Friday, February 29, 2008

What else I'm reading this week #20


This week starts off with a couple of stories that fall under the related categories of "You can't make this stuff up and "Why I love my job."
  • The aptly named Lowering the Bar brings us the tale of an employee who was fired for trying to solicit a hooker on the company's dime and then filing for unemployment.
  • From Above the Law, we have a story of a supervisor at a Utah motivational coaching business accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his co-workers as, well, motivation to work harder. The lawsuit also alleges that the managers also allowed the supervisor to draw mustaches on employees' faces, take away their chairs and beat on their desks with a wooden paddle.
  • Meanwhile, The Laconic Law Blog and Overlawyered both bring us the story of two young women who claim that Southwest Airlines discriminated against them because they were too beautiful. For the curious, Wizbang has their photo. The following is Southwest Airline's very clever viral response to the claim [Hat tip to KnowHR Blog]:

Dan Schwartz at the Connecticut Employment Law Blog reports on his state's legislature's consideration of Workplace Bullying legislation. More than once, I've argued against this type of legislation - liability for a jerk boss has the real potential to put a stake through the heart of employment at-will. You can read my thoughts on this topic here and here.

Kris Dunn, The HR Capitalist, highlights the evils of "reply all." The comments to Kris' story relate some personal "reply all" horror stories.

George's Employment Blawg gives us a very thoughtful summary of the ERISA landscape post-LeRue.

BLR's HR Daily Advisor gives us 7 stupid things that supervisors say that beg for a lawsuit.

The Evil HR Lady blogs about the importance of computer and Internet use policies at work.

Finally, John Phillips' Word on Employment Law provide a state-by-state survey of which states require employers to provide employees time off to vote. Please note, as we approach March 4, that Ohio requires employers to give employees a "reasonable amount of time off" to vote, and that salaried employees cannot be docked.