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Hiring & Firing Offensive Language

Hiring & Firing refers to the process of recruiting, interviewing and offering employment and the process of evaluating performance and dismissing employees. Hiring & Firing is a highly regulated area and... more +
Hiring & Firing refers to the process of recruiting, interviewing and offering employment and the process of evaluating performance and dismissing employees. Hiring & Firing is a highly regulated area and can create tremendous liability for employers who fail to properly adhere to acceptable employment practices. Some of the potential pitfalls in this area stem from discriminatory hiring practices, improper performance evaluations, and retaliatory firings.  less -
Saiber LLC

Appellate Division Upholds Termination of Employee Based on Her Facebook Posts

Saiber LLC on

​​​​​​​On March 21, 2024, the New Jersey Appellate Division issued a decision in Zack v. Integra Lifesciences Corp. in which the court upheld the termination of a White woman based on public posts she made on Facebook during...more

FordHarrison

EntertainHR: Michigan’s Miscue—Is Your Company Ready for a Social Media Scandal?

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Only a few days after being hired by the University of Michigan’s football program as the assistant director of football recruiting, Glenn Schembechler (son of longtime Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler) resigned after his...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Employer Discipline Lessons In DC Circ. Vulgar Protest Ruling | Insights & Events

A ruling of the National Labor Relations Board in favor of an employee fired for using vulgar language on a company bulletin board was affirmed in August by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. ...more

Proskauer - Labor Relations Update

D.C. Circuit Affirms NLRB Vulgar Graffiti Ruling

On August 9, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) had adequate justification to rule that an aluminum manufacturer (“Constellium”) violated the...more

Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart,...

Fifth Circuit Rules Age-Related Comments Must Be Specific to Defeat Summary Judgment

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a ruling concerning the discharge of Michael Harris from his position with the City of Schertz as the city marshal. In doing so, the Fifth Circuit gave a bit more clarity on...more

King & Spalding

Handling Errors: Flaws in Employee Investigations Risk Impeding the Facts

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One would assume if an employee were to openly use highly offensive racists slurs, unashamedly display Swastika tattoos, leave fake drugs on their desk, encourage children to physically abuse a colleague or urinate in public...more

Proskauer - Labor Relations Update

NLRB: Employer’s Good-Faith Belief in Employee’s Misconduct Insufficient to Justify Terminating Employee Engaged in Protected...

As we have often discussed, there is a fine line between protected and unprotected activity. Profane outbursts, deliberate misconduct, or highly-disruptive strikes may fall outside the protection of the NLRA, subjecting...more

Pullman & Comley - Labor, Employment and...

Speak No Evil: The NLRB Drops “Setting-Specific” Standards for Cases Involving Abusive Employee Speech Made in the Course of...

The Trump-era National Labor Relations Board has struck again.  On July 21, 2020 in General Motors LLC, 14-CA-197985, 369 NLRB No. 127 (2020), the NLRB overruled longstanding precedent and rejected “setting-specific”...more

DirectEmployers Association

OFCCP Week In Review: July 2020 #4

The DE OFCCP Week in Review (WIR) is a simple, fast and direct summary of relevant happenings in the OFCCP regulatory environment, authored by experts John C. Fox, Candee Chambers and Jennifer Polcer. In today’s edition, they...more

Littler

Littler Global Guide - United Kingdom - Q3 2019

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The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) provided useful clarity on when an act by an employee is done “in the course of employment” making the employer liable. The claimant had seen a colleague’s social media post featuring a...more

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

Employers May Not Have To Retain Racists, Sexists And Belligerently Disobedient Employees After All-The NLRB Appears Ready To...

It is lawful to discipline and even discharge an employee for making inappropriate or offensive remarks in the workplace. Indeed, current anti-harassment and anti-bullying laws may require an employer to take adverse action...more

Franczek P.C.

NLRB Upholds Employee’s Use of Offensive Language in Protest of Employer’s Overtime Policy

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In Constellium Rolled Products Ravenswood, LLC, the National Labor Relations Board recently ruled in a 2-1 decision that the employer unlawfully discharged an employee who had written “whore board” on an overtime sign-up...more

Holland & Knight LLP

California Update: FEHA Regulations Expand Protections Based on National Origin - Also Effective July 1, Minimum Wages Raised for...

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• Regulations issued on July 1, 2018, by California's Fair Employment and Housing Council (FEHC) expand the Fair Employment and Housing Act's (FEHA) protections against national origin discrimination. • California employers...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

The NLRB/EEOC Landmine – When Does Offensive Speech Amount to Protected Activity?

Employers need to be on the lookout for instances of offensive employee speech, which may put them between a rock and a hard place as they navigate potential claims under either anti-discrimination laws or federal labor laws....more

Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Second Circuit Holds Pro-Union Sentiment Outweighs Impropriety of Profanity-Laden Rant Against Supervisor, His Mother, and “His...

Dorsey & Whitney LLP on

Use of profanity by employees, whether in the workplace, outside the workplace, or on social media, presents difficult legal issues for the employer, as highlighted by a recent Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision...more

Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP

Fourth Circuit Upholds Termination of Public Employee for Social Media Comments

A politically divided nation can mean a politically divided workplace. While employers generally hesitate to react to employees’ expression of political views, some comments viewed as extreme, threatening or inconsistent with...more

FordHarrison

#Fired: Post a Tweet, Lose Your Job

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Many people enjoy spouting off what they view as 140-character tidbits of wisdom on the social media platform Twitter. But recently several individuals have found themselves in trouble with their employers (read: former...more

Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart,...

In Fresenius, the NLRB Admits It Was Wrong . . . Sort Of!

On June 24, 2015, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a new decision involving allegations that an employer had unlawfully discharged an employee who had scrawled sexually-oriented obscenities and threatening...more

Allen Matkins

Is Posting Obscenities Aimed At Supervisor On Facebook A Terminable Offense?

Allen Matkins on

Maybe not, according to a recently published NLRB decision. In Pier Sixty LLC, a majority of a three-member NLRB panel affirmed an ALJ’s decision that the employer violated Section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor...more

Fenwick & West LLP

Fenwick Employment Brief - April 2015

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Ninth Circuit Reviews Enforceability of Waiver of Right to Reemployment - Does California Business and Professions Code § 16600 prohibit employees from waiving their right to reemployment with prior employers? The...more

Robinson & Cole LLP

NLRB determines vulgar Facebook posts protected concerted activity

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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that Pier Sixty LLC, a New York catering service, violated federal labor law by firing an employee server after he posted a Facebook message protesting supervisory abuse...more

Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart,...

The Employment Law Authority - March/April 2015

In this Issue: - Immigration - State Round-Up - Best Practices - Retaliation - Employment Discrimination - Excerpt from Immigration; Spouses of H-1B visa holders will be eligible for work...more

Dechert LLP

Can Offensive Personal Tweets Justify Dismissal?

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Most of the case law in the UK on dismissals related to employees' social media activity has been at employment tribunal level and therefore the recent decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) in Game Retail v Laws...more

McAfee & Taft

UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS: Cursing employee denied unemployment benefits

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Hard to believe, but this spring was the first time an Oklahoma case answered the question whether offensive language directed by an employee toward a supervisor disqualifies the fired employee from receiving unemployment...more

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