Major Features of the Website - Research Paper Example

?Insert Major Features of This Website and How Each Feature Can Be Used To Monitor Employee Benefits The website largely deals with terms and conditions of employment, as is regulated by the US Constitution, particularly, the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). The contents are pertinent to the disclosure made by the United States Department of Labour. Because of this, contents in the website are dedicated to providing families that have lost their health benefits with the right to choose to continue accessing group health benefits that their group health plans provide. These provisions are made for limited periods of time under given circumstances such as involuntary and voluntary job loss, reduction in the amount of hours worked, and other life's dynamics which may affect transitions through jobs, such as divorce, death, illness and senescence and senility. To the effect of the above disclosure, COBRA makes matters such as Continuation of Health Coverage, wages, Unemployment Insurance (UI), laws and regulations of employment, the intercourse between terms and conditions of employment at one end, and the American Recovery and Investment Act Information, at the other, clear. There are other pertinent issues that are also divulged upon in this website. These include: disaster recovery assistance and work relations, the provisions of No Fear Act (which makes the provision of the Equal Employment Opportunity Data which in turn was made, pursuant to the No Fear Act) and the benefits of employment, especially when working with the government (US Department of Labour, 1a). 2. How Employers Could Verify That Their Employee Benefits Comply With All Federal Laws by Using This Resource As a resource centre, this website is rich enough to inform employers on the extent to which they have complied with federal laws. This is because the website is dedicated to spelling out the terms and conditions of employment and the elements of these terms and conditions of employment. Particularly, in the website, there are specifications on employment health plans and benefits which are part of these employment terms and conditions. By looking at this Health Plans and Benefits section, the employer can be able to see if he is adhering to the legal injunctions provided for by the COBRA Act. If for instance the employer is not according employees and their families with the chance to realize a temporary extension of health coverage, then the employer is likely to be violating the COBRA Act. In the same website, there is information on the benefits that follow Health Plans and Benefits arrangement. There is also information on the remunerations that should be extended to employees, in the website, for employer's use. This information is made and availed under the aegis of the Department of Labour, following the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA Act). Since these standards are usually enforced by the Department's Wage and Hour Division, it becomes easier and more convenient for employers to know whether they are violating the FLSA Act or conforming to it. For instance, because FLSA since July 24, 2009 sets the minimum wage as 7.25 US dollars per hour, any employer who pays his employees wages below this bar is contravening the FLSA Act, if the employees in point are covered by FLSA. Again, Jacques observes that the same FLSA makes provisions for overtime pay. Specifically, FLSA stipulates that the overtime pay must not cost less than one and a half times regular rate of the payment made. Likewise, any employee who works more than 40 hours in a workweek must be entitled to overtime pay (Jacques, 83-4). In another wavelength, FLSA helps the employer know whether he is treating his employees unfairly or fairly by observing the dictates of fair employment, by stipulating the minimum age of employment. Specifically, FLSA proscribes employment of persons under the legal age (18 years). In the website, it is also made clear that through the Wage and Hour Division, there are other stipulations which further divulge on the laws of employment which employers should adhere to. For instance, according to Kochan, the Davis-bacon and Related Acts require payment of fringe benefits and prevailing wage rate benefits on the federally-financed constructions, and thereby criminalises any employer who disobeys the provisions thereof, in dealing with the employee (Kochan, 50). There is also the Service Contract Act which demands payment of fringe benefits and prevailing wage rates on contracts, so as to issue services to the federal government. There is also the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act which demands payment of overtime pay and minimum wage rates. Likewise, the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act sets standards for payment of overtime for federal services contracts which exceed 100,000 US dollars, for employers to follow. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990 also makes stipulations on what should be done, in the event that employees are subjected to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family situations and medical situations. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990 therefore draws parameters for the employer to determine how to deal with employees, when he fails to pay them, their 12 weeks of annual leave (US Department of Labour, 1b & Hum, 84). Conversely, Johns and Johns posit that the only shortfall of FLSA in this development immediately above is its failure to accommodate or make specifications on severance pay, vacations, holidays and sick leave. Similarly, FLSA remains mute on nonproduction bonuses and other benefits such as life insurance, accident insurance and educational assistance. All these lacunae give rogue employers a wider threshold to exploit employees (Johns and Johns, 75). 3. Explaining How Employees Would Use This Information to Ensure Their Benefits Rights Are Protected The website and the contents it divulges on, on the terms and conditions serve as a double-edged sword: while helping the employer establish compliance with labour laws, it also equips employees to ascertain the observation and protection of their benefits rights. By studying the website, an employee is able to know whether his healthcare benefits are being observed or not, as is provided for by COBRA Act. The same provisions are also enshrined in the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), to allow employees to see the extent to which their health benefits have been acknowledged. Alongside this, just as Singh and Singh assert, COBRA informs employees and their family members on how to elect continuation coverage (Singh and Singh, 33). The same website also contains information on the provisions of FLSA. FLSA in turn makes stipulations on wages by stating that: the current minimum wage is 7.25 US dollars per hour; anyone exceeding 40 hours of work in a workweek must be paid overtime (going by the provisions provided for in the Wage and Hour Division); and that there should be the minimum wage that has been set by the state. The Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act and the Contract Work Hours and Safety Standards Act also help determine: the minimum wage rate and overtime pay; and the set standards for overtime, in federal contracts, respectively (Joint Committee on employment Practices & American Congress on Surveying and Mapping, 43). All these provisions above are so clear that an employee can understand them and detect inconsistency or conformity on the side of the employer. 4. An Outline of the Website to Help Orient Others to Its Usefulness for Regulatory Compliance The aforementioned website tackles employment-related areas such as: Wages Health plans and benefits (and the continuation of health coverage) Unemployment insurance Laws and regulations which moderate terms of employment (such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Information and No Fear Act) Disability and employment terms and conditions The same website addresses: Employers Employees/ workers Job seekers and the unemployed Labour unions The government Community organisations and faith-based institutions Researchers People with disabilities Nonprofit and nongovernmental organisations Students Works Cited Hum, Keith. The Effect of Employee Employer Relationship Factors on Employee Commitment to Strategic Organisational Goals. Michigan: McGraw Hill, 2006. Print Jacques, Karl. "The Rights and Duties of Employees and Employees." International Business Journal, 4.6 (2011): 78-84. Print Johns, Patrick & Johns, Peters. Employee-Employer Relations: Reviewing Terms and Conditions of Employment. New York: SAGE, 2010. Print Joint Committee on employment Practices & American Congress on Surveying and Mapping. Employer-Employer: A relationship in Transition- JCEP Proceedings/ 1969. Joint Committee on employment Practices. Print Kochan, Thomas. The Future of Employee-Employer Relations. NY: Centre for Advanced Human Resource Studies, 2004. Print Singh, P. N. & Singh, P. N. Employee Relations Management. New York: Glyph International, 2011. Print US Department of Labour. Health & Benefits: Continuation of Health Coverage- COBRA. Retrieved From: http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/health-plans/cobra.htm; on 23 Aug, 2013. Electronic US Department of Labour. Wages. Retrieved From: http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/wages/; on 23 Aug, 2013. Electronic Read More