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The Employer Handbook Blog
Articles Posted in Discrimination and Unlawful Harassment
Is it racist to falsely accuse someone of being a racist?
Let’s explore whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against accusations of racism.
Can states legally ban “woke” training in the workplace?
In 2022, Florida passed The Individual Freedom Act. But most people know this law as the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which stands for “Stop the Wrongs to our Kids and Employees.”
Whatever we call it, the Act says employers cannot subject “any individual, as a condition of employment,” to “training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels” a certain set of beliefs. The list of banned subjects generally relates to “woke” teachings on race, color, sex, or national origin. Florida employers can host these trainings but cannot require employees to attend them.
An employer that fired an employee for a positive marijuana test may have discriminated against him too.
Right or wrong, an honest belief may be all it takes to proffer a nondiscriminatory reason for an adverse employment action. Continue reading
Are we seeing a trend? More judges aren’t falling for spurious COVID-19 religious accommodation claims.
Earlier this week, I wrote about a judge calling out an employee for trying to cast a personal choice to remain unvaccinated against COVID-19 as some deeply religious decision.
Last night, I read another recent opinion from a federal judge who called an employee trying to avoid a mandatory vaccination requirement at his new job on his religious 🐂💩. Continue reading
How do we help an employee who blurts obscenities and racial slurs to our customers uncontrollably?
Recently, I read a recent federal appellate court decision involving an employee with a rare form of Tourette Syndrome that caused him to use obscenities and racial slurs. While that could be dicey around coworkers, this employee’s job required excellent customer service skills while making deliveries and interacting with said customers.
And that’s when things got complicated.
Can employers ban workers from wearing Black Lives Matter insignia to protest discrimination at work?
Photo by Brett Sayles: https://www.pexels.com/photo/slogan-black-lives-matter-on-black-board-4665903/
Last week, the National Labor Relations Board decided that a NON-union employer cannot require employees to remove “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) insignia from their work uniform when the BLM marking is a “logical outgrowth” of earlier group protests about racial discrimination in their workplace.
An employee who wanted religious exception for the COVID-19 vaccine got called on it. Guess what happened next?
I’ll bet nowhere on your HR job description is there anything about serving as the religion police.
145,000 reasons not to tell an employee they have “old-timers disease.”
Also, it is a bad idea to give that same employee a “retire-or-be-fired” ultimatum shortly after they return from bypass heart surgery. Continue reading
There’s one state where bringing a sexual harassment claim is much easier than the rest
In most places, a plaintiff who claims that their former employer sexually harassed them must establish that the conduct to which they were subjected was severe or pervasive enough to alter the conditions of employment and create a hostile or abusive work environment.
In New York, however, not so much. Continue reading