Do you know the difference between an idle threat and a serious one?
Your kid plays a joke on you, and you respond, "I'm gonna kill you" while laughing at the joke. Idle threat, or serious?
A co-worker tells you she will slash your tires if you vote against the union. Idle threat, or serious?
A co-worker tells you that she heard from another co-worker that yet another co-worker said she would ...
NOTE (3/16/16): This post has been corrected since it was originally posted.
President Obama has nominated Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Judge Garland, age 63, had bipartisan support when he was nominated to the D.C. Circuit (in 1995, by President ...
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 ...
Who's been naughty and who's been nice in labor and employment law? Here are my picks for 2015. Feel free to add your own in the comments.
NAUGHTY!
The National Labor Relations Board, for being naughty in too many ways to mention. Its rules on employer handbook policies, including confidentiality and social media, are unrealistic and almost impossible for employers to legally follow ...
The National Labor Relations Board's so-called "quickie election" rule, providing for expedited union votes, took effect yesterday. I can't improve on what David Phippen of our Metro-Washington D.C. office posted about it here in December after the rule was first issued, so here ya go!
Thanks very much to David Phippen from our Metro D.C. Office for letting me get some depositions taken this week and allowing me to republish his analysis here.
As we have previously reported, the National Labor Relations Board in recent years has put employee handbooks and policy manuals under a magnifying glass, searching for any provision that might, in its view, violate the ...
(St. Patrick's Day is sooooo nine hours ago!)
Ever looking to the future, we celebrate the coming April Fools' Day with this month's greatest employment law blog posts. Some of my summaries are accurate, and others are "fools' editions" - you'll have to read the actual posts to know which is which. There are so many excellent posts that I'm listing them in alphabetical order by ...
By David Phippen of our Metro D.C. Office.
While the year is still young, here are 15 New Year's resolutions that employers may want to make:
1. Make sure your "independent contractors" are really independent contractors. "Independent contractors" are under scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board, state and local agencies, plaintiffs' lawyers, and union organizers. A misclassification can cost you back taxes, back pay (including overtime), and back benefits, as well as penalties and interest.
2. Review your email policies. The NLRB recently found that employees generally have a right to use employer email systems during non-working time in support of union organizing and concerted activity. The Board's decision means that many employer email use policies, as currently drafted, would probably be found to violate the National Labor Relations Act if an unfair labor practice charge were filed or a union tried to organize employees and argued that the employer's email policy interfered with the organizing efforts. In light of the new "quickie election" rule that the NLRB issued last month, both union and non-union employers would be well advised to review their email policies and revise as needed. (The "quickie election" rule is scheduled to take effect on April 14, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other employer groups, including the Society for Human Resources Management, filed suit on Monday seeking to block the rule.)
It's not too late to register for our webinar on the NLRB's new rules on "quickie elections" and employee email use. The webinar, featuring labor attorneys Tim Davis, Jonathan Martin, and Dan Murphy, is from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern tomorrow (January 8). Be there, or be square!
This is a client bulletin by David Phippen that we emailed to subscribers yesterday afternoon. I'm re-posting it here, in case you don't already subscribe to Constangy's bulletins. (If you don't and would like to, please send me (Robin) an email, and we'll put you on the list. Subscription is free.)
As we alerted you last week, on Monday the ...
Many, many years ago, as an associate, I got to help defend the worst harassment investigation of my career. The entire investigation went essentially like this: MANAGER: "Lucy [not her real name] says you sexually harassed her. Is that true?" ACCUSED: "I ain't crazy." *End of investigation.* Oh. Except that the manager documented it, too. *Head slap* .
In this manager's defense, he was ...
Robin Shea has 30 years' experience in employment litigation, including Title VII and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act (including the Amendments Act).
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