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Alabama

Premarital sex or pregnancy discrimination? One’s protected while the other is not

06/11/2012
There is no freedom from discrimination based on having premarital sex, but there is a right to be free of pregnancy discrimination. It may seem odd, but employers can technically fire someone for behavior that doesn’t meet the employer’s “moral” standards as long as no other protected characteristic is involved.

Beware national-origin bias charges following criticism of accent

06/11/2012
Do you have employees who were born and raised in other countries and who therefore speak English with heavy, foreign-sounding accents? If so, be careful how you approach any discussion about their speech. If supervisors or managers criticize workers’ accents, a national-origin discrimination lawsuit may be in your company’s future.

State laws on mandatory employee breaks

06/11/2012

The Fair Labor Standards Act doesn’t require you to provide employees with meal breaks. It does require you to pay employees whose meal breaks last for fewer than 30 minutes and those who work through their meal breaks. However, 40 states do have laws covering meal and rest breaks. This chart summarizes those laws.

Back ‘gut’ decisions with objective criteria

05/30/2012

Most managers want to choose the best candidate for the job. But assessing what constitutes “best” can often feel a bit subjective. That’s OK. Just make sure you can point to some objective factor that backs up your choice.

It’s not bias: Set cutoff date for receiving applications

05/09/2012
Protect your company by tracking when you received each completed job application. You can easily justify a cut-off point, based on the order in which you received complete applications.

Don’t let pregnancy worries affect job assignments

05/09/2012
When discrimination based on pregnancy plays a part in a demotion or termination, the employee has a case under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. Paternalistic beliefs that pregnant women need protection should not be part of the reason for any action, even if well-intentioned.

Will your decisions hold up in court? Be prepared to explain apparent contradictions

05/09/2012
If you offer contradictory reasons for hiring one applicant instead of another, be prepared to explain away the inconstancy. Otherwise, you may be vulnerable to a discrimination lawsuit.

Inspect, investigate ASAP to prevent hostile work environment from festering

05/09/2012
A good attorney will urge a discharged employee to try to remember any problems she had at work. Any perceived unfairness then becomes part of the employee’s lawsuit. The more grievances, the more likely that at least some of the complaints will make it to court, even if other claims are tossed out. That’s one more reason to deal immediately with workplace problems that crop up …

Document business reasons for job decisions

05/09/2012

Courts seldom second-guess employers for making tough economic decisions, as long as it’s obvious those decisions were made honestly and not as a cover for discrimination. Make that clear by documenting the decisions at the time you make them.

Know employee’s diagnosis? Don’t assume FMLA

05/09/2012
If all an employee does is tell you about the diagnosis of her medical condition, that’s not enough to trigger her FMLA rights. For example, the employee can’t just state that she’s been diagnosed with depression and then, the next time she misses work, expect the time off to be automatically considered FMLA leave.