The Employer Handbook Blog

All that for a bag of chips: Walgreens pays $180K to settle ADA claim

July 8, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

A few months ago, I blogged about a California federal court decision, which recognized that Walgreens may have an obligation under the Americans with Disabilities Act to accommodate one of its cashiers who opened a $1.39 bag of chips (without having paid for it first) because she was suffering from an attack of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).

That post was entitled “The ADA may require companies to accommodate employee theft. Yep, stealing.“

Unfortunately, definitive guidance on that will have to spring from another lawsuit. That is, Walgreens settled for $180,000 last week. A copy of the consent decree is embedded below (and can also be found here).

Why employee use of social media “off the clock” may still impact your workplace

July 7, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

A few weeks, ago I was speaking about social media and the workplace to a fabulous audience at the 2014 SHRM Annual Conference and Expo. (Email me if you want a copy of my slidedeck).

One of my session themes was that there is no such thing as employees using social media “off the clock.” That is, even if an individual tweets or updates her Facebook status outside of the four walls of the workplace, that communication can still impact the workplace.

Dan Davis at IBM Social Business recently blogged about this, and another Twitter user described it as the “24/7 social media conundrum” Two recent incidents described below bear this out.

The importance of communication during FMLA leave

July 3, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

How many times has an employee provided you with an incomplete Family and Medical Leave Act certification? Oh, I don’t know, maybe a missing return date…

If the FMLA leave is foreseeable, then the employee must provide the employer with the anticipated timing and duration of the leave. However, where the FMLA leave is unforeseeable — think, car crash — then that information can wait if the employee herself doesn’t know her return date.

But that doesn’t mean you — yeah, you employer — should let it go.

Dating app maker Tinder sued for, you guessed it, sexual harassment

July 2, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

I’m often asked, “Eric, where do you find this stuff?”

Why TMZ, of course. Break ’em off TMZ:

“Whitney Wolfe claims in a new lawsuit — obtained by TMZ — she was mercilessly brutalized by the other execs who wanted to remove her title because no one would take a site like Tinder seriously if they knew it was founded by a 24-year-old chick.

3 ways the #HobbyLobby decision affects your workplace

July 1, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Mid-morning yesterday, the Internet broke shortly after the Supreme Court issued its 5-4 decision in HHS v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc..

Jeez, I’m still cleaning out my Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook feeds.

In case your wifi, 4G, 3G, dial-up, TV, radio, and other electronics picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue, the long and short of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision is this: Smaller, closely-held (think: family-owned) companies don’t have to provide Obamacare access to birth control if doing so would conflict with an employer’s religious beliefs.

Black man claims a paint company’s paint is racist and he was fired for complaining

June 30, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

The Benjamin Moore color gallery contains, among others, Clinton Brown and Tucker Chocolate.

My virgin ears! I mean, how racist can you get?!? Or, so says Clinton Tucker, a former Benjamin Moore employee, who filed a complaint in New Jersey state court in which he alleges that these paint names are hella-racist.

According to Courthouse News Service (here), Tucker says that “being a black man named Clinton Tucker, the plaintiff found this to be extremely racially offensive.”

Supreme Court: President Obama botched those NLRB recess appointments

June 27, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Supreme Court.jpg In a unanimous opinion delivered yesterday (here) in NLRB v. Noel Canning, the Supreme Court concluded that President Obama’s so-called “recess appointments” of three of the five members of the National Labor Relations Board between the Senate’s January 3 and January 6 pro forma sessions were unconstitutional.

Amy Howe from SCOTUSblog.com summarized the decision “in plain english”:

“[A]ny recess that is shorter than three days is not long enough to make a recess appointment necessary. And a recess that is longer than three days but shorter than ten days will, in the normal case, also be too short to necessitate a recess appointment.”

Score? US Men’s Soccer’s permission slip so your employees can miss work today

June 26, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

I remember a high school classmate of mine who had his mom send in a permission slip to excuse him from missing school for the Philadelphia Phillies’ home opener. Mom’s note indicated that her son was suffering from “Vernal Flu.”

Get it? Vernal Flu = Spring Fever.

Pretty creative, huh?

#SHRM14 updates from the best of the bloggerati

June 25, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Sorry for the late past today, gang. I had planned on putting something together last night, but, two words: sushi coma.

So, here for your enjoyment, whether you’re attending the 2014 SHRM Annual Conference and Expo this year, like I am, or whether you’ve been following along online, is a collection of recent blog posts tracking the event:

“Dispatches from #SHRM14 Day Two: Keynotes, Conversations & Cultural Sensitivity” from John Nykolaiszyn

Nooses, n-words, and confederate flags, but no discrimination #shrm14

June 24, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Over the weekend, I read this opinion in a race-discrimination with facts so egregious, they’d make David Duke blush.

Let me set the scene for you. This is a workplace where, allegedly, several of the white employees displayed Confederate flag paraphernalia. I’ll spare you a verbatim review of the racial graffiti and epithets — you can view it here — but, it was pretty darn bad. And what about multiple nooses in the workplace — eight in total.

[Sidebar: I once attended a deposition of an Ivy League-educated HR Manager who testified that there was a time when she did not understand how a hangman’s noose in the workplace would offend a black employee. Hubba-what?!? Folks, just so we’re clear here, a hangman’s noose is the single worst symbol of racial hate. Period. So eight of ’em is hella-bad!]