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Discrimination / Harassment

No ‘Right to effective counsel’ in employment lawsuits

08/01/2006

You may think it’s obvious, but it has taken a federal appeals court to make clear that employees have no federal right to competent employment-law counsel, as offered in criminal cases. Employees who pick incompetent attorneys don’t get a second chance to sue. That’s good news for employers, who won’t have to face the same lawsuit again if an employee’s less-than-stellar lawyer bumbles the case …

Head-Office decision won’t insulate company from liability

08/01/2006

Don’t think that leaving the final firing decision to someone in company headquarters will shield your organization from a discrimination lawsuit. Even if the ultimate decision-maker doesn’t know the race, sex or age of the employee in question, the fired employee can still file a discrimination claim if he or she can point to lower-level bias that tainted the decision …

What does broad new definition of ‘Retaliation’ mean to you?

08/01/2006

Expect this summer’s blockbuster U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Burlington Northern v. White, to swell the number of retaliation complaints and legal claims …

Layoffs: Walk a fine line to avoid age-Bias laws

08/01/2006

Q. We’re a small business (just eight employees) and haven’t laid anyone off. But business is slow and we need to restructure. We have an employee who has worked here part time (12 hours per week) for 25 years. She is 65 years old. We have one other part-timer (10 hours per week) who has worked here just one year. We’d like to lay off both part-time employees and keep the full-time employees. Can we do that? —P.U., Georgia

Lessons from the 2006 SHRM conference: Avoid discipline that makes ‘Example’ of workers

08/01/2006

Employee discipline, above all else, must be consistent. When it’s not, mistakes put employers at risk of messy discrimination claims …

New retaliation rules: What managers need to know

08/01/2006
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Most Fortune 500s Now Offer Domestic-Partner Perks

08/01/2006

As of June, 253 companies in the Fortune 500 (or 51 percent) provided health insurance coverage to employees’ same-sex domestic partners, according to a Human Rights Campaign survey …

At job review, take notes on employee’s comments

07/01/2006

DuPont engineer Godwin Igwe filed a discrimination lawsuit, claiming the company denied him bonuses and promotions because of his national origin. But DuPont successfully defended the suit because its records showed that Igwe said he understood and accepted his demotion because of funding cuts in his department …

‘Pizza snub’ doesn’t equal religious bias

07/01/2006

A boss bought pepperoni pizza for all employees one day, but a Muslim employee felt slighted because, she said, the boss knew of her religious beliefs about eating pork …

Consistency Erases Risk of Light-Duty Jobs

07/01/2006

Employers who use light-duty programs to cut workers’ compensation costs often make one big legal mistake: They apply their policies haphazardly, allowing some employees to take light-duty jobs, but not others. That inconsistency is the fastest way to trigger discrimination lawsuits …