One of the great things about having my own blog is the ability to share and engage with my readers in a number of relatable ways. Mostly, it’s through a casual — some may say snarky — discussion of trending legal issues affecting the workplace. But, every once in while, I like that…
One week ago today, a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people crashed and killed everyone on board. Since then, there is mounting evidence that the co-pilot, who was in great physical shape, was also suffering from mental illness which caused him to deliberately steer Flight 9525 into the French Alps. Why didn’t Germanwings taken preventative…
I intended to begin the week with a post about a company’s legal obligation to predict — yes, predict — an employee’s mental fitness for duty. Then, I started on a brief tangent on Ellen Pao, the former partner of a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, who just lost a highly-publicized gender discrimination claim against said…
The folks over at Glassdoor.com have compiled their Top Oddball Interview Questions for 2015. Except this year, there’s a twist. Glassdoor has grouped the questions by country: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany. So, let’s put these question to the test. I’m going to take a random “oddball” question from…
But, I’ll do my best to sort it out for you. Let’s assume that you have a pregnant employee who tells you that she has a lifting restriction. In the past, you have accommodated employees with disabilities who had similar lifting restrictions. You’ve also done the same for folks who…
A few years ago, I posed the question: Is a workplace “English-only” rule legal? Yadda, yadda, yadda, sometimes. That is, in this Compliance Manual, the EEOC confirms that employers may adopt English-only rules under certain circumstances, insofar as it is adopted for nondiscriminatory reasons (e.g., safety, business necessity) and not to discriminate…
This “invasion of privacy” question is the lynchpin of a new lawsuit from two former employees of one of the largest beer companies in the world. The complaint (available here), which began in state court, has been removed to federal court in New Jersey. David Gialanella, reporting for the New Jersey…
I’ve gotta hand it to the company in this recent federal appellate court opinion. The company almost — soooooo close — avoided several claims for unpaid overtime. Let me set the stage for you. So, there I was wearing nothing but feathers and a coy smile. Back in 2011, the U.S. Department…
Got a busted bracket in your HR Department’s NCAA Men’s Tournament bracket pool? Oh, riiiiiiiiiight. What bracket pool? I must be talking about that other company, the one with low-flow poop-stained toilets and the non-conforming employee handbook. #realtalk Well, according to this CareerBuilder.com survey, 1 in 7 US workers planned to fill out a…
Before I get to a 1752-word blog post about the National Labor Relations Board going wee-wee all over your workplace Cheerios with this March 18 report from General Counsel Griffin, replete with examples of how your employee handbook is overly broad and violates the National Labor Relations Act, let me do two…