Paper plant settles case of egregious racial harassment with EEOC for $385,000

Packaging Corporation of America has agreed to pay the EEOC $385,000 to settle the racial harassment claims of two African American employees. 

The allegations are egregious (per the EEOC's news release).

Is God anti-union?

Thomas Ross, a security officer employed by Allied Universal in San Francisco, has filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC against Service Employees International Union officials and his employer for forcing him to join and financially support the union after he told both that his religious beliefs forbid union support.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, an employee can be forced to join a labor union and pay union dues whether or not he or she supports that union or any union. If, however, the employee happens to work in one of the 27 states with right to work laws, he or she cannot be forced to join or pay. California is not one of those states. Thus, Ross claims that his employer and the SEIU should have reasonably accommodated his sincerely held religious belief that union membership violates his Christian beliefs.

There’s nothing wrong about wanting not to have fun at work

A French employee, fired for refusing to participate in after-work drinks and other "team building" activities, has won the legal right "not to be fun" at work.

The man, named in his lawsuit only as "Mr. T," was fired for "professional incompetence" — specifically his refusal to adhere to the company's "fun" values. According to the Court of Cassation (France's highest court), the company's "fun" values included regular obligatory social events that included "excessive alcoholism encouraged by colleagues who made very large quantities of alcohol available," plus "practices pushed by colleagues involving promiscuity, bullying, and incitement to various excesses."

WIRTW #651: the “thankful” edition

As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday, I thought I'd take a moment to say a few thank-yous, as I have a lot for which to be thankful.

🙏 Thank you to all of my readers, followers, and commenters, here and on LinkedIn and Twitter (for as long as Twitter remains a thing). We might not always agree, but if we did it would be crazy boring. 

🙏 Thank you to all of the bad employers, who continue to act before they think (or don't think at all) and provide me content for all of my posts.

🙏 Thank you to my law firm, which supports my online fancies. They hired me to run our labor and employment practice, and didn't bat an eye when I expressed an intent to spread my wings into craft beer law. 

🙏 Thank you to all of the organizations that invited me to speak in 2022, and a special shoutout to Business Management Daily, which hosts my monthly column and for which I'll be speaking monthly next year. Also, if you want to toast a beer with me, look for me at the Ohio Craft Brewers Conference in Cleveland from 1/30 – 2/1, and at the national Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville from 5/7 – 5/10.

🙏 Thank you to my family, who continue to support my career.

🙏 Thank you to my daughter, Norah, who still wants to create a podcast with her dad. As for our podcast, our newest episode addresses all things Thanksgiving, or at least all things Thanksgiving that matter, including food, food, food, parades, football, family, and food. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Overcast, Stitcher, our website, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

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

I have zero sympathy for insubordinate employees who are fired

This is how it started.

This is how it's ended (for now).

In the intervening 48 hours, Elon Musk reportedly fired dozens of Twitter employees who criticized him publicly on Twitter and privately in the company's Slack channel. The first to go was Eric Frohnhoefer, a Twitter engineer who publicly challenged Musk's knowledge of how the app's backend actually works. Other employees, like this one, took to Mastodon to challenge Musk's termination of Frohnhoefer in obscenity laced rants.

The 14th (and final) nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2022” is … the slumlord supervisor

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

That's the language of the 13th Amendment of the Constitution. Someone needs to provide Emmanuel Polanco, principal of MS 80 in the Bronx, a civics refresher. He's accused of shaking down a group of 10 teachers assigned to his school from a Department of Education program that brought teachers from the Dominican Republic to teach bilingual education in city schools.

It's the details of the shakedown, however, that will shake you.

EEOC Commissioner targets companies offering employees abortion travel benefits

In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that ended federal constitutional protections for abortions as a fundamental right, many employers in states in which abortions suddenly became illegal started offering employees out of state travel benefits for abortion access.

Now, not even five months later, Bloomberg Law reports that Republican EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas has launched targeted discrimination investigations against at least three of those companies.