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Discrimination / Harassment

Your best bet for beating false allegations: Good records, consistently fair practices

09/10/2013
You can never predict which employee will sue and over what alleged wrong. That’s why the best approach is to focus on treating every employee fairly and consistently, applying your rules even-handedly.

Independent investigation key to clean terminations

09/10/2013
Before you terminate an employee for breaking a company rule, be sure that you have someone else look at the situation. Never rely strictly on the supervisor’s view of events.

Beware retaliation after employee complains

09/10/2013
Watch out if a supervisor suddenly gives a poor performance review to a previously good employee who has recently complained about discrimination. Unless you can clearly show that the employee’s performance was deteriorating, you might be setting yourself up for an otherwise avoidable retaliation lawsuit.

Courts bang the gavel: EEOC is out of order!

09/10/2013
It’s not often that the EEOC loses a lawsuit, but in recent weeks, the gavel has come down against the commission not once, but twice.

Calling supervisor to complain about alleged racial slur is protected activity

09/09/2013
Employees are protected from retaliation for complaining about alleged discrimination. The complaint is considered protected activity. Something as simple as calling a supervisor to complain about a co-worker’s racial slur is protected.

Mere worker inconvenience doesn’t warrant a lawsuit

09/06/2013
Denying a request to work from home is just an inconvenience for an em­­ployee. It’s not grounds for a law­­suit since it’s not an adverse employment action, doesn’t create a hostile work environment or justify quitting.

No individual liability under federal, NY layoff notice laws

09/06/2013
Good news for supervisors who help determine who to cut in a reduction in force: Under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Noti­­fi­­ca­­tion Act (WARN) and the New York State version of the law, there is no individual liability for violations.

Make arbitration agreements stick–even if there’s no employee signature

09/06/2013
If you use arbitration as a way to resolve employment disputes, you no doubt realize that you need the employee’s signature on that agreement in order to make it a binding contract. But what happens if that signature isn’t there or perhaps was faked?

Beware crackdown on complaining employee

09/06/2013
Tell super­­visors and managers to look out for co-worker antagonism. Avoid the appearance of retaliation by making sure bosses enforce all rules equally and fairly.

Assigning unpleasant work isn’t discrimination

09/06/2013
Supervisors don’t always manage to divide the workload evenly among employees. As long as the labor division isn’t obviously intended to demean a particular individual based on his or her protected status, workload assignments are within the purview of management and not something that will support a discrimination lawsuit.