No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks . . . except for one little quiz on employment law issues that come up during the summer.

I was on vacation last week, and so we have a lot of catching up to do. Here's what's been going on, from most to least recent:

*David Phippen has been keeping us up to date on the U.S. Department of Labor's Persuader Rule and what that will mean for employers. On Wednesday, a federal judge in Minnesota refused to preliminarily block enforcement of the rule. There are two other challenges ...

Just how much of a duty to conciliate does the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have after the Supreme Court's decision last year in Mach Mining

Hardly any, it appears.

In Mach Mining, the Supreme Court decided that courts did have the authority to review the agency's conciliation efforts (which caused employers to claim it as an "employer's victory") but said that the scope of ...

My first job out of college was as a non-exempt clerical, and I wasn't a very "good fit." The work aside, I chafed at the rigid rules about start times-stop times-breaks-lunch hours-quitting times. If there was some work that I wanted to finish up and it was "lunch time," I couldn't take the extra 15 minutes needed to get it done. I had to stop right then and there, and go to lunch, or at least ...

The Spring 2016 edition features (in order of appearance) Naveen Kabir on the Supreme Court's Tyson Foods decision, Anna Rothschild on the Supreme Court after Justice Scalia and Merrick Garland's record on labor and employment cases, Mallory Schneider Ricci on the Supreme Court's CRST Van Expedited v. EEOC decision (if you haven't already, please check out Marcia McShane's very ...

These will be really quick takes, since there are so many of them, on the proposed Enforcement Guidance on National Origin Discrimination issued this week by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (The actual document is 57 pages long, not counting the table of contents.)

I'll try to focus on the less obvious/more interesting points.

Take No. 1: "National ...

Bill McMahon, my law partner and next-door neighbor, has a good analysis of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Green v. Brennan, in which the Court found that the time for filing a constructive discharge claim under Title VII starts to run from the date that the employee tenders his resignation, not the date of the last discriminatory act by the employer.

It's not that bad for ...

In Flanders Fields

By John McCrae (1915)

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing ...

In honor of Memorial Day weekend, here's a summary of the rights of employees who take leaves of absence to serve our country, and their family members.

USERRA

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 protects employees who leave their jobs to serve in various military capacities.

Five year (or more) rule. An employee's right of reemployment is good for at ...

Administrative partner Teresa Ryder Bult has a guest post this week: "Inverting Views on Networking: How Can You Influence Someone's Life Today?"

Hint: Don't make it all about you.

(Teresa is the original founding chair of Constangy's Women's Network.)

One more thing: The FOCUS blog was having technical difficulties with email notifications to subscribers. The problem ...