• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Employment Law

‘OK, boomer’: Supreme Court tackles age bias

02/11/2020
At issue: Whether a federal government employee’s bias claim can prevail if she proves that age discrimination played any role at all in an adverse employment decision.

Demonstrate good faith by keeping thorough notes detailing your investigations

02/10/2020
Judges don’t want to second-guess employer decisions. But they do want to see that employers act in good faith when they terminate workers. That makes it essential to document every investigation that might lead to a firing.

When documenting discipline, note all details

02/10/2020
When an employee files a lawsuit alleging discriminatory discipline, she will point to other employees outside her protected class who were treated more leniently. It’s critical for employers to document the details that distinguish one case from another.

Track who made discipline recommendations

02/10/2020
If you leave discipline and termination decisions to specific managers, be sure to track who has input in those decisions. If you don’t conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the underlying reasons, you may end up rubber-stamping a discriminatory recommendation.

Labor Department issues two new wage-and-hour opinion letters

02/07/2020
In January, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued two opinion letters addressing wage-and-hour issues under the Fair Labor Standards Act. One involves discretionary bonuses while the second addresses whether some extra payments for exempt workers may affect their exemptions.

Settlement with EEOC puts Compass Group on right path

02/07/2020
Compass Group USA, a food service company that operates a dining facility at the University of Texas’ Medical Branch in Galveston, has settled an EEOC sex discrimination lawsuit for $10,000.

Beat potential discrimination lawsuits by documenting rationale for reorganizing

02/07/2020
Employees whose jobs are eliminated during a reorganization sometimes suspect that they got the axe because of some discriminatory reason. Then they sue. But employers don’t have to worry too much about those lawsuits—if they have documented the underlying reasons for the reorganization.

Court: USERRA only protects seniority-based benefits for military-connected employees

02/07/2020
A federal court differentiated between benefits that are based on seniority and those that are based on work already performed. Only seniority-based benefits continue to accrue while the military member is called to active duty or training.

Employer entitled to know nature of disability

02/07/2020
When the EEOC invites an employer to settle a case alleging disability discrimination, the employer can demand to know the specific disability the applicant or employee has. That’s the conclusion a federal judge reached in a recent case.

Oilfield firms pay $1.2 million to settle race bias charges

02/07/2020
Nabors Corporate Services and its successor, C&J Well Services, both oil-industry firms based in Houston, have agreed to pay a class of nine black workers and one white worker $1.2 million to settle race discrimination and retaliation charges.