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Employment Law

Appeal? Think twice about fighting losing battles

05/05/2022
In July 2021, we reported on a case in which a fired Walmart employee with Down syndrome won a disability discrimination lawsuit. A jury ordered the retailer to rehire her with back pay—and awarded her $125 million in damages (an amount later capped at $300,000 under Title VII). Now Walmart has appealed.

FMLA ending? Prepare to offer ‘ADA leave’

05/05/2022
Employers are required to reinstate workers who are ready to return from FMLA leave. Often, that’s contingent on a health care professional’s assessment that the employee is well enough to perform his or her job duties. But what if the employee can’t pass a fitness-for-duty exam?

DOL sessions suggest OT rule change is coming

05/05/2022
In a sign that the Biden administration is moving forward with plans to raise the overtime salary threshold for white-collar employees, the Department of Labor is holding a series of “listening sessions” to gather employer and employee feedback on revising the Fair Labor Standards Act’s exemptions for executive, administrative and professional employees.

Kids these days: ‘Here’s how much I get paid’

05/05/2022
Talking about how much one earns used to be considered taboo both at work and in social settings. That’s changing.

Layoffs: Check job-cut list for discrimination liability

04/28/2022
Any time you must lay off employees, carefully review the list of people who will lose their jobs. Reason: Reductions-in-force are magnets for discrimination lawsuits.

Avoid hiring based on preferred ‘look’

04/28/2022
In a fickle consumer market, you might be tempted to base hiring decisions on the kind of employees you think your customers might prefer. That could be a big mistake. Courts take a dim view of rejecting qualified applicants who don’t fit preconceived notions of who is a good fit or has the right “look” for service jobs.

NLRB flexes muscle with reinstatement order

04/28/2022
The National Labor Relations Board, which enforces the National Labor Relations Act, is aggressively pursuing reinstatement as a remedy when it finds an employer has committed an unfair labor practice. That means more employers these days may have to take back workers they already fired. Ordering an employee’s reinstatement is an unusual step, but it could become more common.

Cost of an unwanted birthday party: $450,000

04/28/2022
Pro tip for managers: Listen to your employees! It generally makes for a more harmonious and productive workplace. In the following case, it could have prevented an unforced error that wound up costing an employer a six-figure jury award.

Snapshot: Retaliation nation

04/26/2022
The number of EEOC complaints alleging retaliation has increased by almost 20 percentage points in 10 years.

A rebirth for unions? Grassroots victories and NLRB’s push create new labor risk

04/21/2022
Only 10.3% of American workers belong to a union, and those numbers have fallen steadily over the past few decades. But organized labor has racked up some notable successes lately, often with just the local employees leading the way.