Search
The Employer Handbook BlogThree Employees Refused the Same Drug Test. Only the White Employee Got His Job Back.
Management enforced its drug-testing rule. The exceptions it made afterward created the bigger problem.
The Employer Appealed a $1 Million Punitive Award. The Third Circuit Made It $2 Million.
The company had an anti-harassment policy, trained its employee-relations manager to investigate complaints, and opened one. Then it assigned the accused supervisor to counsel the employee who complained about him.
A RIF Needed One More Answer: Why Was the Employee on Leave Chosen?
Calling a termination a reduction in force does not make the selection process disappear. If the paper trail cannot explain the choice, a jury may get the opportunity to examine it.
Can Nonprofit Employees Volunteer to Raise Puppies? The DOL Fetches an Answer.
The DOL has finally answered the workplace question keeping America awake: May employees take home a puppy without bringing home an overtime claim? Please remain calm: the puppies are fine.
If the Duties Say Manager, the DOL Says Hands Off Other Employees’ Tips.
A supervisor can tend bar, cover tables, and help bus dishes. But under a DOL opinion letter, performing tipped work does not necessarily earn that employee a share of other employees’ tips.
Employees Spent 14 Minutes Walking to and From Lunch. The DOL Says the Employer Still Didn’t Have to Pay Them.
Apparently, even the walk to lunch can become a federal wage-and-hour question. The answer depends less on the distance traveled than on what remains when employees arrive.
She Asked for Unpaid Leave as a Disability Accommodation. Her Employer Offered 240 Paid Hours Instead. 😱
An accommodation does not become unreasonable merely because the employee would rather save it for vacations and family emergencies.
TL;DR: A federal employee experiencing depression and cardiac arrhythmia requested unpaid leave, a lateral transfer, or other help. Her employer offered flexible use of approximately 240 hours of accrued paid leave and, when no comparable position was available, a lower-level job. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the employer because the employee received reasonable options, even if they were not the ones she preferred.
A Manager Couldn’t Follow the Spanish-Language Meetings. His Discrimination Claims Got Lost in Translation.
A 25-minute meeting in Spanish allegedly became a two-sentence summary in English. That may be a workplace communication problem, but this court did not see race or national-origin discrimination.
She Requested a Pregnancy Accommodation. Her Overtime Disappeared. Then Her Job Did.
The employer approved light duty. Seventeen days later, it fired the pregnant employee over an alleged policy violation from two months earlier.
A Polygraph, Ayahuasca, and the Religious-Accommodation Claim That Survived
A job applicant told a polygraph examiner that she consumed ayahuasca as part of her religion. An agency adjudicator labeled it “recent illegal drug use,” and the tentative job offer disappeared.