Under federal law, the bar is set higher for proving age discrimination, as opposed to other forms of unlawful discrimination based on protected classes such as race, gender, or disability.
While difficult to prove, a recent article from The New York Times suggests that age discrimination in the workplace may be more common than we realize.
More on this after the jump…
You’ve probably heard of this It’s Just Lunch, a Hallandale Beach-based company, even though you may not realize it. I’ll give you a hint. Have you flown recently? Yeah, that’s right. It’s Just Lunch is a matchmaking service that advertises around page 55 of the in-flight magazine of just about every domestic airline.
According to the company’s About IJL page, It’s Just Lunch was founded in 1991 by a resourceful, professional woman. Now go to the home page, scroll down the page to the right and look at the pictures of the It’s Just Lunch “Dating Specialists.” Notice anything in common?
Yeah, the EEOC did too. So, it filed this complaint in federal court.
The company that likes defending age-discrimination claims, that’s who.
More after the jump…
So much labor-and-employment-law news this week, I’ll do what I can to cram it into a single post. Here goes…
From Seth Borden at Labor Relations Today comes this news about the Senate agreeing to — gasp — seat a full five-member National Labor Relations Board. How could this happen? Something about a nuclear option and compromising photos..
Staying with the labor theme, Joel Barras at Employment Law Watch reports here about a recent advice memorandum from the NLRB’s General Counsel in which the GC concludes that employers must bargain with their unions before implementing new social media policies. No shock there.
So, by now, all of you must be familiar with the case in Iowa — I’ve blogged the heck out of it here and here — where the male dentist fired the attractive female hygienist, ostensibly because his wife was concerned that the hygienist’s continued employment might affect their marriage and because the dentist was concerned that he may eventually shag her.
Late last year, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously held (here) that there is no sex discrimination if a male employer terminates a long-time female employee because the employer’s wife, due to no fault of the employee, is concerned about the nature of the relationship between the employer and the employee.
Then, a few weeks ago, and after a lot of public scrutiny, the high court agreed to reconsider its unanimous ruling, which it did with this new opinion issued on Friday.
Normally, I get my Thursday post fodder from the Wiggity Wiggity Wonky Wednesday edition of Cracked Magazine. Hard hitting stuff like “7 Dick Moves Everyone Pulled in Classic Video Games” and “The Worst Imaginary Friends to Be Stuck With.”
But, for today’s post, I read this newspaper called the Washington Post. I dunno. Must’ve sprung up overnight.
One its writers, Ruth Tam, writes here that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) has cleared a bipartisan Senate committee:
In mid-June, the American Medical Association concluded that obesity is a disease “requiring a range of medical interventions to advance obesity treatment and prevention.” This news led Jon Hyman at the Ohio Employer’s Law Blog to conclude that classification of obesity as a “disease” has huge employment law implications; namely, that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers would have to consider allowing for reasonable accommodations for obese employees. Indeed, even before the AMA guidance, a Louisiana court determined that morbid obesity was a disability under the ADA, thus requiring reasonable accommodation.
Well, last month, a state court in West Virginia concluded otherwise. More on this decision and its impact on employers after the jump…
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Hey, they can’t all be about Brazilian waxes and irresistible attraction. After the jump, we get down and dirty.
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You know, maybe I should have gone with the porta-potty-harassment post that I originally had planned for today. Nah. My analytics tell me that my best-received posts have a common theme: crotch and Brazil. Besides, everyone knows that nothing says Friday like a porta-potty post. Just wait ’til Friday.
So today, after the jump, let’s wax poetic, shall we?
(Ouch, again).
Want an explanation of yesterday Supreme Court decision regarding challenges to California’s ban on same-sex marriage and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, check out Amy Howe’s analysis “In Plain English” at SCOTUSblog.com.
And for more on yesterday’s decision and the impact it may have on your business, check out:
The Employer Handbook Blog