Maternity leave does not guarantee continued employment

By Grand Parc CC BY 2.0 via Wiki Commons

Michelle Bailey worked in the human resources department of Oakwood Healthcare. During her maternity leave, her immediate supervisor and others assumed her responsibilities, and discovered certain deficiencies in how she performed her job.

Discovery of those deficiencies led the supervisor to review Bailey’s qualifications as set forth in her employment application. That review, in turn, uncovered an application Bailey had submitted for a different position at Oakwood two years earlier. A comparison of Bailey’s two resumés on file lead to the conclusion that Bailey had falsified her later application by exaggerating her prior experience and qualifications.

That discovery, coupled with the performance deficiencies, caused Oakwood to terminate Bailey’s employment upon her return from maternity leave.

DO NOT sacrifice employee safety for productivity

Photo by Milo McDowell on Unsplash

The Verge reports that workers at an Amazon distribution facility are “forced to pee in bottles or forego their bathroom breaks entirely because fulfillment demands are too high.”

While this is horrible, and demeaning, it’s still just employees peeing in bottles. It’s not THAT big of deal? Right?

Wrong.

WIRTW #502 (the “AirTalk” edition)

Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate made history by unanimously changing its rules to permit Senator (and new mom) Tammy Duckworth to bring her newborn onto the Senate floor while she cast votes.

Yesterday, I guested on Los Angles public radio station KPCC’s AirTalk and spoke with Libby Denkmann about what this means for the future of parental leave laws in America, and why we should be ashamed that countries like Iran and Afghanistan do more for their working moms than we do.

Thanks to Libby for the great conversation, and to my friend, Kate Bischoff, for the connection.

You can listen here. The segment starts at 29:50, and my interview starts at 41:30.



Here’s what I read this week:

If you weren’t angry about the fired Saints cheerleader before, you will be now.

Remember Bailey Davis? She’s the New Orleans Saints cheerleader fired for violating the team’s social media policy.

Her offense? This photo, which she posted to her personal Instagram.

She’s already filed a civil rights complaint, and now she’s speaking out about her alleged discriminatory treatment, and discriminatory policies in professional cheerleading in general.

Apparently God is in the restaurant business, at least according to the 6th Circuit

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

It’s been nearly three years since I first reported on the Department of Labor’s wage and hour lawsuit against Akron, Ohio’s, Cathedral Buffet, owned and operated by the Earnest Angley Ministries.

The DOL’s allegations are pretty offensive. Not only did it claim that all of the restaurant’s employees worked for free, it also claimed that the ministry coerced church members into volunteering, telling them they “had an obligation to provide their labor to the Buffet, in service to God, and that a failure to offer their labor to the Buffet … would be the same as failing God;” that Angley “was God’s prophet, and saying ‘no’ to Angley would be tantamount to saying ‘no’ directly to God,” and “‘blaspheming against the Holy Ghost.’”

I abhor the term “wage theft,” and you should too

Photo by Thirteen .J on Unsplash

This past Sunday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a story entitled, Do wage theft laws in Ohio harm or help workers? Notably, it quoted yours truly as the voice of management on this issue (thanks to Olivera Perkins for the interview):

Some business advocates argue with the very term “wage theft.” Jon Hyman, a local lawyer who represents employers, says not every employer cited for wage theft has willingly denied rightful wages.”To me, wage theft is a loaded term,” he said. “It presumes an intent to steal.” 

Must you pay employees for FMLA-related breaks during the work day?

Photo by Liam Stahnke on Unsplash

Last week, the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division resumed its practice of publishing Opinion Letters. One of the first it published answers an interesting question about the intersection of the FLSA and the FMLA.

Must an employer pay an employee for FMLA-approved breaks taken during the work day?

I’ve taken some journalistic license and paraphrased the questions. The answers, however, are verbatim from the DOL Opinion Letter FLSA2018-19 [pdf].