-to-5-year trends at their companies:

• Employees working past retirement age?
  More: 79%
  No change: 18%
  Fewer: 2%
• Portion of healthcare costs paid by employees:
  More: 73%
  No change: 24%
  Less: 3%
• Difficulty retaining critical-skill employees
  More: 45%
  No change: 45%
  Less: 11%
• Salary-increase levels
  More: 28%
  No change: 45%
  Decrease: 26%
• Staff sizes
  Increases: 22%
  No change: 26%
  Decreases: 52%
• Employer contribution to 401(k) and similar plans
  Increase: 7%
  No change: 76%
  Decrease: 17%

More findings:

• 24% of the companies surveyed believe their results have “bottomed out,” approximately double the number of participants who thought so in April.
• 82% that will reverse hiring freezes will do so only partially, and retain them for some locations or positions.
• 78% of those who expect to reverse a salary freeze will do so for all employees, and 78% of those who expect to reverse a salary reduction will restore salaries to original levels.
• 39% will reverse at least some of their travel restrictions in the next 12 months or sooner.
• 55% noticed a decrease in participant contributions to 401(k) or 403(b) plans.

Click here to see the full report.

But for most organizations to stay competitive, it’s a necessity. In the last few years, there’s been a fast-rising trend for employees to claim they’re owed money for unused time when their employment ends.

Vested benefit

While paid vacations and PTO aren’t legally required benefits, it’s a different ballgame once you offer such benefits. There are a host of laws – mostly at the state level – that address what happens with unused time.

In many cases, courts are ruling it’s a vested benefit and must be paid. The most publicized recent case – a class action suit against Target by 270,000 California employees – cost the company $10 million to settle.

But employees in several other states have also cashed in, with major cases pending in Illinois and Washington. In the majority of cases, the dispute centers around an employer’s use-it-or-lose-it policy.

Under these policies, employees typically can’t cash in unused vacation or PTO when they leave the company.

In some states, most notably California and Illinois, there are laws severely limiting employer rights. Meanwhile, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that even if an employee handbook clearly says vacations are use-it-or-lose-it, employers have to pay upon termination (Roselund v. Strategic Management, Inc.).

Other states such as Florida and Texas currently favor employers, but that could change as the trend grows.

Employers have won some battles. The Minnesota Supreme Court decided vacation policies are a contract between employers and workers (Lee v. Fresnius Medical Care). In plain English, that means if you got sued in Minnesota, the wording of your policy and the clarity of your employee handbooks would be the deciding factors in the case.

PTO could present problems

Nowadays, many employers save money by lumping vacation days into a single PTO bank with sick pay, personal days, bereavement and other types of paid leave.

But here’s the problem: Even though termination pay for unused sick days and other non-vacation leave are rarely covered by state vacation-pay rules, they may be protected when the days count as all-purpose PTO.

Courts have mixed views on whether employees are entitled to reimbursement for all unused PTO or merely the “vacation portion” of it.

With the rise of PTO policies in place of separate leave, a host of states are considering whether to amend vacation-pay laws or to leave interpretations up to the court system. Meanwhile, some experts recommend organizations with PTO  consider going back to separate vacation and sick banks.