Over at our sister blog, Employment Law Letter, my colleague Nina Pelc-Faszcza has a post up from yesterday that should be a must read for any employer wondering how the Trump Administration’s “Mass Deportation” plans may impact their business.
Indeed, just in the last 24 hours, acting Department of Homeland Security Benjamine Huffman issued a
Last week, I deleted the Twitter app off my iPhone as a bit of an experiment. I’ve done this a few times before — but the start of the pandemic back in early 2020 had me going full on Twitter since then. After all, if it’s important, it’s on Twitter, right?
Well, not exactly. In fact, when I was sick for a few days, I kept turning to Twitter and finding…not much that merited the visit to the app — just boredom. (Never fear though, I can still access it on my computer browser.) Nevertheless, I wondered how much I’d miss if I just took it of my phone.
The first real answer came on Friday when news came of the Fifth Circuit’s beatdown decision to stay enforcement of the OSHA vax or test Emergency Temporary Standard. Turns out you can hear about it the same time as others even without being on Twitter.
But what happened next was interesting for me — nothing. Without being on Twitter, I missed the immediate reactions, overreactions, snark, and, sure, some actual insights.
And that’s ok.
We are entering a time during this pandemic when the changes are happening more incrementally and slowly. Perhaps we are headed for a modest 5th wave here, for example. That might require employers to adjust on the fly again. But speed isn’t everything right now.
Thus, with the luxury of a few more days to ponder and think, where are we now on the OSHA rule?
Continue Reading Court Stays OSHA ETS, But We Know All Too Well It’s Not the Last Word
Joe Biden will be the next President of the United States effective January 20, 2021.
For employers, the last several years have been filled with several retreats from existing policies. And over the last year in particular, the Trump administration was busy rolling out new regulations for employers to follow. It’s not
Last week, we talked about an employer’s obligations when it comes to an employee who has cancer. But what about an employee’s spouse? Does the employer have any legal obligations there?
Let’s start first with a story:
Jake and his supervisor, Alex, have had a great working relationship but lately, things seems to have changed. At least that’s how Jake sees is after he told Alex that his wife is suffering from a long-term disability — cancer.
Although Jake has been a good performer for years, Alex has recently expressed his concern that Jake will not be able to satisfy the demands of the job due to the need to care for his wife. Alex begins to set unrealistic deadlines for projects for Jake and even yells at Jake in front of co-workers about the need to meet the deadlines.
Alex also began requiring Jake to meet company policies that have never been strictly followed, such as giving 2 weeks advance notice of leave. Now, Alex has removed Jake from team projects because Jake’s co-workers don’t think Jake can be counted on to complete his share of work “considering all of his wife’s medical problems.
Jake is frustrated. He’s complained to management but to no avail. Now what?
At first glance, you might think this is a FMLA issue; taking time off for a family member’s serious health condition is one of the key points of the FMLA. But a deeper look shows that’s not really what’s going on. This doesn’t have to do with leave.
Instead, it seems that the supervisor is treating an employee differently because of his relationship with someone who has a disability. The question is — is there a legal claim?
According the EEOC, there is.
Indeed, given this above scenario, the EEOC concluded in Q&A release that “the employer is liable for harassment on the basis of [Jake’s] association with an individual with a disability.” In other words, the employee may have a claim under the ADA.Continue Reading The “Association” Game: How a Spouse’s Cancer May be Covered by the ADA
After my post last week on discrimination statistics (and the lack thereof of CHRO statistics that were publicly available), the CHRO was kind enough to release some additional statistics to me that hadn’t been posted on its website and hadn’t been released publicly before.
My sincere thanks to CHRO Principal Attorney Charles Krich for the
A few weeks ago, I indicated (in posts here and here) that the AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion case would have a huge impact on forcing arbitrations of employment matters and limiting class actions.
An important new federal District Court case in Connecticut decided yesterday, D’Antuono v. Service Road Corp., (download here) has shown that to be the case exactly.
But, coming from the school of “you can’t make this stuff up”, it is remarkable that the case that is deciding this issue is one grounded in the claims of “exotic dancers” who allege that they were misclassified as independent contractors instead of employees.
(How can the strip club claim that the individuals were independent contractors? While it is not relevant to the court’s decision here, the dancers signed “leases” to the “performance space”. Within those leases were arbitration provisions. The Court did not decide that issue, though if you’re interested, I discussed a similar case back in January here. )
What is important for all employers to know is that here, the central issue in this case was whether the agreement to arbitrate (found in a lease agreement between the exotic dancer (as “tenant”) and the strip club (as “landlord”) was enforceable. The Court said that it was. In doing so, the Court forced the plaintiffs to arbitrate their FLSA claims and remove the specter of a collection action, finding that the plaintiffs gave up that right in their case.Continue Reading In Titillating Case, Court Compels Strip Club Dancers to Engage Individually …in Arbitration
Happy New Year everyone!
Coming back from vacation is always a challenge. So many tasks from last year left unsettled and so many new things to tackle.
As the new year begins, there’s a tendency to try to predict what the new year will bring. Indeed, while catching up on some posts, I’ve been struck
Since Attorney General Eric Holder took over the U.S. Department of Justice, there’s been some question as to what the strategy would be for the Civil Rights Division.
Today’s New York Times gives the answer — Renewed Enforcement on all sorts of discrimination laws, including the laws affecting the workplace:
As part of this shift,