A cocktail server with a foot disability wore Skechers sneakers for two years under an accommodation her employer granted. When new management decided sneakers didn’t meet appearance standards, the employer narrowed the accommodation and eventually terminated her for refusing to comply. Most of the lawsuit went with her.
A racial slur used in 2007 was still admissible evidence at a 2024 trial. The employer’s failure to address it helped produce a $21 million verdict.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice told the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that it has been applying its disparate-impact guidelines unconstitutionally.
That’s awkward, right?
Well, perhaps not. For most employers, it may be even less than that.
It didn’t take a formal leave request. It didn’t take a doctor’s note. One email asking for FMLA forms was enough to trigger retaliation protection.
The EEOC approved a new National Enforcement Plan last week, and for the first time in recent memory ever, the agency has put DEI programs, religious accommodations, and national origin bias against American workers on the same priority list.
A federal appeals court ruled in 2024 that New Jersey job applicants had no legal recourse when employers rejected them over a positive recreational cannabis test. The New Jersey Appellate Division just disagreed.
If your quarterly bonus is calculated as a proportional share of each employee’s total earnings — straight time plus overtime — the DOL says you do not owe any additional overtime on top of it. The overtime premium is already in the math.
An employee at a large secured facility argued that a 30-minute meal break was effectively coercive because the walk to the parking lot consumed most of it. The DOL disagreed — and the reasoning applies to any employer whose physical layout makes leaving the premises during a break impractical.
Some salaried employees want to pick up extra hourly shifts — in a warehouse, on a retail floor, at a patient bedside. The DOL just confirmed that arrangement can work under the FLSA, with conditions worth understanding before you build it into your scheduling.
Seven minutes doesn’t sound like much. Multiply it by 18,000 employees, every workday, and it’s a wage and hour audit waiting to happen.
The Employer Handbook Blog