Are there any laws around a supervisor or manager telling others the reason for an employee being out on leave? Does the answer change if the employee isn't using sick time, but [has] disclosed why they were unavailable for additional hours during non-contract time?
Here are the state and federal laws specifically barring an employer from disclosing why an employee is out on sick or personal leave.[1]
How long should the library retain employee records, payroll records, sales and purchase records, mortgage and loan documents, and other records?
Several considerations impact the answer to this question:
For a public library, the bare minimum record retention periods are found in a document called "the LGS-1."[1] The LGS-1 has rules for retention covering everything from your library's charter, to how long you hold onto circulation records.
This is an issue that's come up in recent conversation. If an individual who no longer works at an institution finds that their picture is still being used by said institution, whether in promotional photos or on staff/faculty pages, does that individual have any legal recourse?
This question needs to be answered on a sliding scale.
Here are three scenarios to show how the scale can slide:
Scenario 1: "Scrapbooking"
I understand that, as employers of a union shop, the library is required to allow the union a reasonable amount of time to conduct union business.[1] However, how much time is reasonable? Can employees meet with their shop stewards on the clock at the library for 5+ hours a week, taking both away from their duties? Is there a ballpark?
The care required when addressing union-related issues in so critical, we're going to start with a small cautionary poem:
My concern is about employee privacy and image use.
This is one of those questions that a thoughtful attorney, wishing to be thorough, could write a book about. However, "Ask the Lawyer" is not a book, so we'll see what I can do in about one thousand words!
To give some useful answers, and also stick within our word limit:
[My library's] community is calling for a member of the staff to have a seat on the board as a voting member. However, I am searching for something in the trustee handbook or DLD regulations that explicitly states this. I am not aware of any library that has ever had a staff member sit on the board as a voting trustee.
There are many reasons a not-for-profit organization, such as a library, may contemplate employee membership--or structured involvement--on the governing board.
Common reasons are:
A director of a library resources council asks…
This is the right question at the right time. As we wrap up 2022, remote work, work travel, work-from-home, work abroad...all these are evolving in a tangle of legal considerations.
We are planning an emergency preparedness training for library staff to include CPR, First Aid, Stop the Bleed, and Narcan training. We have heard from librarians that some boards are concerned about the implications of having staff trained. We would like to have some commonly asked questions addressed so that we can answer them if they come up.
Because the training and resources described in the question can save lives, I will both a) quickly answer the questions and b) provide an answer in a format suitable to share with a library board.
We got a question about implementing the new Section 52-c of the New York Civil Rights Law, which requires employers to notify employees if their workplace communications will be monitored.
New York Civil Rights Law Section 52-c, captioned "Employers engaged in electronic monitoring; prior notice required" went into effect on May 7, 2022.
As laws go, it is fairly short, so I have included the full text below this answer.
What does the law require? And do those requirements have any special impact and library and other cultural and educational institutions?
The library (school district public library without a union or a bargaining agreement and less than 50 employees) offers paid sick leave for most employees. However, based on what we have learn we have paid people, without it coming off of their earned sick time, if they are told to quarantine because they have been exposed to the virus.
I can offer a simple answer, and a complicated answer.
Here is the simple answer:
