• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly
Connection failed: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory

Louisiana

Workplace strife? Transfer is fair solution

01/07/2010

When people have a history of conflict, it makes sense to ensure they don’t have to interact with one another. How you go about separating them may mean the difference between staying out of court or losing a costly successful retaliation or discrimination lawsuit.

Sometimes, you have to trust a jury to make the right decision

01/07/2010

Most employers have severe cases of “juryphobia.” They assume that a jury will automatically side with an employee and award hundreds of thousands of dollars to right an alleged wrong. If you and your attorneys are convinced you didn’t do anything wrong, it may be best to trust a jury to hear the case and come to the same conclusion. That’s what one employer recently did.

Tell harassment victims: Report any retaliation

12/03/2009

Even an exhaustive investigation into sexual harassment allegations may not provide enough information to conclusively determine whether harassment actually occurred. That doesn’t mean you can forget the whole thing. Instead, you must explain to the employee who reported the problem what steps you did take. And you must urge her to report any action she believes is retaliation.

Courts say, ‘Enough!’: Employees must file all related claims at same time

12/03/2009

Courts are cracking down on serial lawsuits, and the result is good news for employers. A former employee who sues and then loses his case can’t keep coming up with new claims to base new lawsuits on. If the new claims are based on the same set of facts—even if they involve an entirely different legal angle—courts are ruling the claims should have been brought together.

Retaliation applies to former employees, too

09/08/2009

Here’s a potential trap you may not have considered: Punishing a former employee may be retaliation, too. That means that you must carefully consider anything you do involving a former employee before you act.

Of good faith and gut instinct: Fire employee who falsely claims discrimination

09/08/2009

It’s frustrating when an employee continually claims to be the victim of discrimination while internal investigations show that just isn’t so. If an employer is confident the employee’s charges are false, it can terminate the employee. That’s true even if you turn out to be wrong—because what matters is your good-faith belief that the employee made up the discrimination claims.

How to show you don’t discriminate: Track all discipline and punish equitably

09/08/2009

At some point, a former employee will sue your organization for discrimination. The typical argument: Someone not in the same protected class as the employee was treated more leniently. How will you show that’s not true?

You don’t have to pay foreign workers’ visa fees or transportation costs

09/08/2009

Employers that need seasonal employees often rely on foreign workers to fill those slots. Workers from other nations must apply for an H-2B visa before coming to the United States to work. Until now, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had not yet decided whether expenses related to H-2B workers’ travel to the United States had to be reimbursed by the employer. It has now decided that they do not.

Compare disciplinary records before firing

08/04/2009

Employers know they are not supposed to discriminate against employees based on protected characteristics such as race, age or sex. But HR can’t be everywhere, and in large organizations, it may be hard to monitor equal treatment. A centralized discipline-tracking system can help you check for possible hidden discrimination by comparing proposed discipline against past discipline.

You don’t have to accept employee’s offer to submit to a lie detector test

08/04/2009

An employee facing discipline may bristle if you choose to believe someone else’s version of what happened instead of his own. He may even offer to take a lie detector test to prove what he’s saying is true. You don’t have to accept that offer.