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Kansas

Investigate all allegations of harassment, even those made by poor performers

02/19/2014

Just because an employee is doing a lousy job doesn’t mean she isn’t also being sexually harassed. Ignoring her complaints and focusing strictly on her performance may backfire if you terminate her. A jury may decide that harassment affected her performance or that, even if you fired her for legitimate reasons, she deserves compensation for the har­­ass­­ment she endured.

Argument in the workplace isn’t harassment

02/19/2014
Sometimes, employees lose their tempers. That’s unfortunate and you certainly should discourage it. But a loud or tumultuous argument between a supervisor and a subordinate isn’t necessarily grounds for a harassment lawsuit.

Testifying for fellow employee in race case provides retaliation protection

12/23/2013
Employees who testify in an internal investigation, an agency in­­vestigation or in court are protected from retaliation whether or not they belong to the same protected classification as the employee whose case their testimony supports.

OK to ask worker to cancel M.D. appointment; that isn’t the same as denying FMLA leave

12/23/2013
Taking time off for medical appointments is a legitimate use of FMLA leave if the treatment is related to a serious health condition. But that doesn’t mean that em­­­ployees can schedule those appointments whenever they want.

When employees violate anti-violence policy, make sure everyone is disciplined equally

10/29/2013
Nothing will get you in trouble faster than discipline that’s harsher for members of some classes than others. That’s especially true in cases where someone has been accused of violating anti-violence policies.

No discrimination if worker didn’t suffer adverse action

10/10/2013
Employees who sue for bias must show that they suffered some harm from the discrimination they allege.

To pay or not to pay for donning & doffing?

10/10/2013
A few years back, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that chicken processing employees had to be paid for time spent putting on and taking off special protective clothing before and after their shifts. Since then, numerous lawsuits have challenged “donning and doffing” pay practices. Now, the 8th Circuit Court of Ap­peals has provided a bit of clarification.

For OT, it’s the truck’s weight classification–not the load–that counts

09/16/2013

Employers have long relied on the truck weight classification—not the actual weight the truck is carrying—to determine whether a driver received overtime. That was recently challenged in a class-action lawsuit.

Don’t expect to get away with paying undocumented workers less than law requires

09/16/2013
In a case that shows courts are losing patience with employers that hire undocumented ­workers and then flout wage-and-hour laws, a federal court has zapped an em­­ployer almost $285,000 in unpaid wages and penalties, and another $150,000 to pay the former em­­ployees’ legal fees.

How not to handle a union movement

09/16/2013

It’s natural to feel betrayed and up­set if you have an open-shop workplace and find out some employees have invited outsiders to help organize a union. But if you handle the news badly, you may end up in the cross hairs of the NLRB before a single union vote is cast.