In early 2020, an employee at a global food supplier left work early with flu-like symptoms. That day she obtained a doctor’s note recommending that she “stay out of work for three days, from February 19-21, 2020.” The employee requested to have five days off to recuperate. However, the note said nothing about her inability to work beyond those three days. Her employer terminated her on February 21.
On June 16, 2017, an employer issued furlough notices to employees at its West Virginia facility. Over the following weeks, 65 or so employees submitted forms requesting to take medical leave based on claimed minor soft-tissue injuries sustained while off duty. The forms were similar in content; all were signed by one of two chiropractors, and all called for a medical leave of eight weeks or more.
What would you do in that situation? Continue reading
The white woman many refer to pejoratively as “Central Park Karen,” after a videotaped dispute with a Black birdwatcher in Central Park went viral, was at it again. This time, appealing the “L” she took from a New York federal court in a race discrimination and defamation lawsuit against her former employer to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
How do you think that went? 😐
The plaintiff in this federal court decision I read last night didn’t exactly come off as a model employee. Continue reading
This will all make sense in a minute if you keep reading. Continue reading
If, like me, you deal with HR compliance and employment law issues regularly, you’ve yelled the title of this blog post at others.
(And if you don’t deal with HR compliance and employment law issues regularly, dude, WTH are you doing here?) Continue reading
Yesterday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released a technical assistance document, “Assessing Adverse Impact in Software, Algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence Used in Employment Selection Procedures Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” which is focused on preventing discrimination against job seekers and workers. Continue reading
Is it age bias? Or just business? Continue reading
Last night, I read a decision from a federal court in New York involving a plaintiff, who is Jewish, who claimed that her employer and her supervisor discriminated against her based on her religion.
The plaintiff identified many incidents that, in her view, demonstrate bias against her as a Jewish person, either in the form of overtly anti-Semitic comments or what she refers to as microaggressions. Among them, the plaintiff claimed that her supervisor told her that she “does not want an old Jewish woman running a multicultural department.”
But here’s the thing.
While recognizing the prevalence of automated systems, including those sometimes marketed as “artificial intelligence” or “AI,” and the “insights and breakthroughs, increasing efficiencies and cost-savings” that AI can offer, four federal agencies recently announced in a joint statement that they are ready to police “unlawful bias,” “unlawful discrimination,” and “other harmful outcomes” too. Continue reading
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