The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed today two lawsuits contending that employers' alleged discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation violates the Title VII ban on sex discrimination. One suit was filed on behalf of a gay call center employee in Pennsylvania, and the other was filed on behalf of a lesbian forklift operator in Maryland.

Here is the ...

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 ...