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
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee announced that it had advanced the Protecting Older Americans Act, which would invalidate forced arbitration clauses requiring employees to arbitrate age discrimination claims, whether for disparate treatment, disparate impact, harassment, or retaliation.
15 Senators voted in favor and 6 against.
Continue reading
Occasionally, I post about MONSTER discrimination jury verdicts, some in the seven and eight figures. I do it for shock value and, often, the clicks. (Guilty as charged.)
But posts about the subsequent remittitur, where a federal judge slashes the compensatory or punitive damages award to $300,000 or less, don’t get nearly as many clicks. Continue reading
Today, I will tell you about an employee caught sleeping on the job.
Several times. Continue reading
Yesterday, I wrote about how the DEA’s move to ease restrictions on marijuana would change the ADA landscape for employers by requiring accommodations for employees with disabilities who use medical cannabis to treat.
For now, however, marijuana remains a Schedule One drug. So, the Americans with Disabilities Act does not protect individuals with actual disabilities who lose their jobs for testing positive because the ADA does not protect individuals engaging in “the illegal use of drugs” within the meaning of the statute.
But what if the employee does not have an actual disability? Continue reading
Last week, the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration would move to reclassify marijuana (cannabis), moving it from Schedule I, where it’s currently listed with heroin and LSD, to Schedule III, with as less dangerous doctor-prescribed drugs like (Tylenol with codeine) and testosterone. Continue reading
Readers of this blog know that the EEOC recently finalized its new workplace harassment guidance and that one of the contentious issues in the guidance, according to a dissenting EEOC Commissioner, is the EEOC’s position that misgendering an employee, e.g., by consistently using the wrong pronouns, can violate Title VII. Continue reading
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division published new guidance reminding employers that the use of artificial intelligence and other automated technologies to track work hours, optimize employee performance, and administer leaves of absence does not excuse compliance with the laws that the WHD enforces, namely, the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act. Continue reading
In October 2023, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted to propose new Guidance on workplace harassment, the first voted document the EEOC had issued on harassment since its “Enforcement Guidance on Vicarious Liability for Unlawful Harassment by Supervisors” in 1999.
Yesterday, after receiving approximately 38,000 comments on its proposal, the EEOC published its final Guidance on harassment in the workplace, “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace.” Continue reading
You still have time to register (here) for The Employer Handbook Zoom Office Happy Hour, which returns today at Noon ET. My Pierson Ferdinand employment law partners, Ben Jacobs and Amy Epstein Gluck, will join me to discuss the FTC’s plan to ban most employee noncompetes and explore the Department of Labor’s proposed increase to the salary level for overtime exemptions.
See you soon!
The Employer Handbook Blog