Skip to main content

What I've Been Reading This Week


Ironically, this summer has turned into a busy time at work with a lot of travel and trips out of town.  Having been in Phoenix a few weeks ago, John Hall's note on OSHA tips for dealing with heat exposure jumped out at me.  Whether you have employees in Phoenix, Minneapolis, Manchester, or anywhere in between, I think John's article is well worth a quick review to stay informed on the matter.

As always, below are a couple articles that caught my eye this week.


EEOC Reaches Settlement on its First Sexual Orientation Bias Lawsuit

Over at The Employer Handbook, Eric Meyer wrote an update on the EEOC announcing a settlement on its first sexual orientation bias lawsuit.  Back in March, the EEOC filed its first lawsuits in which an employer had allegedly violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating based upon sexual orientation.  Recently, the EEOC announced it had settled one of those lawsuits for $200,000.00.  Eric does a good job breaking down the specifics of this case...and the wide reaching impact this settlement has.


With An Increase in Temperatures, OSHA Tips For Heat Exposure

John Hall over at HR Hero has a good note on OSHA's willingness to cite employers for employees' heat exposure under Section 5(A)(1) of the OSH Act.  John even goes so far as to include a couple examples of when employers have been cited for heat exposure issues.  However, perhaps the most informative part of the article are links to a few OSHA guidance measures that employers can follow to help protect their employees and limit heat exposure problems.


An Employee's Right to Have Representation in a Disciplinary Meeting

Michael Haberman wrote a recent article on the Weingarten Rule, a/k/a an employee's right to have a union representative present for a disciplinary or investigative hearing.  The article includes references to how the NLRB has dealt with the issue under both the Clinton and Obama administrations and what the current Board could be expected to do on the matter.  Well worth a read.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more