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The Employer Handbook Blog

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Noting “Health Reasons” on a termination form could indicate disability bias

Happy Monday, everyone. Glad to see I didn’t break some of your content filters on Friday with my filthy NLRB post. But, hey, just another day in the interesting life of an employment lawyer / HR professional, amirite? Today, I bring you a very simple lesson, courtesy of the Third Circuit Court…

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NLRB ok’s one of the filthiest employee Facebook posts about a manager … evah!

[WARNING: This post has some VERY foul language. Although the National Labor Relations Board may tolerate it, many of you may be offended].   By now, all of us have read the articles, which claim that the law permits your employees to complain about work on social media … and keep…

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Your ex-employee won’t tell you the password to your company’s LinkedIn page. Now what?

Your company has set up a private LinkedIn Group. Your company, which controls who may become a member of the Group, has seen the number of Group members swell to nearly 700. Way to go! Because it’s a private group, the names of all of the group members are not generally available…

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Pilot who ranted and raved mid-flight about a terrorist attack blames airline for allowing him to fly

One week ago today, a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people crashed and killed everyone on board. Since then, there is mounting evidence that the co-pilot, who was in great physical shape, was also suffering from mental illness which caused him to deliberately steer Flight 9525 into the French Alps. Why didn’t Germanwings taken preventative…

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Was the Ellen Pao gender bias trial a wakeup call or snooze for businesses?

I intended to begin the week with a post about a company’s legal obligation to predict — yes, predict — an employee’s mental fitness for duty. Then, I started on a brief tangent on Ellen Pao, the former partner of a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, who just lost a highly-publicized gender discrimination claim against said…

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The Employer Handbook takes on the world’s strangest job interview questions of 2015

The folks over at Glassdoor.com have compiled their Top Oddball Interview Questions for 2015. Except this year, there’s a twist. Glassdoor has grouped the questions by country: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany. So, let’s put these question to the test. I’m going to take a random “oddball” question from…

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English-only rules may be discriminatory….and violate federal labor law too.

A few years ago, I posed the question: Is a workplace “English-only” rule legal?  Yadda, yadda, yadda, sometimes. That is, in this Compliance Manual, the EEOC confirms that employers may adopt English-only rules under certain circumstances, insofar as it is adopted for nondiscriminatory reasons (e.g., safety, business necessity) and not to discriminate…

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Does a company invade an employee’s privacy by accessing personal texts on a work-issued iPad?

This “invasion of privacy” question is the lynchpin of a new lawsuit from two former employees of one of the largest beer companies in the world. The complaint (available here), which began in state court, has been removed to federal court in New Jersey. David Gialanella, reporting for the New Jersey…