Alex, I'll take leave of absence policies for $5.25 million.

A: An employer must have one of these to avoid running afoul of discrimination laws when an employee is out on a medical leave of absence.

Q: What is an open-ended leave of absence policy?

Two employers recently learned this lesson the hard way, care of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The 1st nominee for the “worst employer of 2019” is … the philandering pharmacist

While I continue to tally votes to name the Worst Employer of 2018, I have an employer too awful not to kick off the nominees for 2019.

Meet Joyce Fogleman, the president, pharmacist, and sole owner of J&S Professional Pharmacy, who is, along with her pharmacy, the defendant in Blades v. J&S Professional Pharmacy.

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Judge J. Philip Gilbert of The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois describes the employer as "your typical pharmacy."

A quick review on the rules for docking pay for exempt employees

"Can I dock part of an employee's paycheck?"

It's one of the questions I get most often from clients.

So, let's take a quick run through the rules of docking employee's pay for exempt employees.

WIRTW #534 (the “rock the vote” edition)

Have you cast your ballot for the Worst Employer of 2018? Time is ticking down for this year's final vote.

To remind you of the four truly awful employers vying for this year's honor, the finalists are:

• The Murdering Manager — company owner hires two men to rough-up a handyman who was not doing his job, and they accidentally kill him.

• The Sexist, Racist, Xenophobic, Oh My! — plant manager calls foreign-born employees "terrorists" and women "bitches," and tells the only black employee that her husband should work in a cotton field with a rope around his neck.

• The Supervisor Supremacist — supervisor begins morning staff meetings by saying "White Power" and giving the Nazi salute; when African-American employee complains, he finds himself hanged in effigy.

• The Tasering Torturer — company owner disciplines employee by threatening to kill him, lighting fires near him, and repeatedly shocking him with a taser.

Vote here.

Here's what I read this week:

Does Title VII protect an employee's self-help discovery?

Suppose one of your employees believes that she was discriminated against because of her protected class. She files a charge of discrimination with the EEOC, and, in support of the charge, provides the agency information from your confidential personnel files that she had copied. In response, you fire the employee for violating your confidentiality policy? She then files a new charge, alleging that her termination was in retaliation for her protected activity of gathering evidence in support of her discrimination claim.

Does her retaliation claim succeed?

Is your business rethinking its holiday party this year?

During the #MeToo portion yesterday's Best-Ever Year-End Employment Law Review that Five Employment Law Bloggers Have Ever Presented, Robin Shea suggested that the #MeToo Movement has altered employers' holiday-party plans this year.

Indeed, according to the 2018 Holiday Party Survey (conducted by the appropriately named outplace firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas), 35% of employers do not plan to throw a holiday party this year, the lowest number since 2009. Given the current strength of our economy, one would expect an opposite trend, suggesting that something else is causing this uptick in grinchy employers.

The likely culprit? #MeToo.

Forced hugs at work sound like a REALLY bad idea

Ray Kelvin, CEO of UK fashion retailer Ted Baker, is a hugger. According to an online petition seeking to end his practice, "he greets many people he meets with a hug, be it a shareholder, investor, supplier, partner, customer or colleague." And, it doesn't stop with hugs. He asks young female employees "to sit on his knee, cuddle him, or let him massage their ears." He strokes employees' ears. He takes off his shirt in the workplace and talks about his sex life. Even worse, when employees go to HR to complain, they are told, "That's just what Ray's like."

Well, they've had enough "of what Ray's like." More than 2,600 people, including over 300 current or former employees, have signed the online petition calling on Ted Baker to "scrap the forced 'hugs' and end harassment."