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…
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 is because, generally, to avoid liability for sexual harassment, an employer must demonstrate that it undertook reasonable care to prevent and promptly correct harassment.
But the failure to investigate could cost an employer even more. Like a dead-to-rights retaliation claim too.
Really? Retaliation too? Yes. I’ll explain after the jump…
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 in Columbine-style shootings. She got suspended, but was later reinstated, and taught during this school year.
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 Supervisor, who is also on Facebook, cannot. Neither John nor Mary are Facebook friends with Sam.
ABC Company, John and Mary’s employer, wants access to Mary’s Facebook account. On behalf of ABC, Sam demands that John login to his Facebook account on a work computer and then allow Sam to shoulder surf as John views Mary’s Facebook postings. Fearing for his job, John relents.
Does Mary have a claim against ABC Company for invasion of privacy?
The answer follows after the jump…
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, eight votes shy of the 60 votes necessary for cloture. The vote came down strictly along party lines, with the two independent senators voting with the Democrats and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) not voting. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) changed his vote so that he could bring the bill up again.
In other news…
- The Eleventh Circuit Court of appeals ruled on Monday that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 permits claims for retaliatory hostile work environment. The decision brings the Eleventh Circuit in line with everyone else.
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…
“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.
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 a desire to join the circus. One employee even quit to join a rock band.
Hey, I’d love to be a rock superstar. (Not really, but it’s the only chance I’ll get to play Cypress Hill on this blog…like ever.)
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 to be lawful.
However, the report, as a whole, left me shaking my head. Inconsistent, overreaching, it’s a hot tepid mess. So, before you go all cut and paste on me from that sample policy, read my critical two cents after the jump…
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 Americans with Disabilities Act does not protect illegal drug use.
However, there are instances in which the ADA does protect medical-marijuana users. For example, an employee who uses medical marijuana to treat glaucoma may be discriminated against because of the employee’s marijuana use, but not the glaucoma. Assuming that: (a) the glaucoma is a disability; (b) the employee can perform essential job functions with or without a reasonable accommodation; and (c) and the employer takes an adverse employment action against the employee because of the glaucoma, the employer has violated the ADA.
For more on the CA case, check out Robin Shea’s post at the Employment and Labor Insider. For more on the interplay between medical-marijuana use and state disability-discrimination laws, check out this post I did last year.
The Employer Handbook Blog