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The Employer Handbook BlogIs it racist to falsely accuse someone of being a racist?
Let’s explore whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against accusations of racism.
Can states legally ban “woke” training in the workplace?
In 2022, Florida passed The Individual Freedom Act. But most people know this law as the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which stands for “Stop the Wrongs to our Kids and Employees.”
Whatever we call it, the Act says employers cannot subject “any individual, as a condition of employment,” to “training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels” a certain set of beliefs. The list of banned subjects generally relates to “woke” teachings on race, color, sex, or national origin. Florida employers can host these trainings but cannot require employees to attend them.
An employer that fired an employee for a positive marijuana test may have discriminated against him too.
Right or wrong, an honest belief may be all it takes to proffer a nondiscriminatory reason for an adverse employment action. Continue reading
The Employer Handbook Friday Zoom Happy Hour Returns on Friday, March 8 at Noon ET
The U.S. Department of Labor rules on analyzing and determining who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) take effect on March 11, 2024.
Has your business procrastinated in preparing for them?
If so, do not worry; I’ve got your back.
Continue reading
Instead of hiring a lawyer, a business owner ordered to pay wages used AI to prepare his appeal. It was a giant clusterf**k!
A multi-year dispute over unpaid wages went from bad to a whole lot worse for a Midwest business owner when he decided to appeal a trial court ruling that he owed over $300k in wages, damages, and attorney’s fees by representing himself and hiring an “online consultant” who used artificial intelligence to prepare an appellate brief. Continue reading
Should Mrs. Doubtfire have been paid overtime?
It’s not like I woke up in a cold sweat, fixated on this obscure bit of Fair Labor Standards Act minutiae.
But I did read this Eleventh Circuit decision last night, which did posit whether “Julie Andrews’s Mary Poppins, Martin Lawrence’s Big Momma, Fran Drescher’s Nanny Fine, Robin Williams’s Mrs. Doubtfire, or Vin Diesel’s Shane Wolfe…would have been entitled to overtime pay in the real world.”
So, let’s find out. Continue reading
Are we seeing a trend? More judges aren’t falling for spurious COVID-19 religious accommodation claims.
Earlier this week, I wrote about a judge calling out an employee for trying to cast a personal choice to remain unvaccinated against COVID-19 as some deeply religious decision.
Last night, I read another recent opinion from a federal judge who called an employee trying to avoid a mandatory vaccination requirement at his new job on his religious 🐂💩. Continue reading
How do we help an employee who blurts obscenities and racial slurs to our customers uncontrollably?
Recently, I read a recent federal appellate court decision involving an employee with a rare form of Tourette Syndrome that caused him to use obscenities and racial slurs. While that could be dicey around coworkers, this employee’s job required excellent customer service skills while making deliveries and interacting with said customers.
And that’s when things got complicated.
Can employers ban workers from wearing Black Lives Matter insignia to protest discrimination at work?
Photo by Brett Sayles: https://www.pexels.com/photo/slogan-black-lives-matter-on-black-board-4665903/
Last week, the National Labor Relations Board decided that a NON-union employer cannot require employees to remove “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) insignia from their work uniform when the BLM marking is a “logical outgrowth” of earlier group protests about racial discrimination in their workplace.
An employee who wanted religious exception for the COVID-19 vaccine got called on it. Guess what happened next?
I’ll bet nowhere on your HR job description is there anything about serving as the religion police.