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Employment Law

Plane truth: JetBlue’s lesson in ‘safety retaliation’

04/19/2018
Make clear to your supervisors that it’s unlawful to punish employees because they raise complaints about customer or worker safety.

Tough new supervisor? That doesn’t prove bias

04/19/2018
Sometimes, new bosses crack the whip harder than the previous supervisor did—and hand out harsher performance appraisals, too. But absent specific evidence to the contrary, new and more rigorous standards don’t usually signal that the new boss is motivated by discriminatory intent.

9th Circuit: EPA requires ignoring past pay

04/19/2018
Employers that set pay based on past salaries are just as guilty of sex discrimination as those past employers who set a discriminatory rate of pay in the first place.

Big win for Uber: Drivers are contractors

04/19/2018
A federal court in Pennsylvania has handed a big win to employers in a case that hinged on whether Uber drivers are properly classified as independent contractors instead of employees.

Ring confirmed for NLRB, is immediately appointed chair

04/17/2018
The Senate confirmed employment lawyer John Ring to fill the last remaining vacancy on the National labor Relations Board. The next morning, President Trump announced Ring would become chair of the NLRB. Republicans again hold a 3-2 majority on the board.

Snapshot: Where does most sexual harassment happen?

04/17/2018
About two-thirds of women who say they have been sexually harassed say it happened at work.

Document all details about employee discipline

04/16/2018
It’s impossible to predict which employee will sue and why. That’s why you must carefully document every disciplinary action, including enough specific information to later justify those decisions.

Emerging issues affect how to handle trade secrets

04/16/2018
The U.S. Department of Justice has announced plans to file criminal charges against employers that collude to fix wages or not hire one another’s workers under “nonpoaching agreements.” As a result, employers are more likely than ever to either have their trade secrets compromised or face liability for knowingly or unknowingly possessing a competitor’s confidential information.

Challenge based on arbitrator’s bias fails

04/16/2018
A federal court has concluded it doesn’t have the right to disqualify an arbitrator from hearing a case before a decision has been made. It’s another indication that courts aren’t eager to micromanage arbitrations.

The fact of pay bias matters, not what motivates it

04/16/2018
Employees suing under the Equal Pay Act who can prove that they held a substantially similar job but were paid less than a member of the opposite sex don’t have to prove that the employer intended to discriminate.