Employees who want to take leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act must give at least 30 days advance notice if possible and practical. If 30 days’ notice is not practicable, for example, when the employee does not know when leave will begin, or if circumstances change or there…
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament began yesterday. Last night, I read that the average worker will spend seven hours watching it, with 26 percent of Americans saying they’re prepared to skip work altogether to watch. Cynically, I imagine some of these workers are currently on intermittent FMLA. Two things can…
Yesterday, several House Democrats announced the introduction of the Protected Time Off (PTO) Act to guarantee all full-time workers access to at least ten paid days off from work each year. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (VT), who proposed a 32-hour workweek last week, is introducing companion legislation in the…
“Miscarriages can be personally devastating. No one should have to choose between getting the pregnancy care they need and losing a job.” That quote comes from a senior U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission trial attorney as part of a press release announcing a settlement of pregnancy and disability discrimination claims…
Earlier this year, I wrote about a white employee in Colorado who claimed his former employer subjected him to a hostile work environment by requiring him to attend anti-harassment training. According to the plaintiff, this training included “sweeping negative generalizations regarding individuals who are white, and other gross generalizations about members…
Employment lawyers and human resources professionals regularly preach that managers must document employee performance issues as a best practice so that if/when that manager wants to terminate the employee, the company has the “receipts” to justify the decision. Suppose that the employee later sues for age discrimination. He may be…
The same week that the U.S. Department of Labor’s rules on analyzing and determining who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) took effect, both houses of Congress introduced legislation to shorten the workweek. On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Senate Committee…
Suppose one of your employees, a widget maker, takes leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. As a widget maker, the employee has a monthly quota of 100 widgets. The FMLA does not require an employer to adjust its performance standards for when an employee is on the job.…
(At least I didn’t say, “It depends.”) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who oppose a practice that Title VII forbids, such as discrimination or fostering a hostile work environment based on race, color, national origin, sex, or religion. An internal…
Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons I read a recent NJ federal court decision where a plaintiff began working for the defendant in New Jersey but later requested and received a transfer to Pennsylvania. And that’s when things went awry. The plaintiff alleged that, at an operation leadership meeting,…