Suttons Bay Law

On July 24, 2009, the federal minimum wage increased to $7.25 per hour. This increase is unlikely to affect most residents and employers in Michigan, since Michigan law requires most employers to pay the higher minimum wage, whether it is federal or state. In Michigan, the minimum wage has been $7.40 since July 1, 2008. Therefore, Michigan employers are still required to pay their employees at least $7.40 per hour, regardless of the federal minimum wage increase.

The federal increase may, however, affect employers with employees under age 18. In Michigan, it is permissible to pay underage employees 85% of the state minimum wage, only if that amount is equal to or greater than the federal minimum wage. 85% of $7.40 per hour does not meet or exceed the federal minimum wage, so employees under age 18 will be entitled to $7.25 per hour starting July 24, 2009. This does not impact employers’ ability to pay newly hired employees under 20 years of age a training wage of $4.25 per hour for the first 90 days of employment, under both state and federal law.

Tags: Employment Law, Know it Now by Dan Penning
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The governor has declared the week of July 27th as Buy Michigan Week throughout the state and is encouraging “all residents of this state to take advantage of the many great products and services that the state of Michigan has to offer by buying Michigan first.” During this week, Michigan-based businesses are encouraged to celebrate and promote their products to help revitalize the state’s economy.

Buy Michigan Week is a great opportunity for you to promote your Michigan business. Use this event as a reason to offer discounts, promotions, samples, and features to bring that traffic through your doors! Buy Michigan Now has even created a series of marketing pieces that may be downloaded from its website and reproduced for display purposes to help retailers, restaurants, towns, and cities to make the most of this opportunity to showcase their Michigan-based businesses and highlight locally grown and made products. Download posters, flyers, and shelf tags at www.buymichigannow.com/buymichiganweekart.php.

Tags: Know it Now by Dan Penning
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Most nonprofit organizations are required to file an annual information return with the IRS known as Form 990. The IRS uses Form 990 as the primary tax compliance and reporting tool for tax exempt organizations. Unlike all other tax returns, once filed, Form 990 is open to public inspection. The IRS has completely revised Form 990 for filings beginning in 2009. The first filings using the new form began this past May 15, 2009, for tax year 2008.

The new form consists of an 11-page, 11-part core form that is required to be completed by all organizations that file Form 990. Depending upon the type of organization, one or more of 16 additional schedules may also need to be filed.

One of the primary changes involves new and extensive reporting requirements pertaining to the organization’s governance and management (Part VI, Sections A, B and C.) For example, Part VI, Section B, Policies, requires the organization to disclose whether or not it has adopted, and follows, policies pertaining to such things as compliance issues, conflicts of interest, whistleblower, document retention and destruction and compensation. Nonprofits, and their boards, need to be aware of these requirements well in advance of the due date for filing because of the potential need to update, adopt and implement any number of these policies and procedures.

Further, whereas previously the preparation and filing of Form 990 was likely left to the organization’s accountant or treasurer, a final version of the form must now be provided to each member of the organization’s governing board, must be reviewed by that board before filing, and the process for that review must be disclosed in Schedule O (see Part VI, Section A, question 10.)

An extensive amount of information concerning these new filing requirements can be found on the IRS website (www.irs.gov) by clicking on the tab “Charities & Nonprofits.”

Tags: Business Management/Law, Know it Now by Dan Penning
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LinkedIn, the business networking website, is becoming wildly popular. Anyone can create a personal “page” that includes, if the person wishes, both a personal and professional profile. Job seekers are now flocking to create individual LinkedIn pages, and employers are turning to LinkedIn to research job candidates.

One feature offered on the site is the opportunity to post a professional recommendation on someone’s page. If you are an employer, you may be asked at some point to post such a recommendation for an exiting employee.

Should you receive such a request, we recommend that you stick with basic information, such as employment dates and positions held, and not say much more. Resist the temptation to give a glowing recommendation unless the reasons for termination had nothing to do with performance. If you rave about your former employee’s performance and yet you let that person go for not doing their job, then the employee could use the LinkedIn recommendation to claim that the termination was the result of discrimination or harassment.

You will also want to absolutely avoid posting any negative information about a former employee.

Finally, if you research a job candidate’s background online, be careful not to use any information that you find – negative or positive – in a discriminatory manner.

Tags: Employment Law, Know it Now by Dan Penning
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Last week, the Supreme Court issued a somewhat surprising, employer friendly decision concerning age discrimination. The Court concluded that, to prevail under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), a plaintiff must prove that age discrimination was the deciding factor in the employer’s decision making. This makes the ADEA different from Title VII, which governs most other forms of discrimination and which permits a plaintiff to prove only that discrimination was one of the motivating factors. Keep in mind, however, that state laws protecting against age discrimination could be applied differently. More over, experts suggest that the current Congress will act quickly to amend the ADEA in order to counteract the Supreme Court’s decision.

To read the summary of the decision provided by the Society for Human Resource Management, click here.

Tags: Employment Law, Know it Now by Dan Penning
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