It’s no secret that starting a new business takes a ton of work. Even if you have a solid idea or profitable product or service to offer, there are still countless legal and procedural steps you’ll need to take to move your business from the initial idea stage into reality.
As the gears of the workforce keep turning, it is crucial to ensure that the rights of employees are protected and their hard work is justly compensated. Kentucky's wage and hour laws serve as the bedrock of worker protection, covering essential aspects such as minimum wage rates, overtime pay, payment regulations, breaks and meal periods, child labor laws, wage discrimination, and retaliation protections.
Possibly the most common popular image of sexual harassment in the workplace is that of a boss soliciting sexual favors from an employee in return for some form of benefit at work—perhaps even just continued employment. While this certainly can and does happen, sexual harassment can take many forms in the working world, and it doesn’t always have to involve an employer or supervisor hitting on someone by dangling some form of employment bait.
Have a charitable goal or another noble goal in mind and wish to start a nonprofit in Kentucky? The process is similar to registering any company or corporation—but to get nonprofit status, you must go through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Most nonprofits register under IRS tax-exempt status 501(c)(3), which applies to groups formed for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes.
Many nonprofit organizations seek justice in society from their base in Louisville or elsewhere in Kentucky, and I have ties with many of them. But any organization, however noble its goals, can run into disputes and legal problems that slow or threaten the great good they are striving for. A lawsuit—whether from an employee, a contractor, or another nonprofit or for-profit organization— can place obstacles in the pursuit of their goals.
Just the act of being served can be disturbing enough, and if you’ve never been through the experience before, you may react in the wrong way and make matters worse for you and your business entity.
When the U.S. government first began tracking working conditions in the nation in 1890, it found that the workweek in manufacturing averaged a whopping 100 hours.
According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that polices and enforces anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws, between Fiscal Year 2018 and Fiscal Year 2021, there were 98,411 charges of workplace harassment filed, with 27,291 of them being for sexual harassment.
More than a century ago, a fire in a garment factory in New York City galvanized the labor union movement. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory employed some 500 women, many of them immigrants and some as young as 15, who worked 13-hour shifts with just 30 minutes for lunch, for $6 a week.
When the term sexual harassment in the workplace is mentioned, most people probably imagine that it entails a supervisor trying to take advantage of an employee, or a coworker “hitting on” another coworker for sexual favors. While these scenarios do happen, there are times when sexual harassment comes from other places. It’s possible you, a friend, or coworkers wonder what steps can be taken if the sexual harassment comes from a client, a vendor, or a customer. Do the same laws still apply?
