If an employer provides a temporary reassignment to accommodate an employee’s disability/pregnancy restrictions, does it have to return her to that assignment after her maternity leave? The EEOC seems to think so. In Equal...more
When is it safe to take action against an employee (or a former employee) who filed an EEOC charge against you? As the 7th Circuit just found in Baines v. Walgreen Co., you can never –REPEAT, NEVER – take action because an...more
7/26/2017
/ Discrimination ,
Employee Transfers ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Pharmacies ,
Race Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Walgreens
Before the Americans with Disabilities Act (and there was a time before the ADA), it was not uncommon to require employees to have a doctor’s note returning them to work “with no restrictions.” That won’t work in today’s ADA...more
Sexual harassment—we have policies against it, we train people on how to prevent and report it, and yet still we have big news stories about it. In the last year, Fox News hit the headlines on this front multiple times–not...more
Managing intermittent FMLA is every employer’s nightmare (or is it just me?). Employees are entitled to take leave and operations folks find it difficult to keep the trains running on time with employees who don’t show up...more
If you weren’t sure what it meant to discriminate against someone because of their national origin, the EEOC wants to help. The newly revised Section 13 of the EEOC Field Manual provides guidance on how the EEOC defines...more
3/9/2017
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Harassment ,
National Origin ,
National Origin Discrimination ,
Native American Issues ,
Title VII
Setting a new employee’s pay based on what he or she made at a prior job is a fairly common practice—but now an illegal one in Philadelphia, PA. You heard right, Philadelphia has banned questions about salary history. This...more
Most employers prohibit solicitation in the workplace, often not allowing outsiders to come onto company property and prohibiting employees from soliciting their coworkers while they are working. The National Labor Relations...more
Maybe once a year, I get a call from a client asking about what the law requires with regard to lactation breaks for nursing mothers. I tell them that § 207(r) of the Fair Labor Standards Act requires them to provide (A)...more
When Congress passed the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family and Medial Leave Act (FMLA), it considered them as needed protections for clear-cut situations. For...more
Our first segments in our six-part series on pregnancy in the workplace focused on how the ADA, FMLA and PDA apply in the workplace to employees before, during, and after pregnancy and child birth. In this segment, we narrow...more
In my supervisor training sessions, I used to note that Title VII prohibits discrimination based on sex, with a reminder that it applies to both sexes. In recent training sessions, however, I find that section now takes a...more
The EEOC has filed a lawsuit (EEOC v. ValleyLife, Civil Action No. 2:15-cv-00340-GMS) under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) against ValleyLife, a disability support services company in Arizona, claiming that...more
Minimum wage laws across the country are changing. Although the federal minimum wage for covered, nonexempt employees is $7.25 an hour (and has been since July 2009), 22 states increased their minimum wages for 2015. The new...more
The focus on employment background checks is not going away. A few weeks ago I wrote about Dollar General’s $4 million dollar settlement of a class action lawsuit based on alleged violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act...more
Just how specific do you need to be when explaining why you rejected a minority candidate multiple times for a job that did not even mean a pay raise? That is the question the United States Court of Appeals for the Second...more
Dollar General just agreed to pay $4 million to settle a class action background check case based on its alleged violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Marcum v. Dolgencorp, Inc., Civil Action No. 3:12cv108...more
If an employee claims her employer interfered with her rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act but she didn’t lose any salary or benefits, can she state an interference claim? In Evans v. Books-A-Million Inc., the...more
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued a Directive on Gender Identity and Sex Discrimination (DIR 2014-02), announcing that it will follow the EEOC and investigate claims of gender identity...more
9/12/2014
/ Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Final Guidance ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Government Investigations ,
Investigations ,
OFCCP ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Title VII ,
Transgender
If an employee claims her employer interfered with her rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), but she didn’t lose any salary or benefits, can she win her case? In Evans v. Books-A-Million, the Eleventh Circuit...more