If we don't laugh, we'll cry, right? In honor of Phyllis Diller, the queen of the one-liners, who died this week, and her counterpart, the great Henny Youngman, here is the latest labor and employment news - all in one-liners, of course.

"A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once."

"Take my federal agencies -- please!" The National Labor Relations Board has taken the position ...

Wow! This story has it all.

Bullying!

Chick-fil-A!

Social media!

Was this guy's YouTube post "protected concerted activity"? You decide.

Adam Smith (no relation to that "invisible hand" guy), chief financial officer of biotech company Vante, went to a drive-through at a Tucson Chick-fil-A on Wednesday morning, ordered a free water, confronted the drive-through girl* about ...

The latest guidance on social media and protected concerted activity, issued last week by Lafe Solomon, Acting General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, is for the most part an unrealistic, hair-splitting mess. ("But Robin, tell us how you really feel about it!") However, there is a somewhat happy ending that I'll talk about at the end of this post.

The first two ...

Giddyap! It's been a short week, but we have tons to talk about in the labor and employment law world!

Thinking out loud about the impact of yesterday's DOMA decision on the Family and Medical Leave Act. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit* held yesterday that Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. Section 3 provides that, for purposes of ...

Fellow blogger Jon Hyman, among others, has already written an eloquent critique of the latest report from the Office of the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board on social media and protected concerted activity, and Dan Schwartz has a good roundup of what labor lawyers are saying about it (and also a call for employers not to overreact). If you haven't read Jon and Dan, you ...

A couple of interesting gems I got this week from other people (thanks, you guys!):

Pro hac vice statements defeat summary judgment! A federal judge in North Carolina denied summary judgment to a law firm who was sued by an associate for wrongful discharge based on race. Although the law firm's evidence showed that the associate was a poor performer, the judge found that statements made ...

Colin O'Keefe of LXBN TV interviewed me yesterday about the NLRB's latest report on social media, and what it means for employers. Here it is, but you may want to turn the volume down before you start -- my volume was a lot louder than Colin's for some reason.

Colin, thank you for the interview and for your kind words about Employment & Labor Insider!

Our friend Judy Greenwald from Business Insurance magazine reported this week that the number of EEOC charges filed in fiscal year 2011 (which ended September 30, 2011) was relatively flat, with the exception of one big category . . . retaliation.

Retaliation is essentially taking action against an employee because the employee engaged in some type of activity that is protected by law ...

It's been another zany week or so in the world of labor and employment law, rivalling Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo. Here are a few items that jumped out at me. (Each subhead is a line from a Marx Brothers movie or the title of a Marx Brothers movie. Answers at the end.)

"Hurry up, or you'll be late for jail!" Pepsi Beverages (formerly Pepsi Bottling Co.) agreed to a pre-litigation settlement ...

What a year, am I right or am I right? Here is a catalog of the major employment and labor law developments from 2011. And, just to keep it entertaining, I've started off each month with a weird but true off-topic story that was in the news that month. Many thanks to Drudge Report archives for the strange stuff. Thanks also to Esquire magazine's annual Dubious Achievement Awards (sadly ...