Suppose an employee, an adherent of a religion you’ve never heard of, requests time off from work on certain religious observance days. The EEOC has some advice for employers: Because the definition of religion is broad and protects beliefs, observances, and practices with which the employer may be unfamiliar, the…
A bill introduced this week in the NY City Council would require employers to provide employees paid sick leave for pet care. Council members Shaun Abreu, Tiffany Cabán, Shahana K. Hanif, and Farah N. Louis have sponsored a measure to amend the Earned Safe and Sick Time Act to include the…
A recent Eleventh Circuit decision serves as a sobering reminder to employers why a plausible claim — a mere inference of bias – is all it takes for a plaintiff to pursue discrimination claims. The plaintiff is a white guy in his late 50s. In a complaint he filed in…
Last year, the EEOC published a resource to help employers avoid bias claims from using artificial intelligence. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor released its AI Principles and Best Practices guidance for employers and developers. Now indulge me as I quote liberally from the DOL press release: The Department’s…
When an employee complains about discrimination or unethical business practices, there’s often a concern that they’ll construe any subsequent adverse employment action as retaliation. In a decision I read last night, a Michigan federal judge determined that a company had not retaliated against an employee who was fired not too…
On Friday afternoon, the Federal Trade Commission notified a federal judge in Texas who had previously entered a nationwide injunction against its sweeping noncompete ban that the agency would appeal her decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The judge had previously ruled that Congress did not afford the FTC statutory authority to create…
Stop me if this sounds familiar. An employee has a bad day at work. His supervisor assigned him work that he didn’t want to perform. Clearly upset with the situation, the employee begrudgingly completes the assignment and promptly announces that he will go on vacation for a few days. However,…
Something caught my eye yesterday as I was perusing the EEOC newsroom. The federal watchdog recently announced that it had filed a lawsuit against an employer for something called Americans with Disabilities Act interference. What exactly is ADA interference? The ADA prohibits an employer from coercing, intimidating, threatening, or interfering…
About two weeks ago, I spotlighted an EEOC lawsuit where the agency claimed an employer fired a woman four days after she experienced a stillbirth and one day after submitting a confirming letter from her doctor, which also recommended six weeks to recuperate physically and grieve. The Pregnant Workers Fairness…
U.S. Department of Labor, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Over the weekend, Lilly Ledbetter, a woman who unintentionally became a champion of equal pay for men and women, died at 86. Ms. Ledbetter worked for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (Goodyear) from 1979 until 1998. During much of this time,…