- Court rebukes EEOC in big sex harassment class action against trucking firm [Memphis Commercial Appeal]
- Union protects some dodgy educators: “Found to Have Misbehaved With Pupils, but Still Teaching” [New York Times]
- Spain changes its labor law [Global Post]
- Employment-law blogs debate employment at will [Jon Hyman]
- James Sherk of Heritage on proposed Employee Rights Act;
- Unlawful under Contracts Clause to alter public employee pensions? Really? [Secunda, Workplace Prof; Barnes v. Arizona State Ret. Sys., Ariz. Super. Ct., No. CV-2011-011638, 2/1/12]
- Coalition challenges Connecticut governor’s executive order aimed at unionizing home health aides [Michael Tremoglie, Legal NewsLine]
Posts Tagged ‘EEOC’
Labor and employment roundup
- “Increasing Employment Discrimination Awards to Take Account of Adverse Tax Consequences” [TaxProf]
- NRA’s wrong on this: “Bill to bar employer bias against gun owners gets OK from Missouri House” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
- ALJ: “we are an at-will employer” handbook statement violates NLRA [Duane Morris Institute]
- “What the EEOC’s Strategic Plan Means for Employers” [Laura Harshbarger, NYLELR]
- Connecticut bill would require public schools to teach organized labor history [Raised S.B. No. 304; background from a supporter, PDF; h/t Fountain]
- SEIU hand seen in “Occupy”-allied sit-ins targeting GOP politicians [Richard Pollack, Daily Caller]
- Wage and Hour Litigation is Big—and Getting Bigger” [Shannon Green, Corporate Counsel]
Disabled rights roundup
- ADA mills continue to extract money from California small businesses with no legislative relief in sight [Auburn Journal, Andrew Ross/S.F. Chronicle, KABC (James Farkus Cohan), WTSP (Squeeze Inn owner speaks out), CJAC (Lungren proposal) and more, Chamber (San Francisco coffee shop’s woes, auto-plays video)] Profile of attorney Thomas Frankovich [California Lawyer];
- EEOC sues employer for turning away job applicant on methadone program [Jon Hyman]
- “Maryland high court: allergy is disability requiring accommodation” [PoL]
- “Suits could force L.A. to spend huge sums on sidewalk repair” [Los Angeles Times]
- Under gun from Department of Justice and SCOTUS Olmstead ruling, Virginia and other states agree to massive overhaul of services for developmentally disabled; not all families, though, are happy with the insistence on relocating residents of large facilities to smaller “community” settings [Richmond Times-Dispatch, McDonnell press release, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Staunton News-Leader]
- “New Case from W.D. Tex. Shows Effect of ADAAA on Back Injury Claims” [Disability Law]
- Lawyer leads effort to give disabled passengers wider rights to sue airlines [Toledo Free Press]
Diploma requirements may violate ADA: EEOC
Requiring a high school diploma of applicants for a given job may improperly screen out those with learning disability, according to the federal agency. I’ve got more at Cato at Liberty. Update: more from EEOC; Hans Bader, CEI.
Employment law roundup
- Age discrimination law (including my views) discussed [Reihan Salam, NRO] “3d Cir.: Employees Fired for Pornographic Emails Lose Age-Discrimination Case” [Molly DiBianca]
- Will Obama administration lawsuit derail employer use of career-readiness certificates? [Charlotte Allen, Minding the Campus]
- A warning for Gov. Cuomo: “The case against pension-financed infrastructure” [Edward Zelinsky, OUP]
- EEOC is on the warpath and employers had better hope they escape unscathed [Hans Bader, CEI]
- Since we know unemployment extensions have no incentive effects, this story from the Midwest is purely imaginary [Marietta, Ohio Times, related]
- Court rejects “announcement of same sex marriage harassed me” hostile environment claim [Volokh] “Jobs with a higher risk of sexual harassment pay workers more” [WaPo] Half of all students harassed? Surprising it’s only half [Katie Roiphe, NYT]
- Funny-sad “666” workplace suit: “The safety sticker of the beast” [Volokh]
- “Do you know what an employment lawsuit costs?” [Jon Hyman]
EEOC sues construction company for not hiring applicant with epilepsy to run heavy equipment
The EEOC’s press release is not entirely clear about the events giving rise to the dispute, but it appears that Georgia Power through its subcontractor requires that heavy equipment operators on a certain project be qualified to pass the federal Department of Transportation’s physical exam for truckers; that applicant Bryan Mimmovich cannot pass that exam because of his controlled epilepsy; and that the EEOC is now arguing that it is discriminatory for the employer to adopt the DOT physical requirements for the equipment operation job.
Hotel chain will pay $132,500 for dismissing autistic desk clerk
The EEOC says Comfort Suites dismissed the clerk when it should instead have accepted the services of a state-paid “job coach” who might have “helped the clerk learn to master his job by using autism-specific training techniques.” [EEOC press release, Fox San Diego]
EEOC vs. the ministerial exception
Argued yesterday before the Supreme Court, the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC pits the quasi-religion of employment discrimination law against organized religion of every other sort. Guess which side the Obama administration comes down on? I explain in a new op-ed at The Daily Caller. More background: Christopher Lund (Wayne State), “In Defense of the Ministerial Exception”, North Carolina Law Review/SSRN. And per Rick Garnett at NRO “Bench Memos,” the Court’s justices in their questioning yesterday did not appear friendly toward the idea of overthrowing the exception (& followup). According to the L.A. Times and other reporting, Justice Kagan described the Justice Department’s position as “amazing.” More: Marcia McCormick, Workplace Prof (linking to transcript of oral argument, PDF)(& welcome Damon Root/Reason “Hit and Run” readers).
Faced with federal suit, Arizona quits monitoring teachers’ English fluency
My new Cato post points out that while this may be craziness, it’s craziness with a long pedigree:
It was way back in the first Bush administration that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) began filing lawsuits against employers for “discriminating” against employees with difficult-to-understand or heavily accented speech, the theory being that this served as an improper proxy for discrimination based on national origin. The scope for allowable exceptions was exceedingly narrow, too narrow to cover most teaching positions, as I wrote quite a while back when the issue had just come over the horizon in a Massachusetts case. Indeed, the National Education Association (I pointed out) had been prevailed on to pass a resolution “decrying disparate treatment on the basis of ‘pronunciation’ — quite a switch from the old days when teachers used to be demons for correctness on that topic.”
Read the whole thing here (& Alkon, Peter Pappas/Tax Lawyer’s Blog, Bader). Another view: Josh Hanson.
“Will restricting criminal background checks actually increase minority unemployment?”
One of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s current big projects — making it legally hazardous for employers to check job applicants’ criminal records — could actually backfire, according to research cited by some members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights [Caroline May, Daily Caller]:
Civil Rights Commissioners Peter Kirsanow, Gail Heriot and Todd Gaziano pointed to research from economists Harry Holzer and Stephen Rafael and public policy professor Michael Stoll, published in the Journal of Law and Economics, which showed that employers with access to background checks are actually more likely to hire African Americans, especially African American men, than those without access to that informaion.
“Their results suggest that, in the absence of criminal background checks, some employers discriminate statistically against black men and/or those with weak employment records,” the commissioners pointed out in their letter to the EEOC.