Billed as a way to provide more effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex, the Paycheck Fairness Act, did not make it out of the Senate yesterday. The Paycheck Fairness Act earned 52 votes in favor of proceeding to final consideration,…
The Employer Handbook Blog
No flush, but two of a kind win in a workplace toilet dispute
Hey employers! You know what’s stupid? My tongue-in-cheek pun on despicable workplace conditions. Depriving employees of bathroom privileges. Even dumber is firing them after they complain to state regulators about the lack of an onsite toilet. One company recently learned this lesson the hard way. Details after the jump… *…
The golden rule on forwarding emails at work
“An employee who emails pictures of Trayvon Martin‘s head cropped onto the body of a dead police officer is a thought-leading change agent.” — Absolutely nobody in HR No, he gets fired. According to this story from Chris Biele at FOX40 News in California, an employee in the state’s Employment…
That’s what they said: “29 different ways to say ‘I quit'”
Yesterday, I came across this post at EmployerLINC, which reprints this news release from OfficeTeam, offering up the many ways that an employer can be told, “Screw you guys, I’m going home.” (Donna Ballman, I owe you a nickel in royalties). The reasons for quitting ranged from mere boredom to…
Want a labor-law-legal social media policy? Bookmark this, I guess.
Yesterday, the National Labor Relations Board‘s Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon issued a new report on social media cases brought to the agency, this time focusing exclusively on policies governing the use of social media by employees. It includes a copy of a social media policy that the NLRB found…
The ADA does not protect medical-marijuana use, but…
According to a federal appellate court from California, a state that has embraced marijuana as an effective treatment for individuals who face debilitating pain, an employer may discriminate against an employee because of the employee’s use of marijuana. This holds true whether the marijuana use is recreational or medicinal, because the…
Federal legislation reintroduced to promote hiring veterans
To improve the reinstatement rights of returning war veterans, and to add more enforcement teeth to the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), Pennsylvania Senator Robert Casey reintroduced the Servicemembers Access to Justice Act (SAJA) last week. Details on SAJA and what it could mean for employers follow…
Fifth of vodka + whiskey + elevator shaft = no workers’ comp
From the blog that previously brought you “Smoke pot + grizzly bear bite (in the butt) = collect workers’ comp,” comes the story of the boozing builder who, well, I’ll let the Court of Appeals of Utah explain: Mr. Wood was engaged in work activities on behalf of Karr during…
How to lose a disability discrimination case in 5 easy steps…
What started out well for the employer… On April 29, 2009, Catherine Coffman, an employee of Robert J. Young Company, Inc. (“RJY”), got into a motorcycle accident. RJY provided Ms. Coffman with leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Just before Ms. Coffman’s FMLA expired, RJY offered to return…
Boss fires HR Manager to whom he sent w-2 (by w-2, I mean lots of porn)
A long-time county employee in Florida, who served as HR Manager, is set to file a federal discrimination complaint against her former employer, claiming that she was sexually harassed at work and later fired after complaining. The employer claims that it fired the employee for making false sexual discrimination claims…