Why we accommodate employees

Lyerly v. Southwest Airlines (S.D. Tex. 12/9/15) provides a textbook example of why we accommodate employees. This employer bent over backwards to accommodate an ill employee, and, as a result, had little difficulty in defeating her subsequent disability-discrimination lawsuit.

What you need to know (for now) about smartphone use and overtime pay

I first wrote about the possibility of employees seeking unpaid overtime for time spent away from work checking emails on mobile devices all the way back in 2007, and have kept writing about it since (for example, here and here). Now, more than 8 years later, we finally have the first judicial decision on whether non-exempt employees are owed overtime or other compensation for this off-the-clock time. The result is a mixed bag for employers.

Professionalism, social media, and the workplace

An employee was recently terminated because of this post on his personal Facebook page:

WIRTW #393 (the “Darth Trump” edition)

The Internet was invented in 1983. It’s taken me 32 years to figure out why. The Internet was invented so that someone could replace audio of Darth Vader with audio of Donald Trump in Star Wars clips.

Darth Trump wins the Internet.

Here’s the rest of what I read this week:

#ElderlyChristmasSongs and age discrimination

Yesterday, #ElderlyChristmasSongs trended on Twitter. Yes, it’s meant to be a joke, and, yes, some were even funny. Now here’s the part where I get to play Employment Law Scrooge.

Alcoholism and ADA: former USC coach Steve Sarkisian files suit over his termination

On October 12, USC fired its head football coach, Steve Sarkisian. Yesterday, Sarkisian filed a 31-page, 14-count complaint in California state court challenging his termination. The crux of his claims? That USC violated state disability-discrimination laws by terminating him because of his disability and failing to accommodate his disability—alcoholism. 

There is no doubt that the ADA protects alcoholism as a disability. The law, however, draws a line between protected addiction and unprotected on-the-job misconduct , even when the former causes the latter.

This case will test the limits of that line.

U.S. Chamber takes on the NLRB’s Theater of the Absurd

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, what I am about to tell you should not come as a shock—I’m not a huge fan of the current iteration of the NLRB.

Yes, labor unions have a right to exist, and, yes, employees have the right to join them, and, yes, unions have the right to collectively bargain for wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. When the NLRB operates correctly, it balances the rights of employers, unions, and employees to maintain industrial peace. Currently, the NLRB is not operating correctly.

My main critique of the NLRB is not with its handling of the 7% of the American workforce that is collectively bargained (although that has issues too), but instead with its handling of the other 93%. The NLRB has waged a war over the past five years on the issue of protected concerted activity, and nowhere do the NLRB’s opinion and my opinion differ more than over the issue of employee handbooks and workplace policies.