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Employment Law

Beware pay cuts that disadvantage minorities

03/03/2022
Many employees who began working remotely two years ago decided to relocate to areas with low costs of living.  Some employers responded by cutting relocated workers’ pay—not always a popular practice, but somewhat defensible. But that calculus could trigger legal trouble, potentially affecting some protected classes of employees more than others.

DOL: That guy you just fired might be a whistleblower

02/24/2022
OSHA has a litigation unit devoted solely to enforcing 20 different whistleblower laws that fall under the Department of Labor’s jurisdiction. Here’s an example of the kind of case this unit handles.

Avoid stereotypes when evaluating employees

02/24/2022
Before criticizing or disciplining an employee for some qualitative shortcoming—such as being uncooperative, argumentative or overly aggressive—consider whether you would apply the same standard to someone belonging to a different protected class. Using stereotypes to define expectations is a recipe for legal disaster.

Dangerous succession plan: Make ‘dinobabies’ go ‘extinct’

02/24/2022
Documents filed in support of an age-discrimination lawsuit against IBM reveal that high-level Big Blue executives called older workers “dinobabies” who needed to get out of the way so younger employees could advance.

States move to protect employee privacy

02/24/2022
For years, privacy advocates have worried that technology may give employers too much access to information employees consider personal. A general expectation of privacy isn’t always reasonable in a public setting like work, but states have begun erecting barriers that limit how much employers can seek to know about their employees’ activities.

Refusing to hire a litigious applicant: Is that retaliation?

02/17/2022
Brian Flores, the fired coach of the Miami Dolphins, has turned himself toxic by filing a lawsuit alleging systemic racial discrimination, fraud and bribery. Yet any team refusing to hire Flores now because he sued over the NFL’s discriminatory hiring practice would likely be committing unlawful retaliation.

Ensure bosses accurately track employee hours

02/17/2022
The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to accurately track all the time employees work. In many organizations, the task falls to front-line managers and supervisors. That sometimes creates a conflict: Bosses under pressure to control labor costs may be tempted to require employees to work off the clock.

Pregnancy accommodation could become law

02/17/2022
It’s been several years since significant worker-protection legislation has been enacted. That could be about to change. The Pregnant Workers’ Fairness Act is gaining support from Democrats and Republicans alike.

Check hiring records for signs of hidden bias

02/17/2022
It’s hard to know exactly what’s going on down on the retail, warehouse or factory floor when you’re not there. However, you must find out. Hiring managers may be ignoring HR rules in ways that could trigger employment lawsuits.

DOL raises penalties for 2022

02/15/2022
The Department of Labor has announced the 2022 inflation adjustments to penalties for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the FMLA and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.