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The Employer Handbook BlogThe guy fired for grab-ass at work may have been discriminated against
Articles Posted in Discrimination and Unlawful Harassment
Social media? Anti-harassment? No workplace policy can prevent something this stupid…
On MLK Day, with a few of my co-workers and my four-year-old son, I performed community service. We went to a local center and spent a few hours making peanut butter sandwiches to feed the homeless.
Actually, we spent a half-hour or so making sandwiches. Most of us spent the remainder of the time continuing to make sandwiches, while my son ate peanut butter.
Win-win.
GUEST POST: What legal rights do unpaid interns have?
Today we have a guest blogger at The Employer Handbook. It’s Samantha Hopkins. Samantha is a law student who just received her big break.
She gets to guest blog at The Employer Handbook!
(Want to guest blog on an employment-law topic at The Employer Handbook? Email me).
* * *
Why a single kiss could have one employer in boiling hot legal water
I give a lot of “respect in the workplace” trainings. And I generally tell the audience that, while a single offensive comment or act in the workplace is one incident too many, one instance generally does not create a winning lawsuit. That’s because a plaintiff must show that he/she was subjected to either severe (really, really bad) or pervasive (a lot of bad) behavior to establish a hostile work environment.
Now, there are some exceptions. New Jersey is one of the few states that has held that a single discriminatory comment can create an actionable hostile work environment claim.
But what if, instead of a slur, we have an assault; one which the plaintiff claims was not only unwelcome, but particularly disturbing?
And we have an early contender for worst employment-law decision of 2014
That may be sugar coating it a bit.
A county employee, who applied for a lateral transfer, and ultimately received that transfer, was able to convince two judges on a federal appellate court that the transfer was discriminatory.
That’s right. An employee may have a discrimination claim for receiving the specific transfer he requested.
Maybe Facebook can’t tell you if a candidate is worth hiring, after all
According to a recent study soon to appear in the Journal of Management, not only is Facebook a horrible predictor of how younger recruits will perform for your business — there is absolutely zero correlation between Facebook activity and job performance — but those who rely upon Facebook to help judge potential younger recruits, are more likely to disqualify African-American and Hispanic candidates, in favor of Caucasian Facebook users.
Kashmir Hill details the study here in a recent article on Forbes.
So, if failing to meaningfully distinguish between younger job candidates, while increasing your odds of being sued for disparate-impact discrimination appeals to you, well then, have at it hoss!
ADA leave requests may be verbal or written, just not telepathic
Sorry, Aquaman. You’re SOL, son.
But Aquaman does love to get down to MGMT, I’m told. So here you go…
Same goes for the plaintiff in this case — the telepathy part, not MGMT — in which the employer had a leave policy which dictated that employees may take up to six months of leave if unable to perform his/her job with or without reasonable accommodation. After that, it’s sayonara, unless prohibited by law, or if the employee requests a leave extension.
Judge slashes jury award for black plaintiff called the “N”-word — by her black boss
Back in September, 2013, I blogged here about a NY jury finding that a black plaintiff called the n-word — by her black boss — had been subjected to race discrimination.
Actually, her boss called her the n-word eight times!
“Well, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that’s 103 fewer times than the ‘N’-word was used in Django Unchained,” is what the defense’s closing argument sounded like, I imagine.
EEOC thrashes Scientologist employer that allegedly made workers scream at ashtrays
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know much about Scientology.
Why, my Scientology acumen could fill a thimble. Basically, I know that Tom Cruise is a Scientologist and Katie Holmes was a Scientologist; but, not anymore. Anything else comes from my favorite gossip blog, The Superficial, which is barely, if at all, safe for work.
(Although, I can guarantee you that if you search that blog for the word “Scientology,” the results will be anything but).
The most clicked, hella-best HR-compliance updates from 2013!!!
Ah, it was a good year at the ole Handbook.
Total web traffic was up over fifty percent from 2012. And average time per visit was down over 20%, which is fine by me. I pad my important stats, while discouraging loitering.
And we got our first visitor from Uzbekistan. And the fifth most common search phrase that brought visitors to the site was “Kenny Powers.”