Articles Posted in Hiring & Firing

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Image by DigitalShards from Pixabay

I’ve talked a fair amount recently about retaliation claims (here and here), mostly focusing on timing as the possible link between a protected activity (such as a complaint of discrimination) and an adverse employment action (like a firing).

The plaintiffs in those cases were unsuccessful in proving retaliation. And, in the case about which I’m blogging today, the employer almost prevailed on summary judgment too.

Almost. Continue reading

You’ve been here before.

One of your employees just complained about discrimination in the workplace. Or maybe s/he just participated in an HR investigation. A few days or weeks later, s/he violates your work rules and you have clear grounds to fire the employee.

Now you have a conundrum. Do you fire the employee and risk the retaliation claim? Or do you give the employee a pass?
Continue reading

Seal of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.svg

By U.S. Government – Extracted from PDF file here., Public Domain, Link

I want to give a little shoutout to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, with whom I am spending the day today in Atlanta at the 22nd annual Examining Conflicts in Employment Laws (EXCEL) Training Conference.

So, today’s post is chock full of recent EEOC news and notes. Continue reading

The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.

Well, it may not be the first rule in New Jersey workplaces – we’ve got plenty of those and many more added in the past 12 months – but the most recent rule in New Jersey: you don’t talk about salary history when interviewing job candidates. Continue reading

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Image Credit: Pixabay.com (https://pixabay.com/vectors/resume-unemployed-job-unemployment-2163673/)

Company A and Company B work together from time to time on certain projects. Both companies have invested a lot of time, money, and other resources into their respective workforces and do not want to risk employees switching companies. So, they enter into a no-hire or no-poach agreement; e.g., a ‘contract’ between two businesses where they agree not to hire the others’ employees during their business relationship and for some time after it ends.

Is that legal? Continue reading

Harvard University Widener Library

Joseph Williams [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Throughout much of the day yesterday, Twitter trended with news that Harvard University had rescinded the college admission of one of Parkland shooting survivors.

For something the school just learned that he did two years ago. Continue reading

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Image Credit: Tommy Boy (screenshot from Vimeo.com)

Last week, I wavered about whether to include a line from Tommy Boy in a brief that I was drafting:

“I tell ya what. If you don’t know how to fasten your seatbelt, just raise your hand and I’ll have Tommy Boy here come back there and hit you in the head with a tack hammer.”

Ultimately, I decided that it was bad form. One could reasonably construe my use of that quote as antagonizing and bit snarky. Moi?!?

So, I’m using it for this blog post instead. Continue reading

“Doing What’s Right – Not Just What’s Legal”
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