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Discrimination / Harassment

The PWFA litigation flood has arrived

11/13/2024
The EEOC has filed the first round of its Pregnant Workers Fairness Act lawsuits alleging interference with the legislation that requires employers to reasonably accommodate conditions related to pregnancy. If you haven’t yet read the regulations and changed your policies and practices to conform to the rules, there’s no time to lose.

“Why would you want to do a man’s job?”

11/13/2024
That’s one of the sexist questions the EEOC alleges Waste Industries—a solid waste removal, recycling and landfill service provider—repeatedly asked female job applicants. As a result, the company agreed to pay $3.1 million to settle the agency’s pattern-or-practice sex-discrimination claim.

Ensure undesirable tasks aren’t assigned only to minorities

11/13/2024
Eleven Black employees of Peoples Gas of Chicago filed a lawsuit alleging they were victims of race discrimination when they were assigned to more dangerous neighborhoods.

Call a halt to ‘dead-naming’ of transgender employees

11/13/2024
Employers are responsible for stopping gender-based harassment. Remind supervisors that harassing transgender workers is a serious offense.

OK to place reasonable limits on religious accommodations

11/13/2024
Employers must reasonably accommodate employees’ religious needs, but there are limits.

Religious accommodation request? Here’s what not to ask

11/13/2024
After the Supreme Court’s Groff v. DeJoy religious-accommodation case that strictly limited when employers can turn down requests, some employers demanded details about professed religious beliefs and documentation that the request was based on their religion’s requirement. But that is backfiring as courts set strict standards on how much information employers can demand.

Making even a few ageist statements can land you in court

11/13/2024
Here’s a reminder that HR needs to train supervisors and managers on ageist attitudes and comments. Even one or two isolated comments that could be viewed as criticism based on an employee’s age can be enough to justify an Age Discrimination in Employment Act lawsuit if there are other indications of favoring the young.

Harassment cost employer $3 million—and the harasser $835,000

10/25/2024
Juries tend to harshly punish employers that ignore harassment complaints and let the abuse continue. But occasionally, a jury decides it’s not enough to punish the employer; they punish the harasser, too.

On the Supreme Court docket: Cases to watch in the ‘24–‘25 term

10/21/2024
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear three important employment-law cases in its 2024–2025 term, which began Oct. 7 and will end in late June 2025.

Tolerate boss’s racist behavior, retaliation? Prepare to pay millions in damages

10/16/2024
If you need a reason to stamp out workplace name-calling, discriminatory work assignments and retaliation, consider the massive punitive-damages award a jury recently granted to an employee who sued because of ongoing racist behavior by a supervisor.