The Employer Handbook Blog

Yesterday, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued updated Enforcement Guidance on employer use of arrest and conviction records in employment decisions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Title VII is the federal statute that prohibits discrimination in the workplace based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin). You can read a full press release on the updated Enforcement Guidance here.

The press release includes a link to questions and answers about the EEOC's Enforcement Guidance. However, I will summarize the most important points for employers after the jump...

Continue reading "5 takeaways from the EEOC's new guidance on use of criminal records" »

A maintenance mechanic in Illinois received 28 disciplinary-action forms from his supervisor. Ultimately, he was offered two choices: (1) accept a demotion to a non-mechanic position and take a significant pay cut; or (2) keep the position, fight the discipline, but face potential termination.

On the advice of his union representative, the mechanic took the demotion. He later sued for retaliation, claiming that the demotion, which he voluntarily accepted, was a direct response to a charge of discrimination he previously filed with the EEOC.

Is this retaliation? A federal circuit court gave us the answer yesterday. And I have it for you after the jump...

Continue reading "Even a voluntary demotion can lead to a retaliation claim" »

Unfair treatment because of one's language may be related to race or national origin discrimination. Indeed, language may be used as a covert basis for discrimination.

But that's not always so. A recent case and some helpful nuggets on English-only rules after the jump...

Continue reading "Is a workplace "English-only" rule legal? " »

Allegedly, of course.

Details after the jump...

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Continue reading "What's cookin' in celeb chef Paula Deen's kitchen? Discrimination?" »

Today we have a guest blogger at The Employer Handbook. It's Janette Levey Frisch. Janette is In-House Counsel at Joule, Inc. where she provides comprehensive legal representation and support to a staffing company with five subsidiaries throughout the East Coast. You can connect with Janette on Twitter here and on LinkedIn here.

Janette's post on criminal background checks, which includes some best practices for employers, follows after the jump...

(Want to guest blog at The Employer Handbook? Email me.)

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Continue reading "Pepsi and Criminal Background Checks: Beyond the Buzz" »

Last week, a federal appellate court (here) allowed a white assistant manager to pursue claims of reverse race discrimination against a bank because the reasons that the bank offered to the court for firing the plaintiff did not jibe with the documentation in its own file. Oh, wait a minute, there was zero documentation in the file.

I smell some trouble for the employer and some good lessons for my business readers, after the jump, of course...

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Continue reading "This is why HR should timely document employee issues" »

I need to come clean with y'all. TMZ.com is one of my guilty pleasures. Don't hate!

And you should have seen the beaming smile on my face on Monday when when I got some blogging gold as TMZ ran a story about a former college professor at NYU who claims that the school discriminated against him by firing him for, among other things, giving actor James Franco a "D".

The monkey's out of the bottle now! More after the jump...

Continue reading "Fail! NYU prof fired for giving actor James Franco a "D"?" »

A longtime employee of the Secretary of State's office in Illinois claimed that two white managers targeted him for termination because he is black, and two white employees, one of whom was his supervisor, received lesser discipline even though they had engaged in the same alleged misconduct.

Is that right? Can a black employee claiming that he was treated differently because of his race compare himself to a white supervisor for purposes of proving his discrimination claim? Find out, after the jump.

Continue reading "Uneven discipline can lead to big headaches and bigger lawsuits" »

Note: The original working title for this post was "Yo! A-Yo! Federal courts in Philly and NYC get all catty and stuff". I mention this not because it's a recycled New Yorker headline, but because it puts into context the gratuitous shots I take at NY sports teams sprinkled into this post.

Back in March of this year, the United States Supreme Court in Staub v. Proctor Hospital recognized that an employee may have a tenable claim for discrimination under USERRA even if the person who fired him did not discriminate. That is, if a supervisor's bias motivates a firing -- even if the firing is carried out by someone else who is both squeaky-clean and higher up in the food chain -- then the firing is discriminatory. This is known as the "cat's paw" theory.

     Same goes for the MetsSince March, other courts have weighed in. As you know from reading this blog, on June, the Tenth Circuit held that the Staub decision applies to claims of age bias. 

And, this month, we get cat's paw decisions from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. One of 'em is good for employers. The other, not so much. More on these decisions and what they will mean for local businesses after the jump...

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Continue reading "Third Circuit delivers a cat's paw gouging to employers" »

The EEOC has been running this radio spot in Baltimore, Maryland:

"In connection with the class race discrimination lawsuit, the U.S. EEOC is looking for black individuals who applied for employment at or used to work for McCormick and Schmick's or M&S Grill at the Inner Harbor. If you applied to work, or worked at either restaurant, please call the EEOC at 410-209-2208. Again, 410-209-2208."

If you were M&S, what would you do? M&S got creative and sought an emergency order from a Maryland federal court to stop the advertisement.

Did it work? Find out, after the jump.

Continue reading "Can the EEOC legally recruit claimants over the radio?" »