When a longtime government agency employee sued her employer for violating the Equal Pay Act, she argued that the defendant paid her male coworker more for “essentially the same job.” In her mind, their roles “were complementary and [their] duties equal.” But that’s not enough to show prevail under the…
Over the past few years, employers encountered a spate of religious accommodations requests from employees seeking religious exemptions from getting the COVID-19 vaccine. Last week, plaintiffs filed a series of new lawsuits against a national drugstore chain, accusing it of failing to accommodate the religious beliefs of employees who objected…
On Wednesday, I blogged about a woman who worked as a “helper” for a construction company. She alleged that she had to endure misogynist comments from her general manager, who told her in front of others that, since she had “t*** and an a**,” she could not perform certain functions…
A woman received a promotion at a construction company from laborer to helper. Helpers either work on the ground or “at elevation.” The woman had experience working at elevation at another company. She wanted to work at elevation again in her new job to improve her skills because advancements would…
Last May, I wrote about this religious discrimination case involving an employer’s duty to accommodate a plaintiff who needed Sundays off to observe his religion. The court decided the case in favor of the employer, which led to this appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in August, asking that it revisit its…
I told you that the first Zoom Office Happy Hour of 2023 at The Employer Handbook would be a big one! Earlier in the week, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced here that it had released its draft of its Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP). Once finalized, the SEP will…
In December, I warned you that New Jersey’s Mini-WARN Act might get that employee-friendly overhaul sooner than you think. That prediction has borne fruit. (Especially for NJ employee-rights class action lawyers.) On Tuesday, NJ Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation to amend the effective date of the changes to NJ’s mini-WARN…
Yesterday, I wrote about a man who claimed that his employer retaliated against him by forcing him to resign after he objected to attending workplace training on anti-racism and gender identity. It was a good story. We employment lawyers have plenty of them. But, perhaps, it wasn’t great. But what…
The federal court decision I read last night reaffirms one of the many reasons I enjoy practicing employment law: I’ll never run out of good stories to tell. This one involves a plaintiff who worked as a security counselor for a state hospital in the Midwest. He alleged in his…
On Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a new rule prohibiting employers from imposing noncompetes on their workers. I wrote about it on Friday and spent the weekend reading all 216 pages of the official “Non-Compete Clause Rule Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.” So, let’s discuss it on Zoom today. Click here…