First, there was my Golden Rule of Employee Relations: Treat your employees as you would want to be treated (or as you would want your wife, kids, parents, etc., to be treated).
Friday, August 13, 2021
What Would Ted Do? #WWTD
First, there was my Golden Rule of Employee Relations: Treat your employees as you would want to be treated (or as you would want your wife, kids, parents, etc., to be treated).
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Thursday, August 12, 2021
Coronavirus Update 8–12–2021: Justice Department confirms that ADA applies to Covid “long-haulers"
A few weeks ago I opined that the ADA likely covers Covid long-haul symptoms as protected disabilities that employers must accommodate.
In recently published policy guidance, the Department of Justice agrees.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Wednesday, August 11, 2021
Coronavirus Update 8–11–2021: Mad as hell
How are you? Delta is spiking Covid infection rates to their highest levels since last winter. Hospitals are again facing a crisis of space. Breakthrough infections are a grim reality. Masks are again becoming part of our daily lives. How am I? I'm mad.
How mad? Mad enough to voice my resentment to WebMD.
"I am angry, I am resentful, and I think it’s a fair and appropriate response," says Jonathan Hyman, a Berea, OH, attorney who blames the unvaccinated for the backslide in pandemic progress.
Hyman has been following the difficult guidelines health experts have been urging from the beginning. He has been masking up, avoiding large gatherings, postponing travel, and he signed up to receive the vaccine as soon as it was available.
"We have been responsible, I did everything I was supposed to do," says Hyman, 48, who didn't visit his parents for 18 months to keep them safe. "Yet here we are, 16, 17 months later, and it feels like we're in the exact same place we were last summer, and it’s all because some people refuse to do the responsible things they were told to do."
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Tuesday, August 10, 2021
Coronavirus Update 8–10–2021: Vaccines and religions accommodation requests
"I need an accommodation for your mandatory vaccination policy. The vaccine is against my religion."
As more employers roll out vaccine mandates, more will be faced with this exact scenario.
Title VII requires an employer to reasonably accommodate an employee's sincerely held religious beliefs, practices, or observances, as long as the accommodation does not impose an undue hardship.
Two, and only two, religions, however, actually support people not getting vaccinated as a tenet of the religion — Christian Scientists and the Dutch Reformed Church. There are an estimated 106,000 Christian Scientists in the United States, and 194,000 members of the Reformed Church. That's a tidy total of 300,000 potential religious objectors based on their religion's actual teachings, period (or only 0.25% of all employees). But that minuscule number does not end the inquiry.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Monday, August 9, 2021
Coronavirus Update 8–9–2021: CNN fires three employees for lying about vaccine status
CNN — which is requiring all in-person employees to be fully vaccinated — has fired three employees for going into the office unvaccinated.
In the past week, we have been made aware of three employees who were coming to the office unvaccinated. All three have been terminated. Let me be clear — we have a zero-tolerance policy on this. You need to be vaccinated to come to the office. And you need to be vaccinated to work in the field, with other employees, regardless of whether you enter an office or not. Period. We expect that in the weeks ahead, showing proof of vaccination may become a formal part of the WarnerMedia Passcard process. Regardless, our expectations remain in place.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Friday, August 6, 2021
The 11th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the Cosby Suite
If you're my age, when you hear the name Activision you think of games like Kaboom!, Pitfall!, and the Atari 2600. If you're younger you might think of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or Call of Duty. No matter your age, after you read this lawsuit, you'll only be able to think, "OMG, what the hell is wrong with them?!"
According to the lawsuit the State of California is bringing against Activision Blizzard, "During a company event … [key World of Warcarft developer Alex] Afrasiabi would hit on female employees, telling [them] he wanted to marry them, attempting to kiss them, and putting his arms around them. This was in plain view of other male employees, including supervisors, who had to intervene and pull him off female employees. Afrasiabi was so known to engage in harassment of females that his suite was nicknamed the 'Cosby Suite' after alleged rapist Bill Cosby."
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Thursday, August 5, 2021
Coronavirus Update 8–5–2021: Debunking dangerous anti-vax theories and organizations like The Solari Report
You've read my posts from earlier this week, listened to the newly self-appointed quarterback of Team Vaccine Mandate, and decided to require the Covid vaccine for all of your on-site employees. After you announce your mandate, an employee enters your office to present the following ultimatum: "I'll get the vaccine," the employee tells you, "as soon as you sign off on this document."
The employee then hands you the following form, which it found on a website called The Solari Report.
Form for Employees Whose Employers Are Requiring Covid-19 Injection
— The Solari Report (@solari_the) August 2, 2021
This puts employers in a box. This is a form every employee who is faced with this needs to submit to the authorized officer of their company. It is 100% legally accurate, forces them to respond to your questions ttps://t.co/stuFAl0888">pic.twitter.com/stuFAl0888
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Wednesday, August 4, 2021
Coronavirus Update 8–4–2021: The dam is breaking on mandatory Covid vaccines, and the flood is coming
The news on mandated Covid vaccinations is coming fast and furious, from courts, governments, and private businesses.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Tuesday, August 3, 2021
Coronavirus Update 8–3–2021: What the CDC’s new mask guidance actually says and means
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Monday, August 2, 2021
Coronavirus Update 8–2–2021: Employers, now is the time to mandate Covid vaccines
As short as a few weeks ago, I'd have told you that the choice to get vaccinated is a personal one, and that employers that mandated the Covid vaccine for their employees were over-stepping into their employees' medical privacy.
That was before last week's news that the Delta variant has taken hold and taken off. As we now know that Delta is more transmissible than the chickenpox or the common flu, impacting younger people, and likely more dangerous than prior variants, our country is in a dark place with this virus, and it's rapidly getting darker.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Friday, July 23, 2021
Coronavirus Update 7–23–2021: We talkin’ bout masks! We ain’t talkin’ bout the vaccine, we talkin’ bout masks.
I'm not proud of this but i just made a scene in public for the first time in my life… I walked into a Starbucks and they asked me to put a mask on! I yelled this is ridiculous, so I turned around and walked out. I know what you're thinking… My first mistake was walking into a Starbucks:)
I came across the post written by the former Hercules actor a couple of nights ago while perusing my LinkedIn feed. Three things came to mind.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Thursday, July 22, 2021
Coronavirus Update 7–22–2021: How the ADA and FMLA apply to Covid long haulers
The risks associated with Covid-19 aren't limited to the 625,000 Americans this virus has killed or the 2.3 million hospitalizations. One of the greatest risks comes from the fact that nearly one-third of Covid-19 patients will develop long-haul symptoms that long outlast the actual infection, and further that nearly one-third of all Covid long haulers had asymptomatic Covid cases. These long-haul symptoms can include fatigue, respiratory problems, "brain fog," body aches and muscle pain, abdominal issues, and loss of smell and taste. They can be quite debilitating and last for months or longer.
If you have an employee experiencing one or more of these long-haul symptoms, what are your legal obligations to that employee under ADA and FMLA?
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Wednesday, July 21, 2021
Coronavirus Update 7–21–2021: Employers, now is the time to ready your back-to-school plans
Children nationwide are getting ready to go back to the school for the 2021 – 22 school year, the third school year students and their parents will be living and dealing with, Covid-19.
Here's what we know about what this school year will look like.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Tuesday, July 20, 2021
When protected concerted activity isn’t protected
Netflix has fired three marketing executives for criticizing their co-workers over Slack. According to The Hollywood Reporter, "the executives in question thought the messages were private. An insider says an employee stumbled across several months’ worth of these messages and reported it."
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Monday, July 19, 2021
An adverse jury verdict is just a number on a piece of paper
Late last week, a federal jury tagged Walmart with a verdict totaling more than $125 million in a disability discrimination lawsuit the EEOC brought on behalf of an employee with Down syndrome.
The facts were not great for Walmart.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Friday, July 16, 2021
Coronavirus Update 7–16–2021: Ohio prohibits schools from mandating the Covid vaccine
Ohio currently requires that students receive each of the following vaccines (subject to medical or religious exceptions) as a condition of attending school: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, chickenpox, and meningococcal.
The one vaccine that Ohio schools can no longer mandate as a condition of attendance or participation in activities? The Covid-19 vaccine.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Thursday, July 15, 2021
There’s nothing illegal about paying employees a “day rate,” as long as you also pay an overtime premium for overtime hours
Here's how the president of Fusion Japanese Steakhouse describes the manner in which his company (unlawfully) pays its kitchen staff:
I pay a teriyaki chef $120 per day. He worked ten hours—ten hours a day. So here’s how to calculate it. He works ten hours a day at $120 a day. I divide it by hours, and it’s $10.97 per hour. If he works overtime, it will be $16.20 overtime pay. So $120 a day, I have it covered because it was way past—way beyond $7.25 minimum wage rate. So I take consideration of the industry standard, you know. So either it is for teriyaki chef, it is $120 or $120 per day.In other words, as the court correctly surmised in Walsh v. Fusion Japanese Steakhouse, the employer "works backward to calculate the hourly rate of the employees based on the day rate." That backward calculation, however, to jerry-rig an hourly rate plus and overtime rate to arrive at the agreed-upon day rate, is not legal.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Wednesday, July 14, 2021
The 10th nominee for the “Worst Employer of 2021” is … the transphobic terminator
Kimberly Grinage was born male but identifies as a transgender woman. That fact presented a huge problem for her during her employment at an Extended Stay America property, as she alleges in her lawsuit. She claims that her Christian manager fired her specifically because he did not want a transgender woman working for him.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Tuesday, July 13, 2021
Coronavirus Update 7–13–2021: The 3 reasons why it matters that you get vaccinated (even if I’m vaccinated)
"If you're vaccinated, and the vaccines work, why do you care if I get vaccinated? Let me live my life. My body, my choice." This sentiment echoes a popular refrain of those who are anti-vax or otherwise not getting the Covid vaccine.
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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Monday, July 12, 2021
You don’t need to wait for President Biden to fix what’s wrong with non-compete agreements
On Friday, President Biden signed an Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. According to the Order, its goal is to promote a "fair, open, and competitive marketplace" and "the welfare of workers, farmers, small businesses, startups, and consumers" through the elimination or limitation of "excessive market concentration," which "threatens basic economic liberties, democratic accountability." One of the President's targets is "companies [that] require workers to sign non-compete agreements that restrict their ability to change jobs." Indeed, according to the President, half of private-sector businesses require at least some employees to enter non-compete agreements, affecting some 36 to 60 million workers.
Thus, President Biden ordered "the Chair of the FTC … to consider working with the rest of the Commission to exercise the FTC's statutory rulemaking authority … to curtail the unfair use of non-compete clauses and other clauses or agreements that may unfairly limit worker mobility."
For more information, contact Jon at (440) 695-8044 or JHyman@Wickenslaw.com.
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