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Yahoo is front and center in tech news this week, but not because of its services. Last Friday, the company told its employees that as of June 1st, no one will be permitted to work from home. The internal memo cited quality and efficiency concerns related to telecommuting. The change has angered some employees and sparked criticism.
In other interesting news, today is Pope Benedict XVI's last day in office, and cardinals will soon meet in conclave to elect a new pope. Though technological advances such as Twitter and camera phones make secrecy a difficult goal to obtain, the Catholic ...
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Agencies employing personal care assistants (PCAs) might want to up their unemployment insurance coverage. For the second time in recent months, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has struck down a law that precludes family members who act as PCAs from obtaining certain benefits. In the case of Weir v. ACCRA Care, Inc., the court determined that a statutory prohibition preventing immediate-family-member PCAs from obtaining unemployment benefits is unconstitutional. The court made a similar ruling in December of 2012 in Healthstar Home Health, Inc. v. Jesson. In that case, a ...
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We hear a lot about individuals' social media accounts getting hacked, but the events of this week remind us that company social media accounts are vulnerable as well. The Twitter accounts of both Burger King and Jeep were broken into and changed. Burger King's profile picture was changed to a McDonald's logo, and the account tweeted that McDonalds had bought Burger King. Jeep's account was changed to look like it was a page for Cadillac and to state that Jeep had been sold to Cadillac because it caught its employees doing pain medication in the bathroom. Both accounts appear to have been ...

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Today is Presidents Day, or, as it is officially called, Washington's Birthday.  We also celebrate Black History Month each February, making this month a time for reflection on the long history behind our country's efforts towards achieving equality in the workplace.  In honor of both Presidents Day and Black History Month, I'm sharing the list below of Presidents who were in office when our country passed some of its landmark federal civil rights or employment laws, along with some interesting facts about each of the Presidents who played a role in the history behind our current ...
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As they do with Valentine's Day, many people have a love-hate relationship with technology. They love it when it's good to them and hate it when it burns them.

This week, both individuals and companies alike felt some pain as the result of their love affair with technology. A Michigan nurse and a Washington barista both lost their jobs because of over-sharing on social media.  The nurse was fired for FMLA fraud after the hospital where she worked saw Facebook pictures of the Mexican vacation she took while still on leave. The barista was fired for using his blog as a forum to insult his ...

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This week saw the introduction of a bill in the Minnesota House of Representatives that would outlaw the enforcement of most noncompete agreements in Minnesota. Under the pending legislation, all noncompete agreements would become unenforceable, with just three exceptions. The exceptions provide for very limited enforcement of noncompetition agreements in particular circumstances: in connection with:  the sale of a business, in connection with the dissolution of a partnership, and in connection with the withdrawal of membership in a limited liability company. 
Although ...
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I don't know if it's the cold, long winter we've been having, or just the increasing popularity of social media, but this week has been chock-full of internet-induced workplace drama. Take for example, the Applebee's server who was fired after posting a picture of customer's receipt on Reddit. The customer happened to be a pastor whose large dining party had incurred an automatic gratuity charge. He crossed out the added gratuity and wrote "I give God 10%, why do you get 18?" After the waitress shared a picture of the receipt -- signature and all -- with the online community, the pastor ...

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You may have read recent media reports about a dispute between a doctor and his patients son in which the doctor sued the patients son for, among other things, referring to the doctor as a real tool. Frustrated by the care that his father received from the doctor at St. Luke's Hospital in Duluth, Dennis Laurion posted online that [w]hen I mentioned Dr. McKee's name to a friend who is a nurse, she said, Dr. McKee is a real tool.  Upset by this and other negative comments posted by Laurion, Dr. McKee sued him for defamation. The case was eventually appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court, where ...
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