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

New York

Retaliation rule: Would ‘reasonable employee’ have been dissuaded from complaining?

06/09/2014
Employers can’t retaliate against employees for complaining about alleged discrimination or harassment. But before something is considered retaliatory, it is measured by whether a reasonable employee would find the alleged retaliation severe enough to have dissuaded him from complaining in the first place.

Limit requests for employees to prove religious need to be exempt from grooming code

06/09/2014

Before accommodating certain dress practices, employers can ask for some kind of proof of the religious custom that demands an exception—usually a letter from the employee explaining the practice and stating that he or she adheres to it. Once that letter is on file, however, employers should be careful about again demanding that the employee explain the practice or produce evidence of its validity.

TGI Fridays served with class action in N.Y. court

06/09/2014
Hospitality giant Carlson Restaurants faces a class-action suit alleging numerous Fair Labor Standards Act violations at the TGI Fridays casual dining chain.

Harsh criticism alone isn’t discrimination

06/09/2014
Few workplaces are perfect, and it’s the rare supervisors who has never uttered an angry word. But some employees are too sensitive to criticism. While yelling and screaming may be uncomfortable, it usually doesn’t reach the level required for a court to conclude that it’s hostile.

MTA shocker! Could cronyism, nepotism have led to ouster?

05/19/2014
Charges of cronyism and nepotism followed a Metropolitan Transit Authority security chief out the door following a meeting with the head of the MTA, which runs public transportation in the New York City area.

Former superstars aren’t immune from scrutiny

05/19/2014
The best approach to dealing with declining performance is careful and meticulous record-keeping showing expectations and how the employee isn’t meeting them. Objective facts trump the employee’s feelings that she is being discriminated against for some reason.

Driving change: New N.Y. law targets worker misclassification

05/12/2014
New legislation that went into effect April 10 is intended to curtail misclassification of transportation industry workers as independent contractors instead of employees.

No bling for EEOC: Judge blasts mishandling of bias claim

05/12/2014
The EEOC had one of its long-running cases dismissed after a federal judge in Buffalo criticized the commission’s handling of a discrimination case against Sterling Jewelers.

Lawsuits allege McDonald’s workers suffered wage theft

05/12/2014
McDonald’s workers in three states have filed class-action suits alleging the company super-sized its profits at the employees’ expense.

Violence against woman isn’t automatically sex bias

05/12/2014
While it’s always unacceptable, just because a man hits a female co-worker doesn’t mean she has a sex discrimination or harassment case.