Connecticut Employment Lawyer & Attorney : Daniel Schwartz : Stamford, Hartford New Haven, CT

You know it's summer when the most exciting headline in employment law over the last day seems to be the markup of an arbitration fairness bill by a House Judiciary Subcommittee.  Not terribly exciting.  If you'd like more details on that bill, Workplace Horizons has a nice little summary and does it's typical terrific job on keeping up to date on some federal legislative items.  But it is still a long way off. 

In the meantime, this little lull provides an opportunity to catch up on a series of posts I've done on little known employment laws. For some of the previous installments, check out here and here.  

Today's post addresses offer letters.  For many employers, they are standard practice, but others seem to ignore them.

Connecticut actually requires something resembling an offer letter to each employee. Specifically, Conn. Gen. Stat. 31-71f requires that every employer, at the time of hiring, advise an employee of three things:

1. The rate of remuneration (in other words, the salary or rate of pay);
2. The hours the employee is expected to work;
3. And the schedule for wage payments (weekly or otherwise).

Notably, that statute also requires that employers "make available" to employees (either in writing or through a posted notice in a lunch room or other accessible location) any policies or practices relating to:

• wages;
• vacation pay;
• sick leave;
• health and welfare benefits;
• and comparable matters.

If the employer makes any changes to these policies and practices, the statute requires that the employer provide notice to employees as well.

Thus, offer letters (or something resembling them) are a good business practice, but also the law. Use them as an opportunity to also include language that confirms that the employee is "at-will" meaning that the employer can fire the employee at any time for any reason (and the employee can leave anytime for any reason too). 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In small states like Connecticut, at times it feels like everyone is separated by something less than Six Degrees. 

Ten years ago today, a troubled worker walked into the headquarters for the Connecticut Lottery and shot and killed four top lottery officials, before turning the gun on himself.  Although I didn't know anyone personally, others that I worked with did.

The New York Times article the day after the shooting tells a story that is as haunting and chilling today as it was ten years ago:

Angered about a salary dispute and his failure to win a promotion, a Connecticut Lottery accountant reported promptly to his job this morning, hung up his coat and then methodically stabbed and gunned down four of his bosses, one of whom he chased through a parking lot, before turning the gun on himself.

As the shots rang out through the hallways of the lottery headquarters here in this quiet Hartford suburb, witnesses and the police said, dozens of employees, some yelling, ''Run to the woods,'' headed into the brushy hillside surrounding the office while others dived into nearby ditches.

The gunman, Matthew Beck, 35, had walked into the executive offices, stabbed and shot one top official and shot two others -- saying ''bye-bye'' to one of them -- and then chased the State Lottery president, Otho R. Brown, several hundred yards into a parking lot. Mr. Brown, 54, stumbled as he ran, the police said, and just as officers arrived on the scene, they saw Mr. Beck fire a semiautomatic handgun at the executive, killing him immediately.

Within seconds, as two Newington police detectives approached Mr. Beck, he put the gun, a 9-millimeter Glock, to his right temple and shot himself, said John Connelly, the head of the state police.

In addition to Mr. Brown, the other victims were three of the most senior managers at the Connecticut Lottery Corporation, a quasi-public authority: Linda Mlynarczyk, 37, chief financial officer, of New Britain; Frederick Rubelmann 3d, 40, vice president of operations, of Southington, and Michael Logan, 33, information systems manager, of Colchester.

The Hartford Courant, in fact, won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of that event.  In light of headlines each month about various shootings at workplaces around the country, it seems foolish to suggest that this particular shooting led to massive changes here. But I think for many, it did change the way we think about workplace violence issues.

In hindsight, the employee exhibited signs of stress before the incident, even writing an angry letter to officials in the weeks prior.  After this incident, I'm certain there were some employers who took any threat by an employee much more seriously.  I'm not suggesting that more should've been done beforehand (I don't know enough about it to judge), but I do think that employers in the state were re-awakened to the need to have and enforce workplace violence policies.  Employee Assistance Programs seemed more prominent and discussions about guns in the workplace followed. 

Others have written about workplace violence policies and suggestions to follow. But on today's anniversary (on which the Governor has suggested a moment a silence at 8:45 a.m.), perhaps the best thing we all can do is simply to recall the events of that horrible day and resolve that the lessons learned from that day won't be forgotten.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks (1)