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The Employer Handbook Blog

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No, the House didn’t really vote “to make it legal for employers to cheat workers out of overtime.”

So, I’m calling you know what on Senator Warren’s tweet last week. Yes, the U.S. House of Representatives did greenlight a measure called the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2017. This bill would allow, in certain situations, the substitution of comp time for overtime. And, if it passes through the Senate, the…

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The best way to prepare your workplace now for President Trump’s new Religious Freedom Executive Order

Yeah, that’s basically it. Keep calm and carry on. There was a lot of talk over the past week or so about how the Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty would create carte blanche for discrimination against LGBTQ and women. (Exhibit A, B, C). Yeah, that didn’t happen. Indeed,…

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Because of Sex.

…and because that title has a better ring than “Court Concludes Plaintiff Failed to Establish a Hostile Work Environment as a Matter of Law.” [cue music] Clickbait aside, there’s a point to today’s post. In a way, today’s lesson involves sex education. (Enough already! Stop it, Eric. You’ve got ’em).…

Posted in: Sex
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A trucking company agrees to pay $65K, because it didn’t hire an amputee to drive its trucks

Yep, we’re gonna continue yesterday’s discussion of how stereotyping and false assumptions can create yuuuuuuge Americans with Disabilities Act problems for employers. Last week, the EEOC announced (here) that a Texas trucking company agreed to pay $65,000 to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit. But, not just any ADA lawsuit. This one involved…

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Fear of the Ebola Monster, and acting on other stereotypes, can create scary ADA lawsuits

There are three types of disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act: a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities (an “actual disability”), or a record of a physical or mental impairment that substantially limited a major life activity (“record of”), or an actual…

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Court says setting salary based on pay history is ok. Just don’t base salary on gender. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When you have a man and woman performing the same job, you pay ’em the same. Otherwise, you’re violating the Equal Pay Act. Except, an employer can argue that a pay differential is lawful when it’s “based on any other factor other than sex.” [cue music] So, for example, when I’m…

Posted in: Sex
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Fired for accidentally live-streaming nude on the company’s Instagram page (oops!), now she’s suing for her job back

Yep. That’s me after reading yesterday’s Google Alerts; the ones I set up to capture employees doing dumb stuff on social media. Hey, before I get to today’s social media booty (pun, toooooootally intended), I want to remind you about two free live seminars I’m presenting with my friends at Kistler…

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Even one bad comment may create a hostile work environment, says Second Circuit

With all due respect to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, I’m glad, at least for this month, that I don’t practice there. You see, as I blogged here on Monday, the Second Circuit ok’d/protected an employee’s vicious, profanity-laced, social-media tirade against his boss, his boss’s mother,…

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Another employee emerges victorious in a social media legal skirmish. And, this one’s got an FMLA twist.

I was wondering how I’d top yesterday’s lesson on how to curse out your boss, his mom, and his entire family on Facebook…and keep your job. So, how about we do Family and Medical Leave Act and social media in one post! Yasssssssssssss! At this blog, that’s like the HR-compliance…