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Employment Law

Cleveland bans bias based on gender identity, expression

02/09/2010

The Cleveland City Council has passed legislation expanding the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance to include transgender individuals. By adding “gender identity and expression” to a list of protected classes that already includes sexual orientation, Cleveland now offers one of the most all-encompassing anti-discrimination statutes in the state.

7 bills to watch: Congress’ 2010 employment law agenda

02/09/2010

When Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts won January’s special election to fill the seat long occupied by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, Democrats lost their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. That means it will be that much more difficult for the Obama administration to make good on many of its pro-employee campaign promises. That’s not to say those employment law initiatives are dead. The following are the key initiatives pending in Congress.

Is it legally risky to refuse to hire people who have been arrested?

02/09/2010

Q. I am considering putting a policy in place to prohibit hiring any job applicant found to have an arrest record. Are there any legal risks?

What legal hoops must we jump through if we conduct background checks on applicants?

02/09/2010

Q. I’ve never required background checks on any job applicants. To get a better understanding of whom we’re hiring, I’ve retained a professional screening company to begin vetting our candidates for things such as criminal convictions. Are there any specific protocols we should be following?

No way to accommodate? Then you don’t have to

02/09/2010

Employers are obligated to engage in an interactive accommodations process when disabled employees request an accommodation and one is possible. But if you’re confident it’s not possible to accommodate the disabled worker—that he would never be able to perform the job’s essential functions—then you don’t have to go through the motions.

Develop fail-safe application tracking system

02/09/2010

Do you have an employee who consistently applies for open positions for which she falls short on qualifications? You may be tempted to “lose” or “misplace” her applications. Be bigger than that. Instead, exercise patience and handle her applications just as you would for any other applicant.

Beware the high price of foul language: Expensive trials before unsympathetic judges

02/09/2010

It doesn’t happen often, but now the 11th Circuit has issued a rare unanimous en banc opinion. The judges, without a single dissent, ruled that a woman who quit her job because she couldn’t stand alleged daily sexual harassment can take her case to trial. The decision includes some important guidelines for what will be considered sexual harassment and what is simply crude and generally offensive behavior.

When picking candidates for promotion, use measurable criteria—and document it

02/09/2010

Employers have plenty of leeway when deciding which employees deserve to be promoted—as long as they document the decision-making process. Chances are a court won’t second-guess their choices. Just ask yourself this basic question: Have I passed over a candidate whom a reasonable person would have selected because his qualifications were superior to the person I picked?

Accommodations may differ, but you must make sure they’re fair to all disabled workers

02/09/2010

If you have several disabled employees receiving reasonable accommodations, be careful to treat all of them fairly and equitably. While each disability is different and the ADA requires accommodations to take into account those differences, you must still be careful not to give some disabled employees better accommodations than others.

Get legal help with termination agreements

02/09/2010

Call your attorney before offering a severance agreement! A federal trial court in Florida has allowed to go forward a disability discrimination lawsuit from a former employee who left under a negotiated termination agreement largely because the agreement was silent on why the employee was leaving.