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North Carolina

Golf firm finds hazard of missing paydays

03/25/2013
The DOL has ordered Charlotte’s Carolina Trail Golf Part­­ners to immediately tee up $758,465 in back wages for 347 workers at seven courses who recently went several weeks without getting paid.

Beware discrimination in contract bidding

03/25/2013
Before rejecting the lowest bid for a public project, many government agencies run background checks on the bidders. It’s critical to be fair and even-handed about those checks, making sure you don’t cherry-pick negative information.

Track ADA accommodation discussion and offers

03/25/2013
The ADA accommodations process must also be ongoing—and it doesn’t necessarily end with the first accommodation. But sometimes, a disabled employee can become unreasonable as time passes. You may decide to revoke an accommodation or refuse to modify it. If he sues, clear documentation showing what you did over the years can mean winning the lawsuit.

Safelite Glass retaliation claim reflects poorly on HR

03/05/2013
A Safelite AutoGlass franchise in Enfield, N.C., has agreed to settle an EEOC sexual harassment and retaliation suit filed by a former HR assistant who claimed the HR manager made unwanted sexual comments and touched her inappropriately.

Temps win $334,000 settlement in reverse-discrimination case

03/05/2013
PBM Graphics, a Research Triangle printing firm, has agreed to settle a national-origin EEOC discrimination claim filed by temporary workers who claim the firm unfairly favored His­­panic temps over non-Hispanics.

Title VII doesn’t cover sexual orientation

03/05/2013
While several ballot initiatives nationwide show there has been a change in how the general public perceives same-sex relationships, sexual orientation is still not a protected class under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Court: ‘X’ must mark the spot on EEOC forms

03/05/2013

Employees who claim discrimination sometimes fill out EEOC complaint forms before they hire an attorney. That means they often fail to correctly mark the boxes that indicate the type of discrimination they are alleging. Fortunately, courts won’t allow claims for other forms of discrimination if an unchecked box on the form ­covered the claim the employee later asserts.

Protect against bias allegations: Involve hiring manager in any termination decision

03/05/2013
It’s a good standard policy: The person (or persons) who made the hiring decision should also take part in any firing decision. That way, the employee can’t argue that discrimination based on an obvious protected characteristic like race, sex or handicap must have been at work.

When pregnant worker can’t perform, factor in ADA, FMLA, PDA

03/05/2013
It can be complicated to handle a pregnant employee when she can’t perform some part of her job. That’s because three federal laws—the ADA, the FMLA and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act—intersect to provide protection for some pregnant workers who have medical restrictions.

In Burnsville, religious bias defense doesn’t have a prayer

03/05/2013
Altec Industries has agreed to pay a job applicant $25,000 after it refused to hire the Seventh-Day Adventist to work at its Burnsville, N.C., facility. The applicant alleged that when he revealed that his religion forbade him to work from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday, the company refused to hire him.