Hiring & Firing

Third Circuit says VIPs cannot sue for Title VII discrimination

May 1, 2013 | by Eric B. Meyer

Robert Mariotti was the vice-president and secretary of the company his father founded. Not only was he a corporate officer, but Mariotti also served as a member of the board of directors, and was a shareholder who could only be fired for cause.

In 1995, Mariotti had a spiritual awakening, which he claims resulted in a resulted in “a systematic pattern of antagonism” toward him in the form of “negative, hostile and/or humiliating statements” about him and his religious affiliation. Mariotti claimed that this behavior ramped up for over a decade and, ultimately, resulted in his termination. Thereafter, he sued his former employer for religious discrimination. The company moved to dismiss the claim on the basis that a shareholder-director-officer is not an “employee” under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and, thus, has no standing to assert a claim for religious discrimination.

What happened you say? Well, even if you read the lede, click through for full analysis…

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Congress blocks proposed ban on requests for employee social media passwords

April 24, 2013 | by Eric B. Meyer

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, better known as CISPA. CISPA provides for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities, and for other purposes.

However, the majority vote was not without a speed bump, according to this report from Josh Wolford at WebProNews:

Colorado Democrat Ed Perlmutter attempted to tack on a provision to CISPA that would make it illegal for employers to require prospective employees to hand over their social media passwords as a condition of acquiring or keeping a job.

Perlmutter’s amendment was voted down 224-189.

GUEST POST: How Tech Creates Add’l Challenges in Today’s Workplace

April 23, 2013 | by Eric B. Meyer

Today we have a guest blogger at The Employer Handbook. It’s Noah Kovacs. Noah has over ten years experience in the legal field. He has since retired early and enjoys blogging about small-business law, legal marketing, and everything in between. He recently purchased his first cabin and spends his free time remodeling its kitchen for his family. Twitter: @NoahKovacs

(Want to guest blog at The Employer Handbook? Email me).

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New federal bill would ban credit checks on employees and applicants

March 5, 2013 | by Eric B. Meyer

Yesterday, I discussed some pending federal legislation that would expand the FMLA to cover part-time employees. Now, I hear that another bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, known as the Equal Employment for All Act, would amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to prohibit the use of consumer credit checks against prospective and current employees for the purposes of making adverse employment decisions.

A copy of the Act and more details on employer credit checks after the jump…

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New bill in PA would prohibit unemployment discrimination

January 31, 2013 | by Eric B. Meyer

In 2011, New Jersey passed a law banning discrimination against the unemployed. Will PA follow suit in 2013?

The ball is rolling….

The PA House introduced its own unemployment-discrimination bill on January 22, 2013, and you can view a copy of it here.

The 25 CRAZAZIEST job-interview questions of 2013

January 25, 2013 | by Eric B. Meyer

From my perspective, Glassdoor.com’s Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions For 2013 is one lobbed softball after another. Then again, I’m the guy who, as the interviewer, used to ask law students to name their favorite Supreme Court Justice of all-time.

{Totally a trick question. The only acceptable response is, “Judge Elihu Smails.” Never happened. Coincidentally, my tenure on the Hiring Committee was brief.}

But, before we call it a day, I’m sure you’re all dying to know how I would have answered four of the oddball questions:

School-bus driver calls student “little bitch” on Facebook, gets fired, and sues?!?

January 14, 2013 | by Eric B. Meyer

Of course she does.

What does the Complaint say? And what can employers take away from it? Find out after the jump…

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With employers like THIS, it’s gonna be a busy 2013 for the lawyers.

January 2, 2013 | by Eric B. Meyer

Same s**t; different year.

In 2010, an Ohio temp agency paid $650K as part of a Consent Agreement with the EEOC to settle claims that it had used code words in considering and assigning (or declining) job applicants. The code include words such as “chocolate cupcake” for young African American women, “hockey player” for young white males, “figure skater” for white females, “basketball player” for black males, and “small hands” for women in general.

Fast forward…

If your employee did THIS on Facebook, what would you do?

December 13, 2012 | by Eric B. Meyer

I did one of these posts a few weeks ago, where I wrote about employees getting sacked for a Facebook post and then offered you — the employment lawyers and HR pros — the opportunity to second-guess the termination decision.

Giving y’all the chance to weigh in nearly crashed my servers. So, let’s try it again with a new set of facts. But, be easy on my hardware.

Rhonda Lee is a meteorologist for KTBS-TV. Oh, did I say “is“? I meant “was“. She was fired based on two exchanges that occurred on the station’s Facebook page:

New “Top Jobs for 2013” list will make many of my readers VERY happy

December 12, 2012 | by Eric B. Meyer

Good news for HR professionals!

That, according to this recent poll from CareerBuilder and EMSI, ranking the best jobs for 2013 requiring a bachelor’s degree.

Coming in at #5 was “Human Resources, Training and Labor Relations Specialists.” The numbers reflect that the profession has added 22,773 jobs since 2010, which represents 5% growth. Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder, believes that the study results indicate that “[w]here the U.S. will produce the most jobs in 2013 is likely to follow growth patterns of the last few years.”