A recent complaint filed by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs illustrates that it's not only federal contractors who need to be sure they comply with affirmative action requirements, but also those who contract with the federal contractors - a.k.a. "subcontractors."

The OFCCP's allegations against Maryland construction subcontractor Potomac ...

As I've previously reported, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed two lawsuits alleging that employers discriminated against employees based on sexual orientation, which the Commission says is prohibited by Title VII.

One of the lawsuits, filed against Pallet Companies/IFCO Systems, settled this week for $202,200. The former employee will receive $182,200 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Late last week, the Utah Supreme Court decided that an employer who terminates an employee for acting in self-defense can be liable for wrongful discharge, if

The employee "reasonably believes that force is necessary to defend against an imminent threat of serious bodily harm," and

The employee has no opportunity to withdraw.

The case, Ray v. Wal-Mart Stores, involved two ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has been ordered to pay $938,771 in attorneys' fees to Freeman after getting its clock cleaned in that lawsuit it filed over background checks and disparate impact based on race and ethnicity. (Freeman had asked for more than $1.5 million.)

In better news for the EEOC, it settled its background-check case against BMW for $1.6 million ...

Laura Jones was offered a sales job at the Wal-Mart store in Cockeysville, Maryland, and was told that she would have to take a drug test. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Ms. Jones told an assistant store manager that she had end stage renal cancer, which prevented her from taking a urine test. The EEOC says that Jones then went to the drug testing collection ...

Has the EEOC ever read this book? Maybe we should send them a copy.

By now, you have probably heard about the latest spanking administered by the Honorable Roger W. Titus, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Maryland, to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- in a criminal and credit history case against Freeman, an event planning company.

Judge Titus granted the ...

Well! OK!

It's been an interesting week, hasn't it? Congratulations to President Obama on winning a second term. My Election 2012 coverage would not be complete without some labor and employment prognostications for Obama Administration II.*

*Please do not read these again in 2016 to see how accurate I was. I don't want to be known as the Dick Morris of employment law bloggers.

My colleague and fellow blogger Jon Hyman had an excellent post this week about the settlement in the Dura Automotive case -- in which the company tested its employees for both illegal and legal drugs. And that wasn't all -- according to the press release of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, employees who tested positive for the designated legal drugs were required to state ...