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Employment Law

Don’t rely on broad diagnosis: Assess disability individually

10/01/2007

Millions of Americans have diabetes, and millions more have it but don’t know it. But with new medications and careful diet, most diabetics can control their condition and lead largely normal lives. That has implications for how employers handle their ADA obligations …

Have zero tolerance for offensive national-Origin comments

10/01/2007

A nation embroiled in war tends to be jittery and tempers run high. When anger and emotion seep into the workplace, things can get ugly. That’s why it’s important to remind everyone that you won’t tolerate comments, gags or jokes aimed at employees who may share ethnicity, religion or national origins with the “enemy” …

Combination discrimination claims don’t fly in Texas

10/01/2007

Sometimes, employees who think they have been discriminated against—and their attorneys—try novel approaches to make a claim. One of these is the so-called disability-plus claim, whereby the attorney tries to show that the employer discriminated against his disabled client by treating her worse than other disabled employees of another sex or race. But as the following case shows, disability-plus discrimination claims won’t always fly in Texas …

 

You can accommodate and still question employee’s disability

10/01/2007

Sometimes, it seems easier to just make an accommodation than argue about whether the employee requesting one is really disabled. But does making the accommodation mean you agree the employee is disabled? The answer is no. If the employee comes back asking for even more accommodations, you still can challenge her status.

Fire offender to decouple discrimination, employment action

10/01/2007

Remind upper-level managers: When a supervisor or mid-level manager makes comments that could be construed as racist or religiously motivated, it pays to act fast. In fact, firing the responsible manager sometimes can be the best way to go. That way, if the employee he disparaged later gets turned down for a promotion or a raise, it will be much harder for an attorney to show a connection between the supervisor’s biased views and the denied opportunity …

Labor sues Texas company for FLSA overtime violations

10/01/2007

The U.S. Labor Department sued Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to pay approximately $3 million in overtime wages to more than 500 former and current employees. The department claims employee records at the company’s Dallas facility failed to show the number of hours the poultry-processing employees worked each day and the total number of hours they worked each week …

Fed contractors to pay almost $1M to rejected applicants

10/01/2007

The U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) announced that two federal contractors have agreed to settle allegations of hiring discrimination. Comark Building Systems, of DeSoto, agreed to pay $229,534 in back pay and interest to 740 applicants it rejected for the position of plant laborer. Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products LP agreed to pay $749,000 in back pay and interest to 399 black applicants whom it rejected for the position of utility worker …

AG enjoins two Texas employers in union-Organizing case

10/01/2007

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced injunctions barring two employers from enforcing “closed-shop” clauses in agreements with the International Union, Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America. In July, the state sued Deco-Akal JV, of El Paso, and Asset Protections & Security Services, LP, of Corpus Christi, for suspending or threatening to suspend employees who refused to pay union dues …

Court certifies class action in pension calculation suit

10/01/2007

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas recently certified a class action of current and former participants and beneficiaries of a cash-balance pension plan sponsored by United Way of the Gulf Coast. The participants and beneficiaries claimed that the plan sponsor miscalculated early-retirement benefits when it switched the pension plan from a defined-benefit plan to a cash-balance plan …

New regulations issued regarding Social Security ‘No-Match’ letters

10/01/2007

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued new final regulations detailing how employers must respond to Social Security “no-match” letters. That means employers that receive no-match letters now have new legal obligations when it comes to verifying and maintaining federal I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification documents …