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September 23, 2023
Court rules remote work during COVID-19 not a justification for permanent remote work
A U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled earlier this month that a Norfolk Public Schools principal was not entitled to work remotely as a reasonable accommodation after students returned to on-site learning. The principal, Cheryl Jordan, sought to work remotely from Jan. 3, 2021, to June 30, 2021, as a […]
September 16, 2023
After-hours activities like Gibson’s sex scandal can negatively impact one’s job
Personal lives and work lives can collide – and there are increasing examples of the consequences of after-hours activity on our work life. Michigan State Football Coach Mel Tucker is accused of engaging in sexual misconduct with a female vendor from the school. At the center of the case is a FaceTime call that he […]
September 9, 2023
Dept. of Labor proposes changes to Fair Labor Standards Act
The Biden administration is proposing changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act that would expand nonexempt status for workers who would be entitled to overtime compensation. On Aug. 30, the U.S. Department of Labor published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, or NPRM, which would require, at a minimum, that certain employees earn at least $1,059 […]
September 2, 2023
NLRB gives unions big reasons to celebrate this Labor Day
The National Labor Relations Board isn’t holding back in making drastic changes to long-standing precedent to make unionizing in American workplaces easier and more certain, giving unions some extra reasons to celebrate this Labor Day. Last month, the NLRB issued a decision touted by the federal agency to be “a new framework for determining when employers […]
August 26, 2023
12 signs your employee is being bullied at work
From investigating countless cases involving workplace bullies, I’ve seen a common theme emerge from the targets of that behavior. A workplace bully can be a supervisor, peer, subordinate or even a customer/client. If your employee tells you things in the following list are happening, listen to the employee and investigate thoroughly. 1. Work means misery. Although […]
August 12, 2023
New standard for legality of employer policies
Earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board announced that it had adopted a new standard for evaluating the lawfulness of certain work rules. In its 3-to-1 decision, the board overruled long-standing standards for evaluating the legality of employer policies, and adopted a new legal standard for policies that are challenged as unlawful under Section 8(a)(1) […]
August 5, 2023
Terminating employees based on an ‘honest belief’ of fraud did not violate FMLA
A lower court’s determination that CSX Transportation violated no laws in terminating employees it suspected of fraud in seeking medical leave was recently unanimously upheld by the 4th U.S. Circuit of Appeals. When CSXT issued furlough notices to employees in West Virginia, more than 65 of them submitted forms requesting to take medical leave based on […]
July 29, 2023
Dept. of Labor announces recovery of millions in unpaid wages against 8 companies
In a span of three days, the U.S. Department of Labor announced it had recovered $2.5 million in unpaid wages for over 450 employees involving eight different companies. As evidenced by the announcements, there is no one industry that continues to violate the Fair Labor Standards Act — a 1938 law that requires non-exempt employees to […]
July 22, 2023
Former employee sues claiming she was terminated because she was not the ‘right kind of Black person’
A former tenured professor at De Anza Community College in California has filed a 53-page lawsuit against her former employer alleging discrimination, wrongful termination and violation of her right to free speech. The former professor, Tabia Lee, was the faculty director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice and Multicultural Education at the school. She […]
July 15, 2023
Think twice before sending an eggplant emoji to a work colleague
In some ways, harassment cases are easier to substantiate these days, thanks to social media, texting and other forms of electronic communications. That isn’t necessarily a good thing – there continues to be inappropriate communications in the workplace – but text communications and other forms of written evidence make the job of the investigator much […]