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The Employer Handbook BlogToday is Equal Pay Day. And here’s why, for the 14th time, the reintroduced Paycheck Fairness Act won’t pass.
In recent years, many states have passed equal pay laws.
At the federal level, well… Continue reading
Articles Posted in Sex
Here is what makes equal pay claims so difficult to win
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 Equal Pay Act. Continue reading
I’m not done with yesterday’s post yet. You need to hear about the retaliation claim!
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 of her job that would otherwise position her for advancement within the company.
But that isn’t the half of it. Continue reading
Is it sex discrimination to assign a woman different tasks than a man in the same job?
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 bring pay raises and advance her craft.
But there was a problem. Continue reading
How does an employee go from “promotable” to “expandable” to plaintiff claiming gender bias?
Litigators often counsel witnesses to answer, “I don’t recall,” rather than guess or speculate the response to a question at a deposition. But, sometimes, that approach can backfire. Continue reading
Now, here’s how you REALLY compare two employees in a discrimination lawsuit
During Thanksgiving week, I blogged about a Seventh Circuit decision and what makes a plaintiff alleging discrimination “similarly situated” to another employee outside of the plaintiff’s protected class whom the employer allegedly treated more favorably.
The Seventh Circuit concluded that a white man who was fired for effectively stealing from his employer was comparable to a black man with attendance issues. I told folks outside the Seventh Circuit to disregard this decision because I thought they got it wrong. But I never gave you any examples of cases upon which to rely instead. Well, let’s fix that today. Continue reading
Give this manager a gold star!
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GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Yesterday, we discussed why employers must adopt comprehensive, well-known anti-discrimination policies. That way, victims know what to do to get their complaints of harassment addressed.
Today, we’re going to focus on the importance of a prompt employer response that is reasonably designed to end the complained-of behavior. Continue reading
‘Central Park Karen’ believes its racist to call someone racist. A federal judge disagreed and dismissed her lawsuit.
You guys remember ‘Central Park Karen,’ right? Continue reading
In 2015, she sued for LGBT discrimination. One landmark SCOTUS decision later, she still lost.
The former part-time Director of Operations for a college hockey team was sure that her employer fired her because she was gay. Continue reading
My source told me that a federal court has blocked the EEOC’s recent LGBT guidance
Who is my “source”?
I got the scoop from EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas, who updated us on LinkedIn over the weekend about a Tennessee federal judge who entered this preliminary injunction to stop the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from implementing this technical assistance document issued in June 2021 that purports to explain employers’ post-Bostock obligations under Title VII concerning dress codes, bathrooms, locker rooms, shows, and use of preferred pronouns or names.
So, where did the EEOC go awry? Continue reading