I have recommended on this blog and in harassment training that "operations" people (in other words, people who aren't in Human Resources or lawyers) avoid the temptation to investigate workplace harassment complaints on their own.

A commenter asked me last week why I said this. I thanked her for giving me the inspiration for a blog post.

Believe me, I do not think operations ...

How many stars would you give Yelp as an employer? Read on!

I'm sure you've all heard by now about Talia Ben-Ora, the Yelp employee who was trying to live in the San Francisco area working as a minimum-wage customer support employee. She wrote an open letter to the CEO about how her pay did not cover her living expenses - and then she got fired.

Yelp denies that she was fired because of her ...

UPDATE (2/26/16): Cara Crotty's full analysis of the proposed rule -- plus video! -- is here. Read Cara instead of me.

The U.S. Department of Labor released today a proposed rule that would require federal contractors to provide at least seven paid sick days per year to their employees. The leave could be used for the employee's own illness, or for family care.

The proposed rule, which ...

None of us is immune from the Streisand Effect. Not even employers.

A real estate firm in Dallas sued its ex-bookkeeper, Jacqueline, for embezzling approximately $400,000 over a four-year period by writing checks to phony vendors and all the usual tricks. She generally denied the allegations, and apparently the parties didn't do much discovery, so they went to trial without knowing ...

NOTE FROM ROBIN: Only a few weeks after opening a new office in Miami, Florida, our firm has opened yet another new office -- this time, in Los Angeles-Century City. The following was sent by the firm to our clients earlier today. Welcome to our new attorneys Ken, Steve, Dave, Jennifer, and Fabian, and congratulations to new partners Heather, Angela, and Megan! 

Our 70th anniversary ...

A federal judge in Indiana dismissed yesterday all that remained of a lawsuit filed by student athletes, alleging that they were "employees" and therefore entitled to the minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Don Prophete, Jim Goh, and Steve Moore of Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP, represented the NCAA and hundreds of the university defendants.

The suit was ...

Here is a collection of tributes to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died just short of his 80th birthday on Saturday. For now, I'm not going to include political speculations. We send our prayers and condolences to Justice Scalia's family, friends, and loved ones.

By Adam Liptak from The New York Times, probably the most comprehensive news account of his life and work.

By Karen ...

Wild, wonderful West Virginia is going right-to-work.

Republicans in the state legislature passed the Workplace Freedom Act and yesterday overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin. Also yesterday, the West Virginia Republicans overrode Gov. Tomblin's veto of legislation that repeals the state's prevailing wage law.

"Right to work" is often confused with "employment ...

This is scary.

You'd think a person with "Manager" in her job title who was making more than $89,000 a year would be exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Not necessarily.

A federal judge in Maine ruled that Bottomline Technologies, Inc., a financial processing services company, will have to face a jury trial on the wage-and-hour claims of Debra* Colello ...

Happy Valentine's Day! (almost)

Psychology Today had a great article by social psychologist and professor Theresa DiDonato about nine questions one should ask oneself before starting a workplace romance. Of course, the article was written primarily from a psychological point of view, but I think the same questions work from a legal standpoint. Here are Professor DiDonato's ...

This is the final installment of my analysis of the EEOC's recently issued proposed Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues. Here are Part One ("You gotta be protected!") and Part Two ("Was your employment action 'adverse'?").

For an employee to have a valid retaliation claim, it's not enough that she engaged in legally protected activity or that the employer took ...

This is too funny, and it ties in so well with my post on Friday about the EEOC's new "pay survey" proposal. I learned about the video from the Washington Post, but I'm linking to the YouTube version to ensure that no one is blocked by a pay wall. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlR1Y2Lwz48

You have no doubt heard that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission proposes to require employers with 100 or more employees to start submitting compensation data with their annual EEO-1 reports.

The proposal was announced by President Obama in a White House ceremony last week celebrating the seventh anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Here's the scoop.

The ...

What's a "materially adverse employment action"? This is the second part in what should be a three-part series (it's possible that we'll need four) on the proposed Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues recently published by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

To recap from last week, a plaintiff in a retaliation case has to prove three things:

1. She ...

Pretty obvious, but a decision issued this week serves as a good reminder to employers that all race discrimination is illegal, whether it's against members of minority groups or whether it's against Caucasians.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed summary judgment for a company that allegedly told a white worker that he was being ...