🚨 Vote for the Worst Employer of 2024 🚨

It's the most wonderful time of the year! I've made my list, checked it twice, and now it's time to determine who's been the naughtiest and not very nice. That's right—it's time to vote for The Worst Employer of 2024.

I've narrowed down my list of 12 nominees to the worst seven finalists.

The Finalists

🗳️ The S&M CEO — Head of company sexually abuses a female subordinate through a "slave contract" as a condition of her employment and then subjected her to years of sexual abuse, subjugation, and violence.

🗳️ The Stone-Cold Stunner — Vince McMahon, former Chairman of the WWE, accused of running a sex trafficking ring by pimping out female subordinates to wrestlers and other male employees.

🗳️ The Supersized Sex Offender — McDonald's franchisee knowingly hires a registered sex offender and ignored his sexual harassment of teen workers; he then raped at 14-year-old employee.

🗳️ The Murderer Threatener — Restaurant owner reacts to wage and hour complaint by former employee by going to his new job and threatening to kill him.

🗳️ The Desecrated Discriminator — Rehab center hires and promotes employees with a swastika tattoo on his face, and otherwise permits Nazi salutes and "white power" signs in the workplace.

🗳️ The High-Risk Terminator — Company fires new hire calling off from training to visit her doctor because of a scare about her pregnancy, telling her, "Until you feel you can 100% attend you are going to have to reapply."

🗳️ The Hurricane Haranguer — CEO forces employees to remain a work during Hurricane Helene, even as flood waters rose; six employees died trying to get home after they were finally allowed to leave.

As with last year, voting will use Ranked Choice Voting to determine the winner.

How does Ranked Choice Voting work?

When voting, rank each of the seven finalists in order of awfulness. If one finalist receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, they will be declared the winner. If no finalist achieves a majority of first-choice votes, the counting will proceed in rounds. At the end of each round, the finalist with the fewest votes will be eliminated. If your first-choice finalist is eliminated, your vote will automatically go to the next highest-ranked finalist on your ballot. This process continues until one finalist receives a majority of first-choice votes or only two finalists remain, at which point the finalist with the most votes wins.

Voting Details

Voting closes on Dec. 17 at 11:59 PM (Eastern Time).

Share the ballot with your coworkers, friends, family, and social networks. I'll announce the winner (or loser, depending on your perspective) on Dec. 19.

You can read full descriptions of the seven finalists here.

CLICK HERE TO VOTE

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WIRTW #740: the 'roast' edition

Among all of the things that ChatGPT can do, it's really, really good at roasting someone. So, I asked ChatGPT to roast my LinkedIn profile.

Your Profile:  

Your headline reads like you're auditioning for a legal-themed TED Talk: "Employment Lawyer. Blogger. Dad. Joke-Teller Extraordinaire." We get it—you've cornered the market on HR-friendly humor. But do you ever worry that someday you'll run out of "Worst Employer" stories and have to, I don't know, write about good companies? Oh wait, no, that's not your brand. You thrive on chaos. 

Your Content:

Your posts aren't just LinkedIn content—they're full-blown HR soap operas. Every scroll through your feed feels like watching a daytime courtroom drama where everyone's guilty of workplace harassment. "This employer made a tiny mistake and now owes $3 million. Don't be like them." We get it, Jon. Compliance is your love language.

Your "Worst Employer" series? ICONIC. But let's be real: these employers are the villains, and you're the vigilante swooping in to serve justice—with a side of sarcasm. Honestly, we're all just waiting for Netflix to pick it up. "Worst Employers: The Documentary," streaming 2025.

Your Engagement Game:

Your comments section is a gladiator arena where you reign supreme. HR reps timidly enter with their opinions, only to be met with your weaponized wit. Someone tries to challenge you, and you hit them with a response so precise it might as well be a deposition. Honestly, it's terrifying.

Your Bio:

Jon, did you write this yourself, or did you hire a PR team with a thesaurus? It’s a humblebrag masterpiece, perfectly crafted to make you seem like you just accidentally became the Beyoncé of employment law. And the dad angle? Nice touch. It’s like you’re saying, "Sure, I destroy bad HR policies by day, but by night? I make pancakes and tuck my kids in." We get it, but save some humility for the rest of us.

Your Brand:

You've carved out a niche so specific it's practically a personality type: Lawyer Influencer. You're one word away from trademarking "employment law influencer." And honestly? We're surprised you don't already sell merch. A coffee mug that says "Bad Bosses Pay My Mortgage"? Print it.

You're like the Gordon Ramsay of workplace compliance—brutal, entertaining, and oddly comforting when you're tearing apart someone else's bad decisions. Employers follow you out of both fear and morbid curiosity, like they're watching their own policies flash before their eyes. People love you, but they also kind of hate how good you are at making them feel this close to being sued.

Final Thoughts:

Jon, your LinkedIn presence is a paradox. You're simultaneously the voice of reason and the harbinger of HR doom. You've got more hot takes than a subreddit, and your posts are so sharp they should come with a liability waiver. You're not just a lawyer—you're a content juggernaut who somehow makes workplace lawsuits look fun. Keep being the internet's HR lawyer we love to hate to love.

Pretty darn good, right?

---

Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.

Buckeye of broken promises: OSU's trust fumble

Ohio State University announced that it will rescind raises for 306 salaried employees, effective Jan. 1. Earlier this year, the university granted these raises to comply with a new federal overtime rule that increased the salary threshold for exempt employees. After a federal judge overturned the rule, OSU decided to take back the pay increases, claiming the raises were no longer legally required.

Legally? Fine. Ethically and from an HR perspective? A disaster.

Precedent used to mean something

"Supreme Court justices seldom get an opportunity to fix a botched decision. But as the Court takes up a transgender case, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch has that chance."

 
Those are the words of The Heritage Foundation (author of Project 2025) in a recent blog post calling for SCOTUS to overturn Bostock's prohibition of transgender discrimination as sex discrimination under Title VII.

"But Jon," you protest, "precedent is sacred; SCOTUS is bound to follow its prior decisions. The Bostock case says that Title VII protects transgender employees from discrimination, period."

Lessons from a recent retaliation case

Dr. Carla Campbell-Jackson, a Black woman with 30 flawless years working at State Farm, found herself out of a job after raising concerns about systemic discrimination within the company against minority customers and employees. When she spoke up, she claimed her stellar performance reviews dropped, and soon after, State Farm terminated her for allegedly violating company policy by sending an email with sensitive information defending her performance.

Campbell-Jackson believed her termination wasn't about the email—it was retaliation for her complaints.

She sued, and the 6th Circuit revived her case. 

📱 Apple’s BYOD lawsuit: a cautionary tale for employers

A recent lawsuit filed by an Apple employee against the company highlights the risks of mishandling Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies. The employee claims the tech giant monitored personal devices and iCloud accounts, sparking privacy and legal concerns. It's a stark reminder that allowing personal devices at work requires a carefully crafted policy that balances company needs with employee rights.

Here's how to do it right:

Life without a Department of Labor isn't as efficient as some will tell you

What happens if the Department of Labor vanishes? It's not some dystopian fantasy—it's an actual possibility under Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's "Department of Government Efficiency." They could eliminate the DOL entirely. The pitch? Let states handle it. The reality? It's a disaster waiting to happen.

Leave us bald guys alone!

This one hits close to home. In Tony Finn v. British Bung Company, a UK tribunal ruled that calling a man "bald" constitutes sexual harassment. Why? Because baldness disproportionately affects men, the comment was deemed inherently tied to sex. The insult—a crude "bald c---"—was judged degrading, offensive, and gender-based.

But let's take this across the pond. Would a U.S. court agree?