How'd that happen? An employer who terminated an employee after he took intermittent FMLA leave for diabetes won its case, and recently won again on appeal. According to both courts, the employee appeared to be trying to...more
9/20/2024
/ Clearance ,
Commercial Driving Licenses ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Family Medical Leave ,
FMCSA ,
Honest Belief Defense ,
Interference Claims ,
Intermittent Leave ,
Medical Certification Requests ,
Performance Reviews ,
Retaliation ,
Termination ,
Wage and Hour
Election Day is almost upon us, Gentle Reader. Behave!
Dear Miss Mannerly: My employees have strong political views, and since the Presidential debate the other night, they are out of control. They are split about evenly...more
Easy? Ha! Last week, I posted about “fun” facts related to drugs and alcohol in the workplace. That post was an prelude to what I’ll talk about today: What employers ought to do. As I pointed out last week, marijuana is...more
9/6/2024
/ Alcohol Testing ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Controlled Substances ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Drug Testing ,
Illegal Drugs ,
Medical Marijuana ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Wage and Hour ,
Workplace Safety
Sober up, folks! Here we go. With the legalization of marijuana and cannabis products in so many states, dealing with substance abuse in the workplace has become ridiculously complicated.
This is the first of a two-part...more
8/30/2024
/ Alcohol Testing ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Department of Transportation (DOT) ,
Drug Testing ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Illegal Drugs ,
Medical Examinations ,
Medical Marijuana ,
Prescription Drugs ,
Substance Abuse ,
Wage and Hour
Warning -- I'm about to go on a rant. Do you ever read something in the news that just makes you go, "Sheesh, people!!!" Or words to that effect? And, no, I am not talking about the Presidential Election.
The Wall Street...more
If you follow these, you should be in great shape. Reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act continues to flummox many employers. But it shouldn’t be that hard, at least not in most cases. Here are...more
8/16/2024
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Documentation ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Wage and Hour
Learn from a real employer's mistakes. Imagine this scenario: You are advertising for an open position. You get three applicants:
•Applicant 1 meets or exceeds all of your requirements.
•Applicant 2 fails to meet your...more
This lawsuit seems destined to lose. Even in California. Have I said “You can’t make this stuff up” in the last six weeks or so? No? Cool. You can’t make this stuff up. In case you needed a cautionary tale about workplace...more
Asking about family history is usually illegal. Oh. My. Gosh.
United Airlines required post-offer medical examinations for its new hires. Nothing wrong with that -- it's specifically allowed under the Americans with...more
Employer's DEI mandate scores a win. A white guy refused to take his employer's mandatory "unconscious bias" training, and he was fired. He sued the employer for retaliation, his lawsuit was dismissed, and this week an...more
7/12/2024
/ Bias ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Discrimination ,
Diversity ,
Employee Training ,
Insubordination Policy ,
Race Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
SCOTUS ,
Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard College ,
Termination ,
Title VI ,
Title VII ,
Wage and Hour
Employers who (allegedly) didn't file are being sued. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced on Wednesday that it has filed suit against 15 employers in 11 states and in a variety of industries for failing to...more
What's legal, and what's not? Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in employment are increasingly being challenged in the courts. How much do you know about the legalities? Take our quiz and find out! This is a hard...more
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will begin accepting employers’ 2023 Component 1 EEO-1 data starting Tuesday, April 30. The last day to file the data is June 4.
The EEOC anticipates that its Component 1...more
The unconditional offer of reinstatement. Are you perfect? So am I. But I’ve been told that there are people in the world who sometimes make mistakes.
Sometimes employers do things that they think they have a perfect right...more
What takes priority? There was a social media storm this week after a large non-profit organization terminated a volunteer after the volunteer questioned the point of having preferred pronouns in signature blocks.
The woman...more
These steps could help keep you out of trouble.
An employee in a safety-sensitive job who has been diagnosed with cancer is selected for a random drug test. The test result comes back positive for TCHA...more
2/9/2024
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Cannabis Products ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Department of Transportation (DOT) ,
Documentation ,
Drug Testing ,
Employment Policies ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Marijuana ,
Medical Marijuana ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
THC ,
Wage and Hour
We gotcher employment law news right here.
The email platform that we use to send out our legal bulletins had issues in the past week, which we did not discover until late Wednesday. While the technical difficulties were...more
Don't shoot from the hip.
Let's say you have an employee who is in Week Six of "employee's own serious health condition" leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Her co-worker comes to you and tells you that the...more
Expect to see more of this.
A judge in Connecticut recently dismissed a lawsuit filed by a 26-year employee who developed early-onset Alzheimer's disease. According to the court's opinion, the employee had performed well...more
With some help from Charles Dickens.
Marlie was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of her burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge...more
12/22/2023
/ CFOs ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Hostile Environment ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Threshold Requirements ,
Wage and Hour ,
Willful Violations ,
Working Time Regulations
You won't want to miss this!!! You all probably read respectable news sources. I subscribe to a number of "sober" mainstream publications, but have a sick attraction to the Daily Mail and the New York Post....more
12/8/2023
/ Age Discrimination ,
Complaint Procedures ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Policies ,
Harassment ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Performance Reviews ,
Performance Standards ,
Protected Class ,
Recruitment Policies ,
Termination ,
Wage and Hour
Even if you didn't do it.
The recent proposed Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace published by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has some good recommendations for harassment training topics....more
Better to have the courage of your convictions.
I'm sure you've heard of "quiet quitting," when an unhappy employee does the bare minimum to get by and keep drawing a paycheck, but doesn't care much about the job beyond...more
Was that impolite?
Miss Manners (or her kids, who are doing Judith Martin's old column much of the time) have weighed in on some employment law issues lately.
They really need to stick to advising their audience to send...more
That's one way to get employers to allow remote work.
We all know that employers with 15 or more employees are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act and may have to provide reasonable accommodations to allow...more