Target Corp. has agreed to pay $6 million in damages to plaintiffs in California unable to use its online site as part of a class action settlement with the National Federation of the Blind. The issue centers on the Americans with Disabilities Act’s requirements that retailers and other public places to make accommodations for people with
Benchmarking against the Federal Government’s EEO Performance
The EEOC released its Annual Report on the Federal Workforce for Fiscal Year 2007 (period October 2006 to September 2007). For those employers who may be benchmarking against the federal government, it seems to me that the government performs at a level that the EEOC would never accept from other employers. Here is a sampling of
Drinking Establishment Exemption Process Detailed by PA Dept of Health
The Department of Health (DOH) released additional Guidance and an application for an exemption for drinking establishments, cigar bars, and tobacco shops under Pennsylvania’s Clean Indoor Air Act (CIAA). The DOH information tangentially addresses the cross over between the prohibition on smoking in “workplaces” that may also be exempt “drinking establishments”. For example, the law
Revisiting Baseline Qualifications For Certain Positions: How Objective Qualifications, When Used Properly, Can Save The Day In Defending A Discrimination Claim
In Makky v. Chertoff, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently addressed the importance of objective job qualifications in evaluating the merits of a discrimination claim. Employers that establish clear baseline standards for position through their job descriptions, advertisements and other records are better able to defend discrimination claims by showing that the applicant
Electronic Monitoring of Teleworkers
John Phillips at The Word on Employment Law posted about the “Electronic Leash” and cites to a Wall Street Journal post by Sue Shellenbarger that conjures up visions of 1850 sweatshops with following description of employer’s exploitive electronic monitoring of home workers:
In a budding trend some employment experts say is invasive, companies
First Amendment Free Speech Protections Limit University’s Enforcement of its Sexual Harassment Policy
A Federal Appeals Court in Philadelphia enjoined Temple University from enforcing its “facially overbroad” sexual harassment policy because some speech that creates a “hostile or offensive environment” may be protected speech under the First Amendment. In DeJohn v. Temple University, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated a public university’s Policy on Sexual Harassment that
Legal System to Blame for Humorless Work Environment?
Hard economic times, perpetual threat of layoffs, workers stretched too thin could all be contributing to the “increasingly humorous American workplace” according to MSNBC author Eve Tahmincioglu in her post No joke! The workplace needs a good laugh. However, others are pointing to our legal system’s clamp down on “hostile work environments” as the cause
FLSA causes Global Warming: Sixteen Other Reasons to Consider a 4-day Work Week
It’s no secret that the FLSA is anachronistic, but now it’s ruining the planet too. The 40-hour week divided into 5 consecutive workdays is a product of the FLSA, which was enacted in 1938. During the last 70 years, we have been consuming energy by commuting to work and operating facilities all the while pumping green
Use of Subjective Hiring Criteria May Require Procedural “Safeguards”
Most hiring decisions are predicated in some part on subjective criteria. Let’s take for example, “Attitude and communication skills” which are on the top the hiring criteria for Phil Gerbyshak at Slacker Manager’s based on his post 5 Must Have Skills. Undoubtedly these traits were assessed by one or more members of the Phil’s hiring
Violence in the Workplace: A Legal Perspective
HR professionals are reminded of their workplaces’ vulnerabilities every time an episode of workplace violence is reported in the media like this morning’s headline “6 dead in plastics factory shooting rampage.” The scope of the problem set out in statistics. There were 5734 workplace fatalities reported to OSHA (2005 is the last year