Government Agency Regs
mr8267
4 Posts
I work at a public health department in Missouri. It seems like all the HR laws and Regs are different for public entities! Employees can't accrue comp time - UNLESS you're a gov't agency, you're not covered by FMLA if you have under 50 employees - UNLESS you're a gov't agency, etc..... Has anyone come across any reference materials that are strictly for gov't agencies? I sure could use some help!
Comments
There are a couple that I've come across in doing HR for 22 years in my local goverment agencies. Without saying that any publications are good or bad, I note that Westgroup has a publication for public employers entitled, "State and Government Employment Liability" and Thompson Publishing has a publication entitled, "Fair Labor Standards Handbook for States, Local Governments and Schools." Here in California, Matthew Bender publishes "California Public Sector Labor Relations." Jossey-Bass Publishers in San Francisco has published "The Handbook of Human Resource Management in Government." It's a collection of essays and reports on the field.
There are a couple of public sector HR organizations, as well. One is the International Personnel Management Association in Alexandria, Virginia (probably right next to SHRM); and the International City/County Managers Association, in Washington, D.C., although it is aimed at more than just HR managers.
I would be interested if "M. Lee Smith" had something or could do something designed for public employers. If any of the BB editors read this, how about putting a "good" idea up to the execs at M. Lee Smith to do something for us pubic employer HR types?
I will pass your suggestion along to the other execs at M. Lee Smith Publishers. We are always interested in ideas for new publications that will help you do your jobs better.
When it comes to public employers, maybe one of the problems of finding a one-size-fits-all source of information for employment law is the fact that so many of the rules and regulations affecting public employers vary from state to state. For that reason (so far at least), we've opted to let our individual state newsletters deal with public employment law as the cases arise. But maybe there is a way to do it on a broader basis, and we'll explore the possibilities.
In the meantime, those of you who are public employers -- and Law Center members -- have a wonderful resource right under your nose. If you'll go to the home page for [url]www.HRhero.com[/url] and click "Member Login," you can do a search in the Newsletter Archive for "public employers" and pull up lots of related articles. Today I pulled up about 300 articles from the various state newsletters that mentioned "public employers," just for the year 2001. Of course, you could narrow your search to "public employers" along with your particular area of interest (wage and hour law, for example) and get more focused results. You could also limit the search to a certain state or states.
Law Center members also receive an in-depth HR Special Report every other month, and editor Anne Williams (whose name you often see on this BB) assures me that she always includes a section on how public employers are affected.
If readers on this forum would like to post some specific ideas of what you are looking for in terms of help for public employers, we would be happy to take those ideas under consideration. We're always eager to hear about ideas for new publications that we could create -- and you would subscribe to!
Tony Kessler, director of editorial
M. Lee Smith Publishers
We've been mulling over the idea of creating a separate section on Employers Forum for public employers - a specific section for you to network and ask and answer each others' questions.
What do you think?
Christy Reeder
Website Managing Editor
[url]www.HRhero.com[/url]
P.S.
If you'd like more info about your state's Law Center (as Tony mentions above, you can search for relevant articles in the Newsletter Archive if you're a LC member), feel free to give us a call at 800/274-6774 or visit online at [url]www.hrhero.com/benefits.shtml[/url] (be sure to click the link "Take the HRhero.com Members-Only Tour!" for more info about the HRhero.com tools you get as a Law Center member).
Thanks for carrying "the flag."
I agree with the comment that one major difficulty in doing something like this is the variations in law and court rulings among the 50 states on many similar issues.
But I think that there are areas that can be addressed, either as common points or as trends that affect various states, or even as "concepts" that a public employer may want to consider for its own personnel policy and practice (where state or local law allows latitude). Some areas I think include due process, including the right to representation in disciplinary investigations (since NLRA cases don't apply); conflict of interests for public employees; criminal background checks, including arrest records, especially in "sensitive" type positions such as a children's social workers and police officers; the right of privacy for public employees.
Anway, whatever comes out of your try, I do appreciate the Labor Letter I get (here in California) as well as the information on these BB's and the entire web site. Keep it up. And happy holidays.