Back for 2020!

And ready to answer all of your workplace romance questions.

According to a very scientific survey.

Workplace romance in the #MeToo era is so complicated.

Walter Olson of the great Overlawyered.com sent a challenge over Twitter earlier this week:

For those of you who don't know Mr. Olson, he's a libertarian.  :-)

I have to admit, I needed time to process this! I complain about these laws all the time, but would I really want to get rid of all protections for employees who want to organize, be paid a fair wage, avoid being thrown out on the street ...

This time of year, I am a total bleeding heart.

Unlike most of my fellow employment law bloggers, I love Valentine's Day, and I don't have much of a problem with consensual workplace relationships between unmarried people. People spend most of their lives at work, and so I can see how they might (1) have limited relationship options outside the workplace, and (2) easily develop an ...

Happy Valentine's Day! (almost)

Psychology Today had a great article by social psychologist and professor Theresa DiDonato about nine questions one should ask oneself before starting a workplace romance. Of course, the article was written primarily from a psychological point of view, but I think the same questions work from a legal standpoint. Here are Professor DiDonato's ...

It has been a long time since we talked about the Family and Medical Leave Act, but a couple of interesting and noteworthy decisions came out this week from Way Out West.

Our first case, from a federal district court in Oregon, answered the following question:

Can an employer require a doctor's note every time an employee takes intermittent FMLA leave?

YES

NO

C'mon! Even if he's an abuser?

Dear Congressperson:

I know you are busy, but I am hoping you can take a few minutes out of your sequester stuff to help with the Family and Medical Leave Act, as amended by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008, as amended again by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, as amended yet again by the Airline Flight Crew Technical Corrections Act of 2010.

Here's ...

Employers, has this ever happened to you?

An employee in a critical-but-inflexible position -- say, a customer service representative -- asks for "intermittent" leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. If the intermittent time off is "scheduled," it's usually not too big a problem. Most employers can manage to work around a situation if they know what to expect. They may be able to ...