For your Labor Day Weekend enjoyment.

Just in time for Labor Day . . . the new Executive Labor Summary is out! Our favorite labor 

commentator, David Phippen of our Washington DC-Metro Office, is his usual bad* self, with the latest of President Trump’s nominees and appointees to the National Labor Relations Board, a court’s “joint employer” decision that may indicate where the now-Republican Board will end up on this issue, the UAW defeat at Nissan in Mississippi, union-related scandals at the U.S. Postal Service and between Chrysler and the UAW, and — a pro-union vote at a chain of erotica shops in New York. (Leave it to David to make labor relations sexy.) Oh, and I almost forgot – a herd of goats taking union jobs in Michigan.

*By “bad,” I mean “awesome.”

Image Credit: From flickr, Creative Commons license, by Jelene Morris. 

Last week, we talked about 20 things an employer should ask itself before terminating an employee. In the interests of fairness, here are 10 things that an employee should ask before suing an employer. You should know that I generally don't believe that lawsuits are the best way to resolve problems. (I realize that there are exceptions.)

BEFORE YOU GO ON, PLEASE READ THIS!!!! I ...

If news reports are true (and perhaps they are not), then the ex-General Manager of NBC's Today show provides a good example of how not to treat employees.

Jamie Horowitz was hired away from ESPN to save the Today show, which has fallen behind its rival Good Morning America in the ratings.

He was fired only 78 days later, and he hadn't even had a chance to take over the show. His "listening tour ...

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?

Between "Weinergate," the indictment of John Edwards, and the relatively old news about Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Arnold Schwarzenegger, it is obvious that issues related to sexual misconduct, including sexual harassment, are not going away. How can you, as an employer, know when a sexual harassment case is a "dog"? Here are five signs that you might want to answer "yes, please, and ...