With most eyes focused on a pending lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to eliminate the FTC’s noncompete ban, local employers may have missed the news last week that Governor Shapiro signed into law a measure restricting the use of non-competition agreements in the healthcare industry.
Yesterday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that a Pennsylvania-based construction company will pay $50,000 and furnish other relief to settle a retaliation lawsuit.
Earlier this month, a federal appellate court addressed a few situations involving retaliation claims in the workplace in which parties (and sometimes courts) may misapply the law, namely, Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964.
So, let’s clear this up. Continue reading
An employer recently learned the hard way that a proper response to an employee’s complaint of harassment involves more than simply investigating it.
I’ll explain. Continue reading
The words “cisgender” or “non-transgender” employee appear nowhere in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal workplace law that outlaws gender discrimination. But, according to a Pennsylvania federal judge, “that does not preclude the possibility that discrimination against both a cisgender male and cisgender female may be independent Title VII violations.”
I’ll explain why. Continue reading
Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
I read a recent NJ federal court decision where a plaintiff began working for the defendant in New Jersey but later requested and received a transfer to Pennsylvania.
And that’s when things went awry. Continue reading
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
Wait a minute, Eric! Weren’t you just telling us that anti-harassment training is part of the backbone of a compliant workplace?
I did. But, occasionally, employers can step over the line. Continue reading
Suppose that several employees complain that a coworker is creating a “hostile work environment” because they were afraid that she (the coworker) was going to report them (the employees) for engaging in unspecified misconduct in the workplace.
Can the employer respond by mandating an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) referral as a condition of the coworker’s continued employment?
The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination based on a disability concerning employment. That includes refusing to hire someone based on an actual disability, a perceived disability, or a record of disability.
Whether an employer regards a job applicant as having a disability or learns about a record of a disability, an employer cannot lawfully refuse to hire them because they are receiving addiction treatment — even if that means the individual is currently in a methadone maintenance program.
The Employer Handbook Blog