Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a series of August events highlighting the importance of maternal health and workplace protections for expectant and new mothers to mark National Breastfeeding Month. On Aug. 10, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. EDT, the department’s Wage and Hour Division and Women’s Bureau and the U.S.…
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? I don’t intend this blog post to answer that question specifically. However, there is an employment law analogy that I will address today. Plaintiffs alleging they suffered a hostile work…
Some of the tenets of good HR compliance include documenting and communicating performance issues and taking additional formal steps to alleviate them. If those steps fail, the employer can proceed with termination, being sure to document the reasons supporting the final decision. A 65-year-old client manager sued his employer, an…
Imagine getting the call sometime past midnight at an out-of-town national sales conference that you need to immediately investigate a complaint from an employee who says that his female co-worker has sleepwalked into a bed in his hotel room. That wasn’t on the SHRM-CP exam. Then again, no one forced…
On Friday, attorneys for over 500 current and former healthcare workers at a Midwest healthcare system announced that they had settled “the nation’s first classwide lawsuit” for employees alleging that they were unlawfully discriminated against and denied religious exemptions from a COVID shot mandate. You can view a copy of…
Hey, don’t judge me. You’re just as heartless reading this as I am writing it. The Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible employees the right to take twelve weeks of job leave because of a serious health condition.” When his leave ends, an employer must reinstate an employee to…
Folks, someday, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) may darken your door to audit your books and records. Perhaps, they’ll find a violation and require you to pay back wages and liquidated damages. If your next steps involve retaliating against employees who cooperate with investigators and…
Earlier this week, The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released the results of a poll, which found that 67% of Americans support term limits for Supreme Court justices, including a majority of Democrats and Republicans. Yesterday, a few members of the House introduced a new bill called the…
An employer fires an employee after the company has approved him for intermittent leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The employee begins taking leave in separate blocks of time for a single qualifying reason. Then, the employer fires the employee. So the employee claims FMLA interference. What exactly…
An individual who wants to bring federal disability discrimination and retaliation claims against an employer can’t just go right to court. No, courts would choke with employment lawsuits. Instead, she must first exhaust her administrative remedies at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by filing a charge of discrimination. But…