Close

The Employer Handbook Blog

Updated:

There’s a new COVID-19 whistleblower bill in Congress now. And it’s got real teeth! 😬

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay On Monday, Representatives Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Senator Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) introduced the COVID-19 Whistleblower Protection Act. It is part of a larger piece of legislation called the “Coronavirus Oversight and Recovery Ethics Act of 2020” or the “CORE Act.”…

Updated:

The five quotes that define and transcend yesterday’s landmark Supreme Court LGBT rights ruling

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash As you’ve no doubt heard by now, yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that an employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender has violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII is the federal workplace law…

Updated:

My employee doesn’t feel safe at work and wants to know if s/he can collect unemployment instead.

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay If you haven’t had this conversation yet with one of your current or furloughed employees, you inevitably will. So, what do you say? Well, I can’t begin to give you the rules for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. But, I can…

Updated:

It’s okay to invite employees to request disability accommodations, plus other brand new EEOC COVID-19 guidance!

Image by Oberholster Venita from Pixabay As a best practice, and in advance of having some or all employees return to the workplace, are there ways for an employer to invite employees to request flexibility in work arrangements? That’s the first of six coronavirus-related questions that the EEOC answered yesterday…

Updated:

OSHA just answered six commonly-asked questions about the use of masks at work

Image by Hatice EROL from Pixabay Yesterday morning, I posted on LinkedIn new guidance from OSHA on the use of masks in the workplace. Specifically, it was this series of frequently asked questions and answers relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s break it down a little further for you. First, let’s…

Updated:

How would you deal with an employee caught on camera mocking George Floyd’s death?

Image credit: J_avant81 on Instagram NBC10 Philadelphia reports here that a corrections officer in  New Jersey mocked George Floyd’s death as protesters marched past. Jason Avant, a former wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles, shared a video of it on Instagram (NSFW). Although there is political propaganda in the video,…

Updated:

Oh, here’s one more protest-related social media firing. And it’s a doozie!

LA Galaxy / CC BY-SA Ok, there is one more social-media related termination that we need to discuss. The virtual ink had barely dried on last Friday’s post about “13 people who were fired for ignorant COVID-19 and protest social media posts” when BOOM! TMZ.com reported here that a professional…

Updated:

Can an employer and employee agree to a furlough instead of FMLA leave?

By Dukesy68 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link On Friday, my friend, Jeff Nowak, blogged at his FMLA Insights blog about whether an employee may take FMLA leave during a furlough? And that got me re-thinking a question that he and I had discussed before, namely, can an employer…

Updated:

13 people who were fired for ignorant COVID-19 and protest social media posts

National Archives at College Park / Public domain I don’t usually take pleasure in the misfortune of others. At least not to their face. But over the past week or so I’ve been bombarded with Google alerts about ignorant people who seem not to appreciate the difference between freedom of…