Employees appeals

Employee Appeals—Workplace employees may not contest the fact that citations were or were not awarded or the amounts of the penalties assessed their employer. However, they may appeal the following aspects of OSHA s decisions regarding their workplace and the appeals must be hied within ten working days of a posting ... 

OSHA requires employers of workers who are occupationally exposed to -hexane to institute engineering controls and work practices to reduce and maintain employee exposure at or below permissible exposure limits (PELs). The employer must use controls and practices, if feasible, to reduce exposure to or below an 8-hour time-weighted average (TWA) of 500 ppm (1,800 mg/m3) (OSHA 1974). The PEL for -hexane was to have been lowered to 50 ppm in 1989 however, a U S. Court of Appeals decision overturned a number of PELs promulgated in 1989, including that for -hexane. The PEL in force prior to this decision (500 ppm) is currently in effect. 

In none of the agreements received as a result of my survey was there a noncompetition clause. This is a provision by which an employee promises not to compete with his employer for a specified period of time. In three of the agreements provided to me from ACS, however, there were non-competition provisions. The most onerous one was a promise not to compete for one year plus the duration of any litigation that might arise concerning the subject matter of the agreement. This means that if the employee were sued within a year after his departure, he would not be able to compete until there had been a final determination from which no appeal could be made. This could easily be five years in all, given the crowded dockets of trial and appellate courts. 

Whether in the public or private sector, employee-management relations are governed by rules. In the absence of a union, the rules are unilaterally set by management. Legal restraints on the employer are relatively minor. With a union the rules are jointly negotiated between employer and employees and take the form of a written, enforceable contract. The locus of rule-making authority is shifted simultaneously, the possibilities for appeal to outside agencies are increased. 

State laws regulating workplace drug testing vary. Some states ban or limit the use of random tests without individual suspicion. Some states also provide for some form of appeals process or retesting for employees found to test positive. 

Three types of relative performance appraisal systems are used. One is called alternation ranking, a method in which the rater chooses the most and least valuable persons from a list of employees with similar jobs. Both names are crossed off, and then the procedure is repeated until every employee on the list has been ranked. With its ability to eliminate central tendency and leniency and with its ease of implementation, alternation ranking may appear appealing. However, aside from its failure to generate feedback, the halo effect could come into play. Moreover, employees may be concerned with the potential for bias and inaccuracy by the evaluator, especially when criteria for performance have not been delineated clearly. 

But this estimate is for the United States—what about the whole world It is probably not right to use our factor of 3 (see just above) to link the United States love for fast food to the rest of the world for example, it is not likely that a Quarter-Pounder with Cheese will have the same appeal in India (1.3 billion people) as it does in the United States. Nevertheless, we could probably use a factor of 2 for this extrapolation and get about 600,000 McDonald employees worldwide. This estimate might be on the high side—Indiana has a relatively high concentration of McDonalds compared to other states. The truth seems to be that, in 2005, McDonalds had a total of 447,000 employees worldwide [Fortune, July 26, 2006, p. 122], so our estimate is not too bad. 

Also in 1993, in Holmes v Hotel San Remo, the Appeals Tribunal State of Nevada Employment Security Department found that the claimant was ineligible for benefits due to discharge for misconduct violation of a known and reasonable rule. Employees were notified that the employer would comply with the Drug Free Workplace Act and random hair analysis testing would occur following a 90-day grace period. Holmes hair test indicated recent cocaine use. She was found to be ineligible for benefits. 

An appeal-handling mechanism is established in the form of the New Drug Committee. A manufacturer may appeal to it if his submission has been rejected or the notice of compliance has been suspended. Members of the Committee are obligated to keep confidential the proceedings of the meetings cind all information presented to them. The Committee is comprised of one member from the Drugs Directorate and one member appointed by the manufacturer (full-time employees of the Directorate or of the manufacturer are disqucdified). The two appointed members then elect a third one who will act as chairman. 

On October 30, 1995, Texaco and a group of 83 publishers announced that they had agreed on terms to settle their dispute over corporate photocopying of articles. In 1994, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that the photocopying of copyrighted articles by a Texaco employee was not a fair use. On April 28, 1995, Texaco had filed a petition for certiorari (a writ of a superior court to call up the records of an inferior court) with the Supreme Court, but later, in May 1995, Texaco and a steering committee of... 

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