Nothing brightens up a dull workday like the appearance of a co-worker bearing treats. But when an Indiana University dorm worker and her 13-year-old daughter brought in a box of fudge, some fellow employees got more than they bargained for.

Faced with rising costs, Quality Environmental Professionals Inc. scrambled to find ways to cut costs without laying off staff. But when the CEO tried to cut into the doughnut budget, employees balked. Employees offered to work an extra hour or two each week to ensure the continued flow of doughnuts ...

Does your handbook and employment policy specify that supervisors and subordinates shouldn’t develop personal, romantic or sexual relationships? If not, consider adding such a provision. It can go a long way to avoiding potential lawsuits when those relationships go bad.

If you’ve ever visited YouTube.com, you may have clicked on videos showing an assortment of office meltdowns. Laptops get smashed, desks are overturned. While some of these are funny to watch, each one probably made you think, “Man, I hope nothing like that ever happens at our office.” Sad to say, it could ...

Independent contractors aren’t covered by the ADA, as the following case shows ...

After Indiana’s property tax restructuring bill left 12 township assessors in Harrison County with contracts but no work to do in the coming year, the county council voted to pay them through 2010, the end of their elected terms ...

Government employees who want to sue for such things as defamation have to let the state know before they file suit. It gets trickier, however, when the employee amends a previous suit ...

Purdue University implemented a new parental leave policy in October that grants paid time off to either parent for a birth or adoption. The policy provides up to six weeks of paid leave for the birth mother and up to three weeks for the father of the child or same-sex domestic partner of the birth mother ...

Bernard Pettis, who is black, worked for R.R. Donnelley as a materials handler, loading skids for press operator Tim Cain. Whenever Cain, who is white, helped Pettis seal the skids, he would smash Pettis’ hands under the top board, then laugh and tell co-workers, “I got his hands,” or “Ooh, look at him.”

Las Limas restaurant in Angola has been ordered to pay 20 workers roughly $40,000 in back wages for numerous wage violations. A two-year investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor found that kitchen staff were improperly paid on a salary basis and denied overtime.

An Elkhart employer is off the hook for retaliatory discharge for now—but maybe not for long. Lisa Lubarsky was reportedly a good employee of INOVA Federal Credit Union in Elkhart. But then she sued in a South Bend federal court for retaliatory discharge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ...

A class-action lawsuit by 15,000 Indiana state government employees has gone forward to determine whether several state agencies and institutions paid workers unequally by allowing some to work 37.5-hour weeks while others had to work 40-hour weeks ...

Only two companies in the state took advantage of the health insurance tax credit introduced under the Indiana Check-Up Plan last year. The plan granted credits of $50 per employee to businesses that provided employee health care coverage for their workers under a Section 125 cafeteria plan ...

Q. One of the positions in our manufacturing company has a formal apprenticeship program. To stay accredited, we must submit monthly reports showing the number of classroom training hours in which each apprentice participates. Submission of these forms is mandatory, and yet every month there are always some apprentices (for whatever reason) who fail to submit their forms. Can we withhold a portion of an apprentice’s paycheck at the end of the month until we receive the training reports? ...

The Indiana Department of Labor (DOL) reported that fatal workplace injuries in the state hit a record low in 2007. DOL reported 127 fatal occupational injuries last year, 21 fewer than reported in 2006 ...

Marty Deputy, an English and Bible literature teacher and football coach at Pike Central High School in Petersburg, committed suicide on Sept. 2, hours before his former assistant coach surrendered to police over charges of inappropriate conduct ...

Two men went to a Papa John’s in Westfield to pick up a pizza. After they left the store, delivery driver Kelly Tharp told co-workers that one of the men had pulled out a gun. Tharp repeated his story to local police, describing the men’s car and offering a license plate number. The men sued Papa John’s for defamation, negligent hiring and related claims ...

In July 2001, Steven Peters joined Gilead Sciences, a California-based pharmaceutical company, as a therapeutic specialist. In December 2002, Peters took leave under the FMLA for surgery. He took a second leave in March 2003. On April 25, the company sent a letter to Peters, saying that because he held a “key” position the company could not keep open, he had been replaced ...

The LaPorte District of Indiana’s Department of Transportation (INDOT) has instituted a four-day workweek for operations workers to battle high fuel costs. INDOT hopes the move will bring 10% savings on fuel, utilities and fleet maintenance costs ...

Last fall, two black employees of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) objected when they spotted janitor Keith Sampson reading Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan in a campus break room. The cover of the book features white-robed Klansmen and burning crosses ...

Hundreds of retired Indiana steelworkers once employed by Republic Technologies International (RTI) recently received some unwelcome notices in the mail: Due to miscalculations, their pensions are being cut by as much as 75%—some to as little as $300 per month ...

Timothy Walker began working at Alcoa’s Lafayette plant in 1995. He was also a pastor at his church. In May 1998, Walker was appointed head pastor, and he asked Alcoa if he could be excused from working Sunday shifts at the plant ...

Current and former FedEx Ground/Home Delivery drivers are eligible to join a class-action suit that challenges the company’s long-standing practice of classifying drivers as independent contractors. The suit—which more than 27,000 drivers could join—argues that they are employees ...

Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. has agreed to pay $64,400 to a former employee who claimed the company withheld severance pay to pressure her to withdraw a discrimination complaint ...

UPS fired Greg Leach from his position as a driver after he tested positive for cocaine. Leach demanded a retest, insisting he hadn’t used cocaine in more than 20 years. The company complied, but Leach said UPS did not properly administer the test ...