Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Brief Introduction of the Labor Law Posters


Legal mandates require all businesses in the U.S. to display the most recent versions of the federal and state employment or labor law compliance posters. The rules state that the posters must be displayed in all company locations where they can be prominently viewed by employees and by job applicants. If there are employees speaking languages other than English, then the posters must be displayed in bilingual formats to be understood by those employees. For instance, states including Arizona, California, Florida, Texas, and a few others require that the notices are displayed in both English and Spanish.

Labor laws undergo revisions and changes from time to time. Legal experts estimate that about eighty mandatory changes are announced in the federal and the state levels in a typical year. The government agencies do not intimate the businesses regarding these changes, and it is the employers’ responsibility to keep track of these changes and to update the posters accordingly. Poster compliance rules demand that the employers take this issue seriously and display the most recent versions of the labor law posters. Any defaults will invite fines, legal actions, notifications, and even cancellation of license to do business under extreme conditions. For non-compliance, the penalties charged by the federal government might be up to $17,000 per posting location. In cases where there are any employee litigations against the employer at a time when the posters were not displayed, the consequences can be severe.

Since labor law posters are highly crucial products, the employers are directed by the law to post both state and federal postings though these postings might address the same topics. In some cases, they might even contain conflicting information. This is because the state governments have been given the authority to frame their own labor laws based on the typical conditions and circumstances in every state. In some cases, the state governments wish to offer more protection to employees than the federal government, and therefore they make statutes that will supersede those issued by the federal government. Under such cases, the employers must post both the notices and follow the state’s rulings where they conduct their business.

It is rather a difficult job for the employers to know what posters they must post, what changes happen with respect to labor laws from time to time, and when they should update the mandated changes. Therefore, the assistance of the well-established and reliable compliance poster firms can be highly useful in ensuring poster compliance. These firms undertake to supply the posters and updates from time to time for a price.

The federal postings to be posted by the employers include FLSA (Minimum wage), EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity), OSHA (Workplace Safety), FMLA (Family and Medical Leave), USERRA (Military Rights), and EPPA (Polygraph Protection Act). In addition, the employers need to post the state labor law posters that are appropriate to their state. Poster compliance firms publish different kinds of posters to meet the requirements of employers in different states.

No comments: