Don't 💩 where you 🍽️

There's nothing inherently illegal about a boss being in a romantic relationship with a subordinate. There's something very illegal, however, if the boss fires the subordinate after the relationship ends.
That's exactly what is alleged to happened in Nixon v. Kysela Pere Et Fils, Ltd.

The risks in treating inside salespeople as "exempt"

If you employ inside salespeople, you need to pay attention to Su v. Webb Co. 

This case examined whether Webb, a wholesale distributor of plumbing equipment and fixtures, misclassified its 350 inside sales reps under the FLSA as exempt administrative employees, and therefore owed them unpaid overtime.

WIRTW #725: the 'sandwich' edition

It's been a crazy month. We spent last weekend helping my parents unpack and organize their new apartment in the senior living community to which they just moved. In less than two week we move my daughter into college. Meanwhile, I'm also in the midst of taking and defending a dozen depositions in a contentious piece of litigation, while also managing my busy employment law and beer law practices.

I'm a card-carrying member of the sandwich generation.

The "sandwich generation" refers to individuals who are simultaneously caring for their aging parents while supporting their own children. We are "sandwiched" between the older and younger generations, often facing significant emotional, financial, and physical demands as we manage the dual responsibilities of caregiving and parenting. The term highlights the unique pressures and challenges we experience as we strive to balance family, personal, and work needs.

Employers, you have employees who join me in the sandwich generation. The question is what are you doing to support them? Here are five suggestions.

1. Flexible Work Schedules: Allow employees to adjust their work hours or work remotely to accommodate caregiving responsibilities.

2. Paid Family Leave: Offer paid leave for employees to care for sick or aging family members.

3. Employee Assistance Programs: Provide access to counseling, support groups, and resources for managing stress and caregiving challenges.

4. Caregiver Support Resources: Offer information and resources on eldercare services, childcare options, and caregiving best practices.

5. Work-Life Balance Initiatives: Promote a culture that values work-life balance and encourages employees to take time for themselves and their families.

By implementing these strategies, employers can help alleviate some of the pressures faced by employees in the sandwich generation, leading to improved job satisfaction, productivity, and overall well-being. It will also you from losing quality employees who will seek more supportive workplaces.

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

Off-duty social media is just as actionable as sexual harassment as on-duty misconduct

"An employer cannot be liable for what an employee posts online while off-the-clock. Personal time is personal time; it's irrelevant to the workplace." That is an 100% incorrect statement of the law, according to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Okonowsky v. Garland.

Linda Okonowsky worked as a staff psychologist in a federal prison. She discovered that a lieutenant with whom she worked operated an Instagram account followed by more than 100 prison employees, which contained overtly sexist (and racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and transphobic) content. It also contained offensive content about the workplace and horrible content that specifically targeted her, including one about the male staff "gang banging" her.

When she complained to the prison's safety manager, he told her that she needed to "toughen up" or "get a sense of humor." It took months of complaints and escalating social-media awfulness before the prison finally took action.

Bevisförstöring is not the name of an IKEA bookcase; it's Swedish for spoliation of evidence.

A federal judge recently ordered IKEA to pay $566,731.53 in attorneys' fees and costs as a part of sanctions for deleting employee emails in three consolidated class-action age-discrimination lawsuits.

Here's what happened. In April 2022, the court ordered IKEA to produce the email files of its chief human resources officer, global head of DEI, several store managers, and its recruitment manager. This production was to occur on a rolling basis and be completed by the end of 2023.

IKEA failed to produce a single email. In fact, it couldn't produce any emails because they had been deleted years earlier, after already being part of an earlier production order—a fact IKEA hid from the court and opposing counsel for months.

"DEI hire" is the new N-word.

After President Biden dropped out of the 2024 campaign and elevated his Vice President, Kamala Harris, as the presumptive Democratic nominee, supporters of Donald Trump started attacking her as a "DEI hire."

For example, during an interview with CNN’s Manu Raju, Republican Rep. Tim Burchett said this: "100 percent, she was a DEI hire." He's not only one pushing this narrative.

When one person calls another a "DEI hire," they mean they are unqualified, unskilled, and hired only because of their race. They say it because they cannot say publicly what they really want to say. 

What does Project 2025 mean for employers? Labor law edition

Today is the 3rd and final part of my series on what Project 2025 means for employers. Today, I examine its proposed impact on the National Labor Relations Act and union-management relations. (You can find parts 1 and 2 here.)

Project 2025 proposes the following seven key changes to the NLRA: