Coronavirus Update 1-27-2021: Tread carefully if offering employees financial incentives to get the COVID-19 vaccine

To a nation waiting for action, let me be clearest on this point: Help is on the way. 

Those were the words of President Biden in announcing the ordering of 200 million additional COVID-19 vaccine doses, a hike in the distribution of doses to states, and a promise that there will be enough doses to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of summer. It's an ambitious plan, but it's what we need to end a pandemic that has already claimed the lives of more than 425,000 Americans and will claim hundreds of thousands more before we close the book on Covid.

Vaccines, however, only work if people actually accept syringes in their arms. Too many of us say that they won't. 

The 3rd nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the pregnant pauser

Pregnancy discrimination has been illegal for at least 43 years. You'd think employers would know better. You'd also lose a lot of bets if you bet against the ignorance of some employers. 

Meet Awon Phie LLC, which operates a Holiday Inn Express in Corpus Chrisi, Texas, our third nominee for the "Worst Employer of 2021." How did it earn its nomination? According to a lawsuit the EEOC filed against it, three weeks after hiring an employee to work as a housekeeper, the company's operations manager, noticing her stomach, told her she was a "liability" because of her pregnancy, that she couldn't employ a pregnant woman, and fired her.

Coronavirus Update 1-25-2021: President Biden calls for unemployment benefits to employees who refuse to work because of Covid

Late last week, President Biden signaled that part of his overall plan to provide economic relief for American families and businesses amid the COVID-19 crisis is to broaden the availability of unemployment benefits to employees who quit their jobs related to Covid.

Specifically, the president is "asking the U.S. Department of Labor to consider clarifying that workers who refuse unsafe working conditions can still receive unemployment insurance." 

Civil rights is not a pizza

Among the litany of executive orders President Biden issued in his first two days in office was one on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation. It's a beautiful statement adopting as the policy of the federal government the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock that Title VII's definition of sex explicitly includes LGBTQ employees.

Instead of reading my thoughts, today I offer you two options to listen to them

One of the great benefits of this blog is the opportunities it has opened for me to network with others. One of the great benefits of that networking is the ability to sometimes have my voice heard on other platforms. Today, I offer for your listening pleasure two podcasts on which I've recently appeared, the HR Social Hour Half Hour Podcast, and the Tech Leader's Toolbox Podcast.

Inauguration Day

Today is a wonderful day.

28 years ago, January 20, 1993, I was on the National Mall experiencing the inauguration of Bill Clinton. One of my absolute best memories. I treasure the day I spent as part of history.

Democrat or Republican, left or right, liberal or conservative, it’s a day that we should ALL come together to celebrate our nation and our glorious democracy.

So even if you disagree with the person placing his hand on the Bible and swearing the oath of office, please celebrate all that it symbolizes.

At noon, I’ll be pausing my work day and moving to my family-room couch to watch history.

How will you spend Inauguration Day? Drop a comment below and let me know.

* Pic by whitehouse.gov, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What employers can expect from Biden’s presidency: A temporary emergency OSHA standard for COVID-19

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the identification of the first COVID-19 case in the United States. On January 20, 2020, the State of Washington and the CDC confirmed that someone in Washington State had contracted the virus. Since then, 24,809,840 additional Americans have contracted Covid, and 411,520 have died from it. 

All the while, OSHA, the federal agency charged with protecting health and safety in the workplace, has done very little to address the pandemic, and we still lack a national safety standard on keeping Covid-safe at work.

President Biden's OSHA will fix this glaring omission. He has called on Congress "to authorize the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue a COVID-19 Protection Standard that covers a broad set of workers."

Biden calls for extension and expansion of FFCRA

As you should hopefully be aware, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), the federal law that provided paid leave to employees for Covid-related absences, expired on December 31, 2020, with an option for employers to voluntarily expand leave through March 31, 2021. The problem, however, is that while this leave has expired or will soon expire, COVID-19 is not expiring any time soon.

Help, however, may soon be on the way, as part of President-elect Biden's America Rescue Plan. A key part of that plan is a significant expansion of the FFCRA.

What employers can expect from Biden’s presidency: A $15 minimum wage

This week I'll be examining what employers can expect from Joe Biden's presidency. Today, a $15 minimum wage.

Late last week President-elect Biden released his America Rescue Plan, a comprehensive legislative package to provide relief to those struggling because of COVID-19. Among its proposals was a $15 minimum wage.

The 2nd nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the stillbirthing leave spurner

When I close out this contest at the end of each year I ask myself, "Jon, will you be able to find sufficiently awful nominees for the next year?" Each year answers this question with a resounding yes. 2021 is no exception.

I bring you the District of Columbia Public Schools, which denied maternity leave to a teacher after she suffered the tragedy of delivering a stillborn baby. 

H.B. 352 finally fixes Ohio’s broken employment discrimination statute for employers

For lack of more artful description, Ohio's employment discrimination law was a mess. It exposed employers to claims for up to six years (the longest such statute of limitations in the country), contained no less than three different ways for employees to file age discrimination claims (each with different remedies and filing deadlines), rendered managers and supervisors personally liable for discrimination, and omitted any filing prerequisites with the state civil rights agency.

The start of 2021, however, provides Ohio businesses much-needed reform of this previously broken law. Earlier this week, Governor DeWine signed House Bill 352 [pdf]. 

Github fires employee for using the n-word … Nazi

Software company GitHub is taking a lot of heat for firing a Jewish employee for referring to the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6 as "Nazis." The Verge has the details:

GitHub reportedly fired a Jewish employee after he posted a message in Slack that said "stay safe homies, Nazis are about" the day of the attack on the US Capitol….

The message sparked controversy inside the company, with one colleague criticizing him for using divisive language. GitHub's HR team chastised the employee for using the word "Nazi" in a company Slack channel. Two days later, GitHub allegedly fired him, citing vague patterns of behavior. 

Coronavirus Update 1-12-2021: 8 of the 10 deadliest days in US history are because of Covid

While we've all been mentally overcome by the rebellion that unfolded at the Capitol and the civil war that I fear it started, Covid-19 continues to rage around the country. Hundreds of thousands are falling ill each day, hospitals are stretched to capacity, and thousands are dying daily. The circle of people with Covid is closing in personally, and the number of calls I am receiving from clients with the question, "We've had an employee test positive; what do we do," has increased exponentially. All the while, the rollout of the vaccine, which was supposed to save us from this pandemic, has been too slow and uneven. 

The bottom line is that Covid-19 continues to win. 

“Beware systemic discrimination,” says EEOC to employers

Systemic discrimination has multiple meanings, according to the EEOC:

• A "pattern or practice, policy, and/or class cases where the discrimination has a broad impact on an industry, profession, company, or geographic location."
• "Bias that is built into systems, originating in the way work is organized," referring to "structures that shape the work environment or employment prospects differently for different types of workers."
• "Patterns of behavior that develop within organizations that disadvantage certain employees and become harmful to productivity."

Regardless of you define it, in a report published last Friday, the EEOC says that it pursuing systemic discrimination as an enforcement priority to dismantle the pattern, practice, or policy that results in or facilitates discriminatory decisions.

When you discover that you employ a seditious rebel #TraitorsGettingFired

Imagine you discover that Elizabeth from Knoxville is one of your employees.

Elizabeth wasn’t ready for the revolution to be televised😂 pic.twitter.com/LibeNAuE6h

— xy467chr (@xy467chr) January 6, 2021

Or what about Jake Angeli (the self-proclaimed QAnon shamen)?

Why is Jake Angeli walking free? If he can be named in this article, and he was part of the insurrectionist movement yesterday, he committed a crime by invading the Capitol and he should be arrested. https://t.co/5hUbek57nc

— Dr. HawaiiDelilah™ (@HawaiiDelilah) January 7, 2021

Or Paul Davis?

This is Paul Davis. Paul is a lawyer. He’s also associate general counsel & director of human resources at Goosehead Insurance. Today he stormed the capitol building in an attempt to stage a coup against the US government and documented it (!) on Instagram. @followgoosehead pic.twitter.com/eTkoK92ujL

— Roger Sollenberger (@SollenbergerRC) January 7, 2021

Or this guy, who actually wore his work badge to the protest?

NEW: A Maryland company has terminated one of its employees after he was apparently captured in a picture during the mob riot in the Capitol yesterday. @wbaltv11 pic.twitter.com/flxRhdmP3P

— Tre Ward (@TreWardWBAL) January 7, 2021

Or any of the others amid the hoard of seditious rebels who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday in an act of open rebellion against the United States and its government?

Question: Should these people be fired from their jobs?

I’m pretty far from okay

I’m not okay with what happened yesterday. I’m angry, I’m sad, and I’m scared for the future of our country and our democracy. 

A seditious insurrection stormed the Capitol in an attempted coup designed the stop the peaceful transfer of power and overthrow our democracy. Nothing about this is acceptable. It’s abjectly deplorable and antithetical to everything for which our country stands.

Nobody should be okay with what happened yesterday.

If you don’t reject what happened without reservation or qualification, please unfollow me. 

I’m not in Kansas anymore … or ever (an unemployment fraud story)

What's wrong with this photo?

The 1st nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021" is … the bogus bonus payor

We all felt for Clark Griswold when, instead of his expected year-end bonus, he received a one-year membership to the Jelly of the Month Club (the gift that keeps on giving the whole year). 

Think about Clark's outrage when you read this story, which recently made the rounds (c/o The Verge):

What's the cruelest prank you can make on employees who are struggling during a pandemic when millions of people have lost their jobs or lives? GoDaddy … tried to find out when it sent employees a fake email informing them they'd receive a $650 holiday bonus. …

Coronavirus Update 1-4-2021: DOL approves telemedicine visits to establish a serious health condition under the FMLA

With the COVID-19 pandemic closing health-care-provider offices or severely limiting patient access, many have turned to telehealth to remotely obtain healthcare from the safety of their homes. The question arose, however, whether these remote visits would qualify as "treatment" under the FMLA's qualifying definition of a "serious health condition," which under the FMLA's regulations requires an "in-person visit to a health care provider," and does not include "a phone call, letter, email, or text message."

While you were celebrating your December holidays, the Department of Labor issued a Field Assistance Bulletin [pdf] addressing this issue. 

’Twas the Employment Law Night Before Christmas

In what has become an annual tradition for my final post of the year, I bring you the holiday classic, ’Twas the Employment Law Night Before Christmas.

To all of my readers, after a 2020 no one will ever forget, thank you all for reading, commenting, and sharing, and please have a happy and safe holiday season. I’ll see everyone on January 4, 2021, with fresh content to kick off the new year.

---

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the office
Not a creature was stirring … well, just one of the bosses;
The bonuses were paid by the company with care,
In hopes that no ungrateful employees would swear.