A draft Occupational Safety and Health Administration guidance recommends employers with high to medium risk of flu exposure stockpile facemasks and respirators in advance of a pandemic. Although emphasizing that the guidance is advisory, OSHA says employers with medium exposure risk (schools, high population work environments, high volume retail) should stockpile up to 240 facemasks per employee for a pandemic (to cover 120 workdays). High risk employers (healthcare, emergency medical services, first responders) are advised to stockpile up to 480 facemasks and 960 respirators per employee.

According to the draft guidance, manufacturing capacity at the time of an outbreak would not meet the expected demand of respiratory protection devices during a pandemic, and the stockpiling would lessen the impact of an outbreak on the business. The guidance estimates the unit cost of facemasks would range from $0.12 to $0.20; respirators from $0.50 to $3.00 each.

Combined food preparation and serving workers were among the lowest paying occupations in 2007, but were among the occupations with the highest U.S. employment in 2007, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Retail salespersons, cashiers, general office clerks, and registered nurses were the other occupations with high employment last year.

The highest paying occupations included physician specialists, dentist specialists, and chief executives, according to BLS.

Mean hourly wages for office and administrative support group occupations ranged from $18.83 in the utilities sector to $11.60 in accommodation and food services. Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks ($9.66 per hour); stock clerks and order fillers ($10.93); and tellers ($11.36) were among the lowest paid occupations in the group.

In an additional report, BLS says that real average weekly earnings fell by 0.5 percent from March 2008 to April after seasonal adjustment. A 0.1 percent increase in average hourly earnings for the period was offset by a 0.3 percent decrease in average weekly hours and a 0.2 percent increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers.

Workers without health insurance options are more likely to defer retirement to stay covered under their company’s plan, according to Watson Wyatt Worldwide.

Employees who rely on their company healthcare coverage and do not expect to receive company-provided retirement health benefits are 16.5 percentage points less likely to retire in any given year than workers with access to healthcare coverage through other sources such as a spouse’s health plan, public health insurance, or COBRA coverage, Watson Wyatt says.

The Watson Wyatt analysis also shows that other factors influencing the retirement decision include the type of retirement plan offered—defined benefit plans such as traditional pensions increase the likelihood of retirement by 4.1 percentage points compared to defined contribution plans such as a 401(k).

Labor unions would be required to report additional information about the receipt and distribution of union funds if rules proposed by the Office of Labor-Management Standards go into effect.

OLMS administers the union reporting requirements under the federal Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, which is aimed at safeguarding union funds from depletion by improper or illegal means and to deter union officers or employees from embezzling assets or making improper use of funds.

The proposed revisions would require unions to report the identity of purchasers or sellers in transactions involving union assets, and itemize certain receipts of $5,000 or more. Other changes require reporting all travel and hotel disbursements by union officials, and for the union to report the value of fringe benefits given to each union officer.

Managers who want to fill positions often ask for the moon in filling out job requisitions or discussing their needs with Human Resources. Consultant Johanna Rothman, in an article for Kennedy Information Recruiting Trends, provides an outline of questions to ask hiring managers so that the company can start recruiting and hiring more realistic candidates.

HEC members have the opportunity on June 10 to hear one of Hawaii’s top economists forecast where our local economy might be headed. Bank of Hawaii Senior Vice President & Chief Economist Paul Brewbaker will provide an analysis of the current conditions and business trends here and in the Pacific region. He is the second speaker in HEC’s 65th Anniversary Distinguished Speaker Series. The free morning program will be held in HEC’s Kahili Meeting Room from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., but seating is limited and reservations are required. For more information or reservations, please call Irma Hinazumi at 808-440-8836 or email ihinazumi@hecouncil.org.

To help employers figure out which federal recordkeeping, reporting, and notice requirements apply to them, the U.S. Dept. of Labor has incorporated a new elaws section in its FirstStep Employment Law Advisor. The addition is integrated into a suite of advisors that includes the revised and expanded FirstStep Poster Advisor. The Internet tool is intended to make it easier for small business employers to learn about and comply with applicable federal laws, according to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

In order to reduce mismatch rates for naturalized citizens, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has incorporated improvements in its E-Verify Program. The program is a web-based system allowing participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of newly-hired workers. The program occasionally produced mismatches between social security numbers and names, leading to potential termination of legally authorized workers.

According to USCIS, naturalized citizens who have not yet updated their records with the Social Security Administration are the largest category of work-authorized persons who initially face an SSA mismatch in E-Verify. The system will now include naturalization data to help instantly confirm the citizenship status of naturalized U.S. citizens. The agency also plans to initiate citizenship status records information sharing with SSA, and to check State Dept. passport records to further reduce mismatches and tentative nonconfirmations in employment eligibility.

An employee who frequently complained about his work hours and lack of overtime pay, then subsequently told to accept his working conditions without complaining, resign, or be terminated has stated a claim for constructive discharge in retaliation for asserting his Fair Labor Standards Act right to overtime pay, a federal district court rules.

The Court says that it does not find that the overtime the employee worked and the lack of overtime pay for those hours to be “objectively intolerable.” However, the threat to terminate him if he did continue to assert his right to FLSA overtime pay “would be objectively intolerable to a reasonable person,” the Court observes, and that a reasonable person in the worker’s position would have felt compelled to resign. Ellis v. Yum! Brands, Inc.

Although foreign-born workers continue to increase their presence in the U.S. workforce, a majority of employers do very little to deal with language limitations, according to a recent study by The Conference Board.

Its survey finds that 66 percent of companies do not provide English language skill training; more than half of this group said they did not find a need to warrant such training, even though more than 80 percent reported employing English-deficient employees. According to the survey, the companies that did not provide English training said they would include it if it resulted in increased productivity.