The plaintiff in the case I read last night worked in Hawaii as a customer service representative. She was a clinically obese woman with a long history of diabetes and hypertension, resulting in physical limitations related to neuropathy in her hands and feet. However, her job involved sitting at a desk, taking…
If you’re 67 years old, you work in human resources, and you happen to hear those words from the company’s U.S. president, it may be time to dust off the old resume. Or contact the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The HR Manager for a Swiss-based national manufacturer did the latter.…
A client embroiled in an employment dispute with a former employee once asked me if we could force the employee into arbitration. So, I asked the client for a copy of the arbitration agreement that the individual had signed. After an uncomfortably long pause, I went back to drafting the…
Last week, the National Labor Relations Board made headlines when it concluded that nondisparagement and confidentiality provisions in severance agreements that businesses give to rank-and-file employees are unlawful. Yesterday, the Board made headlines again by releasing this Advice Memo in which it concluded that employees who engage in group discussions about issues of…
The Americans with Disabilities Act bars employers from firing someone because they have a disability. It also requires employers to provide workplace accommodations to otherwise “qualified” individuals with actual disabilities unless going so would create an undue hardship. Someone who is “qualified” can perform the job’s essential functions with or…
After completing a 90-day orientation program for newly licensed nurses, a woman was denied a full-time position as a Registered Nurse (RN) at a hospital and, instead, transferred into a lower-paying position at another facility that the same employer operated. The woman — we’ll call her “Plaintiff” as we usually…
I won’t bury the lede. Here’s the takeaway from this post. If an employer doesn’t know that an employee is pregnant, it can’t possibly discriminate against her because she is pregnant. That’s pretty much what happened in this 11th Circuit decision that I read last night. Here are the pertinent…
I’ve got some ‘splaining to do before we get into the meat and potatoes. First, if a company fires someone because they complain about discrimination, that’s retaliation. It doesn’t matter if the firing happens a day, week, month, or year later. If the complaint motivates the adverse employment action, and you get…
I read on the U.S. Department of Labor website that unions help employees improve the workplace with “enhancements” such as “flexible scheduling, protections against harassment and safer working conditions – that improve the quality of jobs and workers’ well-being.” However, a union non-profit that touts itself as a provider of help to workers…
There’s a reason that they don’t teach “clairvoyance” in HR certification courses. (Although, it would be nice to have it to avoid some hires, amirite?) Attendance issues lead to termination of employment. The plaintiff in the Sixth Circuit decision I read last night had attendance issues. Bad ones. Beginning in…