Last week, I had a short post about the position taken by the U.S. Department of Justice in the Zarda v. Altitude Express “gay skydiver” case.
The DOJ has directly opposed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which...more
(When I think out loud, beware.)-
Ellen Kearns’ discussion of last week’s decision in Barbuto v. Advantage Sales and Marketing, in which the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that employers may have to accommodate...more
As anyone who’s been following the news is aware, President Trump has been publicly and repeatedly indicating his displeasure with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. We are a non-partisan blog, so I’m not going to get into who’s...more
You’ve heard of “English-only” policies, but here is a new one.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit last week against a Houston-area company for allegedly requiring applicants to be of Hispanic national...more
Employers, has this ever happened to you?
A guy (we’ll call him “Ryan”) comes to work for you through a temporary agency. The agency issues the paychecks and generally acts as Ryan’s “HR” representative. Your company pays...more
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act recently celebrated its 50th birthday (it doesn’t look a day over 49). This calls for an age discrimination quiz!...more
Not every obnoxious workplace behavior is unlawful harassment. To violate federal law, the harassment has to be unwelcome, based on a “protected category” (for example, sex or race), and “severe or pervasive.”
But most...more
Every now and then, I am told that it’s unfair for employers to take action against employees misbehave off duty.
“No it isn’t,” I reply.
Although I wouldn’t recommend firing everybody who gets in trouble away from work and...more
*For employment law advice.
Amy Dickson of the syndicated advice column “Ask Amy” is someone I read daily and agree with maybe 50 percent of the time. On most of the matters on which we disagree, she is probably right and...more
It was a bleak and frigid night on I-88 somewhere in northern Illinois. The icy wind whipped across the flatlands, grazing the endless rows of white, brittle remains of lastScreen Shot 2017-03-23 at 6.09.47 PM year’s corn...more
For those of you who don’t know Mr. Olson, he’s a libertarian. :-)
I have to admit, I needed time to process this! I complain about these laws all the time, but would I really want to get rid of all protections for...more
This should have been an open-and-shut case. For the employer, that is, not the employee.
Lufkin Industries, Inc., had an employee, William Fisher, who was a 55-year-old African-American. One day, Mr. Fisher got into a...more
Documentation. What a pain! You have so many more important things to do. But taking the time to document is a good practice that may save you a lot of grief later.
I know that most of you already know what I’m about to...more
You need to hire some employees, and you want to pay them well, but not more than necessary. You place a call to a friend who works for one of your competitors and ask what her company is paying new hires in these positions....more
How much can you do – and not do – about your employees’ personal appearance and grooming? Take this quiz and find out! As usual, I’ll have the answers at the end, so if you get one wrong, no one but you will know....more
Karla Miller of the “WorkAdvice” column in the Washington Post had a doozy last week.
I’m going to assume that all the people involved in this story are female. I’m probably wrong, but that will allow me to make up fake...more
Employers should beware of being too quick to believe an employee who accuses a co-worker of wrongdoing. If the accuser has an illegal motive (such as discrimination or retaliation), and if the employer is “negligent” in...more
Employers, has this ever happened to you?
An employee has accused her boss of sexual harassment. Right now, it’s her word against his, but you might be able to find out the truth if you interview her co-workers.
The...more
Our friends at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have issued a Fact Sheet for young workers on religious discrimination in the workplace, which brought me back to the EEOC’s older Q&A and Best Practices on religious...more
It’s been a while since I’ve written about H.B. 2, the North Carolina “bathroom bill,” and I need to get with it.
Wrongful discharge claim based on discrimination is back. As we expected, on July 18, Gov. Pat McCrory...more
I don’t plan to post much more about North Carolina’s HB 2 “bathroom bill” until we start getting court decisions, but this is newsworthy.
As I’ve previously noted, HB 2 had a provision that eliminated the cause of...more
These will be really quick takes, since there are so many of them, on the proposed Enforcement Guidance on National Origin Discrimination issued this week by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (The actual document...more
You’ve heard of sex-based harassment, race-based harassment, and disability-based harassment.
But have you ever heard of Lego-based harassment?
Shawn Roy was terminated from his job because he was allegedly creating...more
For the background on this situation, please see my post from Friday on HB 2. I spoke for almost an hour Friday evening with reporter Greg Lacour from Charlotte Magazine, and he asked me to go through his April 4 article “The...more
Argh! I was hoping not to have to talk about HB 2 again (North Carolina’s notorious “bathroom bill”), but there has been so much misinformation about what it did to wrongful discharge claims that I’ve just gotta....more