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Employment Law

S.F. firefighters’ age bias suit goes down in flames

04/30/2018
The decade-long age discrimination litigation saga of 15 San Francisco firefighters has come to an end.

Document all efforts to find ADA accommodations

04/26/2018
If an employee tells you he has a new medical condition that qualifies as an ADA disability, document all discussions you have about possible accommodations.

Worker taking high road can still quit & sue

04/26/2018
Typically, workers sue after being fired or otherwise subjected to an adverse employment action such as a demotion. But sometimes, aggrieved employees can quit and still sue, alleging that their working conditions were so severe that they had no choice but to leave.

Now more than ever, rein in sex harassment

04/26/2018
#MeToo spawned the multimillion-dollar #TimesUp fund that pays lawyers to help working-class women press sexual harassment claims in court. For employers, that means you can’t afford to ignore a single sexual harassment complaint.

Don’t let employee’s whistleblower status dissuade you from legitimate discipline

04/25/2018
To win a retaliation case, the worker would have to prove that the discipline was motivated by a desire to punish him or her for making the report. That’s unlikely to succeed if 1) the discipline began before the safety problem was reported or 2) it is clear that any other worker would have been disciplined for the same rule violation.

Women much more likely to perceive pay bias

04/24/2018
Nearly a third of women (32%) do not think they are making the same pay as men in their organization who have similar experience and qualifications, compared to 12% of men.

Lowry tapped for DOL post overseeing veterans employment

04/24/2018
The Trump administration has nominated John Lowry to become assistant labor secretary for veterans employment and training.

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.