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Discrimination / Harassment

OK to punish complainer if you find wrongdoing

06/26/2009

Workplace investigations sometimes open a can of worms. What if, for example, you find out that an employee complaining about sexual harassment had engaged in wrongdoing, too? Even if the wrongdoing is related to the underlying sexual harassment complaint, you can and should punish the employee for that.

Watch your mouth: Obscure terms could trigger lawsuit

06/26/2009

Occasionally, an employee correctly uses an obscure word that someone else mistakes for an offensive one. When that happens, suggest using another term even if the term they are using is technically appropriate.

General Assembly weighs anti-gay discrimination law

06/26/2009

Are Pennsylvania employers ready for yet another category of protected employees? Another bill has been introduced in the General Assembly that would protect all Pennsylvanians from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.

Meenan Oil settles age discrimination lawsuit

06/26/2009

Tullytown-based Meenan Oil has settled an age discrimination suit filed by 72-year-old Louis Ceccoli, who was fired and then replaced by a substantially younger worker. Ceccoli built his case on derogatory comments his sales manager made about older workers.

Remind bosses: No talk of pregnancy plans

06/26/2009

Are some of your organization’s leaders still stuck in the Dark Ages when it comes to attitudes about pregnancy, childbirth and child care? You might be a few off-base questions away from a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit. Remind managers and supervisors to keep their opinions on mothers and motherhood to themselves.

Before altering disabled employee’s job, make sure you can justify the reason

06/26/2009

Sometimes, you have to make workplace changes because of outside factors. If those changes are going to affect a disabled employee’s job, proceed with caution. Make sure you can come up with a concrete, reasonable rationale for your decision—that shows it was unrelated to the employee’s disability.

Can we implement an anti-nepotism policy?

06/26/2009

Q. To prevent productivity and morale problems, we would like to adopt a policy stating the company will not hire the spouses of current employees. Would this be lawful?

Don’t throw the book at fired employee–one good reason will suffice in court

06/23/2009

The more reasons you can dream up to fire an employee, the better. Right? Think again. Firing someone for one obvious rule violation will stand up better in court than a laundry list of petty transgressions …

Supreme Court makes it harder for employees to win age-bias lawsuits

06/23/2009

In an important employer victory, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that for employees to successfully bring Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) lawsuits, they must now show that age discrimination was the cause—not just one of several possible contributing factors—of their termination or other adverse job action.

Take and retain notes on salary negotiations

06/22/2009

In a free-market system, it sometimes takes extra money to entice an applicant to jump ship. But sometimes that causes an existing employee to earn less than a new employee who holds the same job. If that existing employee belongs to a protected class, she may fire off a pay discrimination claim. That’s when interview notes documenting the salary negotiations come in handy.