Articles Posted in Hiring & Firing

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Last night, I read a decision from a federal court in New York involving a plaintiff, who is Jewish, who claimed that her employer and her supervisor discriminated against her based on her religion.

The plaintiff identified many incidents that, in her view, demonstrate bias against her as a Jewish person, either in the form of overtly anti-Semitic comments or what she refers to as microaggressions. Among them, the plaintiff claimed that her supervisor told her that she “does not want an old Jewish woman running a multicultural department.”

But here’s the thing.

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While recognizing the prevalence of automated systems, including those sometimes marketed as “artificial intelligence” or “AI,” and the “insights and breakthroughs, increasing efficiencies and cost-savings” that AI can offer, four federal agencies recently announced in a joint statement that they are ready to police “unlawful bias,” “unlawful discrimination,” and “other harmful outcomes” too. Continue reading

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Employment lawyers and HR professionals generally preach that employees view “it’s not a good fit” to explain their termination of employment as code for discrimination or retaliation.

It’s HR101.

But yesterday, a federal court of appeals explained that this well-intentioned but often misconstrued rationale isn’t always a thinly-veiled, pretextual excuse to fire someone. Sometimes, people aren’t “good fits.” Continue reading

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So when the plaintiff in this federal court decision I read last night cited as evidence of her employer’s heterosexual animus that her gay coworker received a cake and party by gay supervisors on his 30th work anniversary, whereas she did not receive cake or party for the same occasion, my Spidey senses were really tingling. Continue reading

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Last month, I told about a National Labor Relations Board decision to ban certain nondisparagement and confidentiality provisions in a severance agreement that businesses give to rank-and-file employees (i.e., non-supervisors) in both union and non-union workplaces.

But there remained some open questions. For example, does the decision apply retroactively to old agreements? What if the employee requests mutual confidentiality language or nondisparagement provisions? What other typical severance agreement provisions are at risk? 

Yesterday, we got answers from the Board’s top lawyer. (You may want to sit down and grab a whiskey bottle stress ball.) Continue reading

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