The Dog Days of Summer are officially here.

Which means slow news items in the employment law area. Oh sure, there’s the labor unions rewriting their bylaws to get the concession package passed (the equivalent of a mulligan in the Masters).  But with Connecticut’s legislature done for the year and the courts slowing down, there’s not much significant going on.

Here are a few odds and ends though that are worth mentioning:

• As I mentioned a while back, I’ve had the opportunity to write a chapter in an upcoming book, HR & Social Media (more details on that soon). In the meantime, the book’s authors (including me) sat down for an interview/podcast that begins in two-part fashion on Friday. Details are available here.
• I’ve talked previously about how class actions are being heavily scrutinized.  Latest example: The Dollar Tree class action in California has been whittled down to next to nothing.  Additional details are available here.
• Can you use GPS to track intermittent FMLA leave? That’s the question posed by Russell Cawyer on his Texas Employment Law Update blog.
• The New Haven Independent has a notable piece about how some “model” workplaces are not immune from OSHA issues.
• A very good summary of the legal implications of employee use of social media by attorney Corey Dennis was recently published. Worth a read too (and not simply because he cites me in the article).

And while it hasn’t gotten into employment law consciousness yet, keep an eye out for Shadow Cities — a new multi-player game on the iPhone that has just received raves by the New York Times.  “It may actually be the most interesting, innovative, provocative and far-reaching video game in the world right now, on any system.”  Having played a bit on it over the weekend, it opens up the possibilities not only for games, but for real world engagement.

And no doubt that it won’t be too long before the first employer bemoans its usage — much like Second Life and other sites before it.