One of my favorite reads on NJ employment law is Ogletree Deakins’s New Jersey eAuthority. The June 2012 issue highlights several pieces of legislation now pending in NJ of which employers should take note. I’ve summarized four of them after the jump… * * * Severance yes, unemployment compensation…
The Employer Handbook Blog
Employer’s failure to investigate harassment creates retaliation claim
If an employee complains that her supervisor is sexting her, making unwelcome physical contact, and telling her that she can get a better work schedule in exchange for “small favors,” you better damn well investigate that! Ignore it and you risk losing a valuable defense to sexual harassment claim. This…
The teacher who blogged about her “dunderhead” students is back!
And she’s making news again… It’s been nine long months since I blogged about a favorite of The Employer Handbook: Natalie Munroe. You can read about her here, here, here, and here. She is the PA teacher who, on her blog, described her students as argumentative f*cks who may engage…
Do employees have protected privacy rights in Facebook postings?
John and Mary are co-workers. They are also Facebook friends. And both John and Mary have adjusted their respective Facebook privacy settings such that only Facebook friends can view what they post online from their individual accounts. Consequently, John and Mary can view each other’s Facebook posts, but Sam the…
Paycheck Fairness Act fails in the Senate, plus other news…
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,…
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…