A new report from the Center for Worklife Law concludes that at least 63 local governments in 22 states—including some of the nation’s major urban areas—have passed employment anti‐discrimination laws that go beyond federal and state statutes to ensure that those with caregiving responsibilities are not discriminated against at work. Cases filed under these laws may [...]
Supreme Court to hear case on privacy rights of public employees
The Supreme Court will hear a case later this term which will help establish the contours of privacy in the workplace, although the focus will be on public employees, not private.
Sgt. Jeff Quon was a member of the Ontario, California police department. The department had a written policy reserving the right to monitor “network activity [...]
Ready for some privacy turducken?
The Supreme Court seems likely to accept a case involving background checks on employees who do contract work for the government, a legal hodgepodge which one judge has analogized to a turducken (a turkey stuffed with a duck and a chicken).
The case was brought by a group of scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion [...]
Employers: Take care with background checks
The EEOC has sued a nationwide convention company alleging a pattern or practice of unlawful discrimination because the company has rejected job applicants based on their credit history, or if they have had one or more of various types of criminal charges or convictions. The EEOC alleges that this practice has had an unlawful discriminatory [...]
Privacy 101
Two interesting stories on privacy issues this morning.
First, Acorn is having even more problems because a republican activist did a little dumpster diving behind its offices in San Diego and came out with a bunch of documents containing social security and driver’s license numbers of its members and job applicants. Ouch!
Second, Sen. Patrick Leahy is [...]
Employers: Time to check your wage and hour compliance
The Department of Labor announced Friday that it has hired an additional 250 wage and hour investigators to respond more quickly to complaints and undertake more targeted enforcement of wage and hour laws.
In the past three months, the Labor Department has brought two enforcement cases that resulted in the recovery of nearly $2 million in [...]
Immigration is expanding its audit program for illegal workers
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced yesterday that it is expanding a program for auditing companies’ hiring practices, and that it notified 1,000 companies this week that they would have to undergo such a review.
It appears that the audits will primarily affect private companies with some connection to public safety and national security, such as [...]
GINA is coming this Saturday (no, not Geena Davis)
The new federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) takes effect for employers with over 15 employees this Saturday, November 21, 2009. Some are calling this the “most important new anti-discrimination law in two decades.”
The new law prohibits employers from requesting or considering genetic testing or genetic background information in hiring, firing or promotions. More specifically, [...]
What color communicator are you and your employees?
What I find most interesting in this article about stopping workplace gossip is not the company’s use of an “agreement to values” which prohibits back-stabbing, gossiping and the like; its the use of color-coded name plates to advise what communication style a particular employee prefers. Red is for those who are direct and to the [...]
Did UnitedHealth Group cross a line by asking its employees to lobby against health care reform?
Minneapolis-based UnitedHealth Group is taking some heat for providing form letters to its 75,000 U.S. employees opposing aspects of the health care reform bill working its way through Congress. The company also urged employees to write letters to local newspapers and then share those letters with the company’s lobbying arm.
One of the form letters provided by UHG makes [...]
