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Discipline / Investigations

Don’t require staff to give emergency contact info

03/01/2006

Q. We’re cleaning up our personnel files and updating emergency contact information. Some employees don’t want to provide their contact information. Is it legal for us to require them to give it to us? —S.S., California

Beware of a growing risk: harassment by customers

03/01/2006

Too many employers think harassment is a problem only when it’s an employee-on-employee thing. Recent court rulings prove that you can be held liable even when outsiders harass your employees. Taking action may cost you a customer, but courts say defending employees must come first …

EEOC Targeting Cases of Years-Old Discrimination

02/01/2006

Don’t think that an employee who quietly suffers name-calling for years can’t sue. Courts and the EEOC won’t be swayed by your argument that "he put up with it for 20 years, so how bad could it have been?" …

Pregnancy is no joking matter; ‘Prego’ is akin to a racial slur

02/01/2006

If your supervisors think little jokes about pregnancy and childbirth are nothing but harmless banter, set them straight. Use the following case to remind them that singling out pregnant employees is legally dangerous …

Nonunion worker’s pay complaint is protected activity under NLRA

02/01/2006

A new court ruling offers more reason to remind your supervisors to discipline employees based on objective work-based standards. Never punish employees for discussing compensation or job conditions with their co-workers …

Office romance: Don’t ban it; manage it the right way

02/01/2006

Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on a person’s sex. When office romances sour, scorned lovers often use this law to allege that their former lover was a sexual harasser …

Show your defense cards early in the lawsuit game

01/01/2006

By having a tough anti-discrimination policy and a clear complaint procedure, you establish what lawyers call an "affirmative defense," meaning you have a weapon to defend yourself in court. But you must put forth those affirmative defenses very early in a lawsuit …

Harassment victims aren’t immune from discipline; document actions

12/01/2005
Retaliating against employees for filing harassment complaints is an obvious no-no. But that doesn’t mean employees automatically earn a “Do not touch” label …

When is employee insubordination protected?

12/01/2005
Issue: If an employee believes a boss’s order is illegal, she can refuse to do it. And you can’t punish her for that defiance.
Risk: You could run afoul of …

Look into all bias complaints; even ‘nontargets’ can sue

12/01/2005
Issue: Employees who are negatively affected by workplace discrimination can file lawsuits, even if they aren’t the targets.
Risk: The EEOC is encouraging such whistle-blower suits, which opens a new …