Now, this is bipartisanship! Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump agree . . . you should nominate Employment & Labor Insider for the 2016 ABA Blawg 100, sponsored by the American Bar Association.

And while you're at it, please nominate FOCUS, our women's leadership blog. (You can nominate more than one blog.)

You don't have to be a lawyer to vote. Just go to the page here and make your ...

Well, Gretchen is out, Roger is out, and Megyn is in. Your Magic 8-Ball is here to answer the sexual harassment questions that employers are dying to ask.

No. 1. I thought sexual harassment investigations were supposed to be confidential. Wasn't it inappropriate for all of the Fox on-air talent to be expressing their opinions in public about whether Roger Ailes did it or not? 

The U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Steel have settled their OSHA retaliation lawsuit over the suspension of two employees who failed to comply with the company's "Immediate Reporting Policy," which required employees to report workplace injuries and illnesses . . . immediately. That's nice, but it's even nicer that the settlement, which is publicly available, includes a new ...

The OFCCP's Final Rule on sex discrimination will take effect August 15. Are you ready?

On June 14, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs issued its Final Rule on sex discrimination. These new substantive regulations align with the latest legal developments and interpretations by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Cara Crotty, the head of ...

Our friends at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have issued a Fact Sheet for young workers on religious discrimination in the workplace, which brought me back to the EEOC's older Q&A and Best Practices on religious discrimination, harassment, and accommodation.

The EEOC's guidance is solid, reasonable, and consistent with most (if not all) of the court decisions that I'm ...

If you have ever wondered why your company's data is not as secure as it should be, take a look in the mirror.

A study by the Ponemon Institute, commissioned by Experian and released in May, found that the majority of data breaches were not due to bad IT but due to bad employees who prey on unwitting or careless employees.

And it doesn't take a computer science degree to be able to do some ...

Labor relations go back to the future. Mel Haas and John Weltin of our Macon Office have the rundown on the recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board in Miller & Anderson, Inc. In that case, the Board found that an appropriate bargaining unit can include a mix of contingent workers who are jointly employed by a staffing agency and the primary employer, and the primary ...

With only $60 million to call his own?

For my prior coverage of the Gretchen Carlson-Roger Ailes sexual harassment allegations, go here and here. Here is the Fox press release.

Reportedly Megyn Kelly and other Fox News women told an outside law firm that was investigating Ms. Carlson's allegations that Mr. Ailes had behaved inappropriately with them, too.

I will have a wrap-up post soon.

  ...

It's been a while since I've written about H.B. 2, the North Carolina "bathroom bill," and I need to get with it.

Wrongful discharge claim based on discrimination is back. As we expected, on July 18, Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law H.B. 169, which amends H.B. 2 by restoring the cause of action for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy based on the North Carolina Equal ...

A recent Q & A from the “Workologist” column in the New York Times caught my eye.

The correspondent was asking how to ensure that a résumé submitted online actually gets reviewed by the hiring company.  That is a legitimate concern – after all, organizations are inundated with job seekers when positions are posted, and recruiters can’t always physically review ...

Me and my nerdy mind.

It's too soon for me to have an opinion about who's right and who's wrong in the Gretchen Carlson-Roger Ailes sexual harassment case. Some very disturbing allegations have been made about Mr. Ailes' (long before Fox) having a "casting couch" for prospective female talent. If that's true, then it's disgusting.

On the other hand, a number of current and former ...

Is a former employee stealing your data so that he can start competing with you? Can he get around his obligations by borrowing a password, or by having his partners in crime do it? You may have a friend in the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Billy Hammel of our Dallas Office and Susan Bassford Wilson of our St. Louis Office have a good breakdown of the recent decision in United States ...

On February 1, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a proposal that would require employers with 100 or more employees to begin submitting compensation data with their annual EEO-1 reports.

I wasn't crazy about the idea.

After receiving comments on its February proposal, the EEOC issued today a new proposal, which has tweaks to the February proposal but no major ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued a sample "wellness notice" that employers can give to employees before they are asked to provide medical information in connection with wellness-related health risk assessments or biometric screenings.

The notice provides information about employees' rights, and will be required in some form for all wellness plan years ...

And you don’t have the right to remain silent.

On July 1 the federal Office of Management and Budget published the OFCCP's revised Scheduling Letter and Itemized Listing that is issued to federal contractors to begin the compliance review process.

The revised Scheduling Letter and Itemized Listing is here.

The majority of the changes to the letter, last revised in 2014, provide ...

A number of employers and employer groups -- including the National Association of Manufacturers and Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. -- filed suit last week in a federal court in Texas seeking to block parts of the new OSHA rule set to take effect in August.

UPDATE (7/14/16): OSHA has announced that it is going to delay enforcement of the anti-retaliation provisions of its ...

I assume everyone has heard by now about Gretchen Carlson's sexual harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes, head of Fox News.

I read the lawsuit yesterday, and some of the things that Mr. Ailes allegedly said struck me as . . . taken out of context. He has forcefully denied the allegations.

But in Ms. Carlson's defense, a number of women have apparently made complaints about Mr ...

The Millville, New Jersey, Rescue Squad is apparently quite the Peyton Place, but it's now a legal legend, too, because it was the impetus for the New Jersey Supreme Court to decide that "marital status discrimination" prohibited by the state Law Against Discrimination also includes separation and divorce. If you're an employer with operations in New Jersey, you won't want to miss ...

To assist federal contractors in their compliance with the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order – which to date still has no final implementing regulations – the National Labor Relations Board has graciously offered to ensure that all unfair labor practice complaints involving federal contractors will be added to a federal database of "problem" employers.

As I've ...

Do you need a reason to monitor your hiring and keep good records? Here's one.

Alleging race discrimination in the hiring process, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has settled with a unit of Norfolk Southern for $492,000. The OFCCP claimed that there were statistically significant differences in the hiring rates of whites and African-Americans into laborer ...

I don't plan to post much more about North Carolina's HB 2 "bathroom bill" until we start getting court decisions, but this is newsworthy.

As I've previously noted, HB 2 had a provision that eliminated the cause of action for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy based on violations of the N.C. Equal Employment Practices Act, NCGS Section 143-422.2. That law says that it ...

Boom! We wish you all a happy and safe Fourth of July!

Did you realize that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission can sue you just for (allegedly) lousy recordkeeping?

No discrimination, no harassment, no retaliation -- just (alleged) failure to keep adequate records.

Well, it's true. Back in 2010, the agency was investigating whether Crothall Services Group's use of criminal background checks and criminal history in making ...

As I've previously reported, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed two lawsuits alleging that employers discriminated against employees based on sexual orientation, which the Commission says is prohibited by Title VII.

One of the lawsuits, filed against Pallet Companies/IFCO Systems, settled this week for $202,200. The former employee will receive $182,200 ...

Well, maybe not light reading, but good reading about good news that you won't want to miss! Here are our bulletins and other publications from the last week, in case you missed them:

*Heather Owen is already shooting off Fourth of July fireworks at the FOCUS women's leadership blog because our firm was named this week by the National Law Journal as the fourth best law firm in the ...