Last night, I went shopping on Amazon for a new stool. At $48.90, this one came recommended as excellent value for money. And I almost bought it. But then the stool snob in me made me want to splash some of that blogging cash, $6,837.02, to be precise. And Voilà!…
The Employer Handbook Blog
Help Wanted: Bartender. Must be biologically male
Notice anything potentially unlawful here? Yesterday, several of us spoke with The Philadelphia Inquirer about the problem with a local restaurant’s job ad discouraging trans men (and any women) from applying.
Reasonable accommodations for disabled employees need to be reasonable, not perfect
I won’t bury the lede, which I’ll quote from the Fourth Circuit decision I read last night. The [Americans with Disabilities Act] requires reasonableness, not perfection. Reasonableness does not demand that an accommodation have an airtight solution to every contingency conceivable. Its dictates are tethered to the practical realities of…
Here are forty thousand reasons why “equal pay for equal work” applies to male victims too
A federal law called the Equal Pay Act requires that men and women in the same workplace receive equal pay for equal work. The jobs need not be identical, but they must be substantially equal. While women often seek relief under this statute, a state government agency learned the hard…
An employer’s response to a complaint of harassment doesn’t need to be perfect. Just ok may do.
Remember that AT&T ad campaign a few years ago where the mobile network provider touted how cell phone users should not have to settle for mediocre phone service? “Just ok is not ok.” In the workplace, however, “just ok” may be good enough when responding to employee complaints of harassment.…
Next time, maybe she’ll just get that tattoo.
Trust me. The title of this post will make sense in about a minute or two. Last year, a small sports bar and restaurant sought summary judgment to dismiss the age discrimination claims one of its former employees had asserted against the company. The company’s position was that it ended…
Did this guy’s performance really nose-dive? Or did his age motivate his abrupt termination?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. One of your employees has been with the company for several years. Over that span, they reported to the same manager, who consistently provided positive feedback and good performance reviews. All is well. Then, the manager leaves. And there’s a new sheriff…
Employee claims bias when employer failed to hire an inferior candidate.
“Uh, Eric, don’t you mean the superior candidate?” You’d think I would, but I’m reading what the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in this recent opinion. The plaintiff, a black woman, applied for a job. The company conducted two rounds of interviews, with separate panels in each round, to…
Folks, we have our first lawsuit to try to KO the DOL’s new independent contractor rule
It took less than a week for a group of freelance writers and editors to file this federal court lawsuit to block enforcement of the U.S. Department of Labor’s new independent contractor rules, which I wrote about here last week. If you thought the DOL’s final rule would sail through without…
Let’s revisit how to handle FMLA and FLSA for a snow day office closure.
Back in the day, the mere promise of Cheerios and chocolate milk was all it took to dupe my two oldest kids (then three and five) to shovel the driveway for a few hours. Come to think of it, I preferred the stick to the carrot. So I probably threatened…