Here’s what I read this week:
Friday, August 11, 2017
WIRTW #471 (the “free press … sort of” edition)
Here’s what I read this week:
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Thursday, August 10, 2017
Apparently the labor rights of strikers trump the non-harassment rights of employees
There exists only one workplace environment in which a white employee can keep his job after yelling the following at a group of African-American employees.
- “Hey, did you bring enough KFC for everyone?”
- “Go back to Africa, you bunch of f***ing losers.”
- “Hey anybody smell that? I smell fried chicken and watermelon.”
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Diversity is not an ideology
By now, you’ve likely heard about the male Google employee (James Damore) who circulated within the company a 10-page memo entitled, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber.” In this memo, he critiqued Google’s efforts at maintaining gender diversity within the ranks of its employees, arguing that women are underrepresented in tech not because of workplaces biases and discrimination, but because of inherent psychological differences between the sexes.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Avoid “FLSA roshambo” to win off-the-clock overtime claims
Defending claims for off-the-clock work is one of the most difficult tasks employers face under the Fair Labor Standards Act. An employee (or worse, group of employees) says, “I (we) worked, without compensation, before our shift, after our shift, or during our lunch; pay me (us).” Often, these employees have their own personal, detailed logs supporting their claims. And the employer has bupkis. It then must prove a negative (“You weren’t really working when you say you were”), which places the employer in a difficult and often unwinnable position. It’s a wage-and-hour game of rock-paper-scissors, where paper always beats air.
When we last examined Allen v. City of Chicago—a case in which a class of Chicago police officers claimed their employer owed them unpaid overtime for their time spent reading emails off-duty on their smartphones—an Illinois federal court had dismissed the claims, holding that most of the emails were incidental and non-essential to the officers’ work, and, regardless, the employer lacked specific knowledge of non-compensated off-duty work.
Last week—in what is believed to be the first, and only, federal appellate court decision on whether an employer owes non-exempt employees overtime for time spent off-duty reading emails on a smartphone—the 7th Circuit affirmed [pdf].
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Monday, August 7, 2017
Listen to me on the Talent10x podcast discuss the current state of LGBTQ discrimination
I have enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with Workforce Magazine. I’ve been blogging at workforce.com for the past five-plus years. I write a monthly column for the magzine. And, I serve on its editorial advisory board. Now, you can also add “podcaster” to my Workforce CV.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Friday, August 4, 2017
WIRTW #470 (the “lot was rocked" edition)
’Nuff said.
Here’s what I read this week:
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Thursday, August 3, 2017
Would you let your employer microchip you?
Our family dog, Loula, is microchipped. Our vet offered it to us as a service when Loula first joined our family. It provides some peace of mind in the sad event that Loula goes missing and ends up in a shelter or vet office. They would be able to read the rice-grain RFID chip embedded in her leg, discover that she belonged to us, and return her.
Loula, however, is a dog, she’s not an employee. Which is why I’m troubled that a Wisconsin employer has decided to offer microchip implants as a “service” to its employees.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Is joint employment the issue that unites our divided government?
I cannot recall a time when our government has been more divided across ideological and party lines. (I don’t count the early 1860s, because that’s not a time a can remember.) Thankfully, an issue has come along to build a peace bridge over the streets and through the halls of Washington D.C.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Tuesday, August 1, 2017
NBC reignites privacy debate by requiring social-media passwords of job applicants
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana)It’s been eight long years since Bozeman, Montana, set the internet on fire by requiring that job applicants for municipal positions turn over passwords to their personal social media accounts as part of the application process. In the wake of that story, states rushed to introduce legislation prohibiting this practice; many succeeded. And, the story more or less died.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Monday, July 31, 2017
Justice Department takes a stand in favor of LGBTQ discrimination
LGBTQ prohibitions continue to make headway in the courts. While Congress has remained silent on the issue, more and more state and federal courts hold that the law’s existing prohibitions against sex discrimination implicitly cover sexual orientation and other forms of LGBTQ discrimination.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Friday, July 28, 2017
WIRTW #469 (the “rock the lot” edition)
Do you like beautiful Ohio summer sunshine, delicious food-truck cuisine, and sweet rock ‘n’ roll music?
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Thursday, July 27, 2017
Treat harassment by non-employees no differently than harassment by employees
The civil rights agency found that Rashon Sturdivant, an experienced care provider, faced daily harassment, including racially offensive remarks about “brown sugar” and “black butts,” requests to perform sexual acts, and lewd comments about her body. The client also masturbated in front of her and groped her when she performed routine tasks like helping him sit up in bed or cleaning him. Although Sturdivant and other care providers informed R. MacArthur of his conduct, the EEOC charges that the employer failed to act on these complaints and also retaliated against Sturdivant by refusing to reassign her to another client.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Wednesday, July 26, 2017
The 14th nominee for the “worst employer of 2017” is … the horny head of HR
The 14th nominee for the worst employer of 2017, on which you'll be be voting at year's end, is perhaps the worst HR exec ever. If she's not the worst, she's at least the most libidinous.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Tuesday, July 25, 2017
OSHA, what say you about Michael Phelps vs. Shark?
This week is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. And the marquee event of this year's Shark Week was Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps "racing" a great white shark. I say "racing" because Phelps did not race an actual shark. Instead, he swam against a CGI shark based on a previously recorded shark. To create the CGI, the show had to record a shark swimming in a straight line for a pre-determined distance. And, since great white sharks are not known for their trainability, the job to lure the straight-line swim fell to this guy.
Don't do this at home. #SharkWeek pic.twitter.com/hgOF0905aq— Shark Week (@SharkWeek) July 24, 2017
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Monday, July 24, 2017
Court rules that religious accommodation request is not protected activity for retaliation claim
A Minnesota federal court has ruled that an employee’s request for a religious accommodation did not qualify as protected activity to support the employee’s retaliation claim. EEOC v. North Memorial Health Care (D. Minn. 7/6/17) involves a hospital that withdrew a conditional job offer to a nurse after she disclosed that she was a Seventh Day Adventist and could not work Friday nights because of her religion.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Friday, July 21, 2017
WIRTW #468 (the “big in Japan” edition)
True story. While trekking between San Francisco’s Coit Tower and Lombard Street, we passed a group of Japanese tourists exiting their bus. One of girls, wearing a striped shirt sort of similar to Norah’s striped dress, asked if she could take a selfie with Norah. A little Puzzled and very curious, my wife asked, “Is it because you’re both wearing stripes?” “No,” she replied, “It’s because she’s so pretty.”
Somewhere in Japan, Norah has a fan club of a half-dozen girls, all with Norah selfies on their phones.
While I’m on the subject of Miss Norah, she has some pretty cool gigs coming up over the next two weeks.
- On August 3, her band, the Major Minors, plays The Grog Shop, opening for the national School of Rock AllStars. They hit at 7 pm, and tickets are only $10, available here.
- On August 5, the Major Minors again invade Whiskey Island, with music from 2 – 6 pm, and this show is free.
- Finally, on July 30, SoR Stronsgville holds its annual Parking Lot Show, previewing its summer shows, to include Donovan’s Beatles show and Norah’s punk show. Free music and not-free food trucks start at 1 pm.
Here’s what I read this week:
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Thursday, July 20, 2017
This is what the interactive process is supposed to look like
Last week, Donovan turned 9. Since we were in California during his birthday, we’ve had a bit of a delayed celebration back home. Since D-man has Celiac Disease and cannot eat anything with any gluten, he wanted an ice cream birthday cake. For him, however, ice cream can be tricky. Even if the ice cream itself contains zero gluten in its ingredients, it can still make him ill if it becomes cross-contaminated.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Wednesday, July 19, 2017
The (high) times they are a changin’: medical marijuana and disability discrimination
In what is believed to be the first decision of its kind, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has allowed an employee to pursue a disability discrimination claim based on the use of medical marijuana.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Tuesday, July 18, 2017
A reminder that any employee can sue you at any time
Another obvious lesson |
Case in point: Robinson v. Klosterman Baking Co. (S.D. Ohio 7/5/17).
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Monday, July 17, 2017
What I learned on my summer vacation
Saturday evening my family and I returned from our two-week California vacation. Five nights in Los Angeles, two in Paso Robles (if you ever pass through, I cannot more highly recommend Sculpterra Winery and the Paso Robles Inn), three in Palo Alto (where Donovan participated in a research study seeking a link between Noonan Syndrome and ADHD, and which resulted in both of my kids now wanting to attend Stanford … best of luck to them and me), and three in San Francisco. We had epic adventures, experienced Disney (of course), hiked and biked, enjoyed beautiful scenery, reunited with family and friends, and walked … a lot (72 miles to be precise).
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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