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Hiring

Legal risks of interviewing transgender applicants

08/15/2008
Raul Lopez Jr. is a biological male who presents himself as Izza Lopez, a female. When Lopez applied for a job at a medical clinic, he listed both his male and female names on the application. The company offered Lopez the job, but the HR director demanded to know his biological sex. Then the clinic rescinded the offer, saying Lopez “misrepresented” himself in the interview …

O’Hare immigrant workers file back-Wages suit

08/13/2008
A group of temporary ground workers at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport has filed an unpaid wages lawsuit against eight companies, including its employment agency, Ideal Staffing Solutions of Bensenville.  

Transportation Companies Face New Drug-Testing Requirements, Starting on Aug. 25

08/12/2008
Starting Aug. 25, organizations that must comply with U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) drug-testing regulations face some new requirements. Specifically, drug testers must directly observe any follow-up urine tests. The goal: prevent employees from cheating the drug test.

Poor performance review and improvement plan alone aren’t signs of retaliation

08/12/2008
Good news for managers and supervisors: Giving an employee a poor performance review and then placing the employee on an improvement plan isn’t an adverse employment action on its face. Employees can’t successfully sue unless a pay cut, lost benefits, a lost bonus or some other tangible, negative results accompany that poor evaluation or improvement plan …

Make sure fitness tests don’t unfairly target women

08/12/2008
Some jobs obviously require that the employees who perform them be in excellent physical condition. For example, firefighters and others engaged in heavy physical work may have to be extremely physically fit. It’s legitimate for employers to test those physical abilities on a regular basis. Be careful, though, about how you administer those tests to men and women …

Document why new talent got higher pay than existing staff

08/11/2008
You can pay more for a new hire than you pay those who hold similar positions. Just make sure you document exactly why newcomers deserve a higher wage or more benefits. You can do that by showing the new hire has more experience, education or specialized knowledge, or that the candidate wouldn’t accept an offer unless the salary and benefits met or exceeded what he was making elsewhere …

Suit claims Muslim employees were told to hold the hijab

08/08/2008
Two Muslim women are suing McDonald’s restaurants, claiming they were denied jobs at a restaurant in Dearborn because they wore Islamic head scarves, or hijabs …

Gather statistical evidence to show you don’t discriminate

08/05/2008
Employees who can show that a company routinely discriminates against members of a particular protected class will have a much easier time showing that, as members of that class, they were discriminated against, too. Perform your own statistical analyses to test your hiring practices for hidden discrimination …

Colorado in standoff with feds over immigration enforcement

08/05/2008
Colorado is one of a handful of holdouts in the battle between federal and state governments over verifying the status of immigrant workers. The U.S. Department of Labor’s “guidance letter” issued in November 2007 directed labor departments in 12 states to verify farm workers’ eligibility before allowing them to enter the workforce …

Benchmark Your Career Web Site Against Nation’s 25 Best

08/05/2008
More than 60% of all job seekers rely on web sites to learn about employment opportunities. Yet the career pages on too many employers’ sites remain hard to use, uninformative and so frustrating that many potential applicants simply give up and go looking elsewhere. If only there were some good examples of how to do career sites right! Good news: Here are links to the nation’s 25 best.