Yesterday, we covered whether the Family and Medical Leave Act allows women who have an abortion to obtain leave for a serious health condition. Today, we’ll talk about the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), which amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit employers from taking adverse employment…
Articles Posted in Hiring & Firing
A federal appellate court made it difficult to blame ’20-’21 large layoffs on COVID-19
Days since I’ve blogged about COVID-19 = 78 0. I promise(ish), this one will be interesting. And for those of you with businesses that had a mass layoff or plant closing because of COVID-19, it will be horrifying. You see, I just got finished reading a Fifth Circuit decision in…
These free resources can help you avoid disability discrimination claims when hiring using artificial intelligence
More employers now are using software, algorithms, and artificial intelligence to make smarter hiring decisions. There’s nothing inherently unlawful about that. Except, consider this. Maybe the algorithm intentionally or unintentionally “screens out” an individual with a disability, even though that individual can do the job with a reasonable accommodation. Tangentially, an…
Did a middle school break the law because it allegedly fired a teacher for discussing her pansexuality in class?
Probably not. My Google Alerts were blowing up this weekend with reports of the story: Florida teacher allegedly fired after discussing sexuality with students Florida Teacher Fired for Discussing Sexual Orientation Sparks Debate Teacher Says She Was Fired After Talking to Students About Sexuality Most of the reports I read…
Healthcare CEO gets fired after viral TikTok video altercation with a boy in a red dress, sues Kathy Griffin.
I’ll take “blog post titles that I never thought I’d be using in 2022 ever” for $500. On this blog, I’ve often said that employees may have freedom of speech on social media. But their actions can have consequences at work because there is no corresponding constitutional right to a…
Two gifts for employers from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is providing strategies for employers to expand employment opportunities for workers with unemployment gaps. And there’s also a double-secret EEO-1 Component 1 Report filing extension. Employing the unemployed Last week, the EEOC and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance…
Can an employee legally be fired for using over-the-counter CBD products?
Last night, I read this federal court opinion where a defendant, sued after firing a plaintiff who used CBD for her disability, got the entire case dismissed. So, let’s talk about how and why. According to the plaintiff’s complaint, she had a disability for which she used an over-the-counter CBD…
2021 EEO-1 Component 1 data collection is now open
In case you somehow missed the EEOC’s big announcement – I cut the ribbon – all private-sector employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees meeting specific criteria have until May 17, 2022 to submit workforce demographics, including data by race/ethnicity, sex, and job…
No, this sign that your boss posted in the breakroom is NOT legal.
Image Credit: u/AMasterfulWriter on Reddit. Not even in Kentucky. Over on the r/antiwork Subreddit, a goldmine for employment law blog fodder, a Redditor posted this notice that a boss displayed in the breakroom at work and asked, “is this sign legal?” The sign reads: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, CONVERSING ABOUT WAGES (BOTH…
This manager’s April Fool’s Day prank backfired MONUMENTALLY!
Imagine showing up to work last Friday only to have your boss tell you that you are fired, laugh, and walk off. This supposedly happened to a Reddit user who posted about it here in the r/antiwork subreddit. According to the Redditor, he spent the next two hours following his…