As a strong defender of the Second Amendment, my views more often than not align with those of the National Rifle Association, so I’m especially disappointed to see the NRA stepping up its campaign against other important elements of liberty, specifically the property- and contract-based liberty of employers to insist (if they so wish) that employees not bring guns to company premises, including parking lots. My Cato colleague Roger Pilon lays out the issue and rightly upbraids chief NRA lobbyist Chris W. Cox (not the former California Congressman) for misunderstanding the constitutional issues. Earlier on the NRA’s blind spot here, here, and here (with reader disagreement). [Corrected to fix misidentification of Cox]
Posts Tagged ‘workplace’
Labor and employment roundup
- Why is the U.S. Department of Labor funding Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC), a group that stages protests in front of restaurants and has “harassed” patrons? Rep. Darrell Issa wants to know [Chamber-backed Legal NewsLine, Daily Caller]
- Connecticut public workers who wrongly took food stamps get their jobs back, and no, you can’t read the arbitration decisions [Raising Hale]
- Michael Fox’s pioneering employment law blog turns 10;
- “Why Defending Employment Lawsuits Can Be So Expensive” [Daniel Schwartz]
- What lawprofs are up to: proposal to gut the employee-misconduct defense [Pandya, Workplace Prof]
- Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains why he sees no contradiction in opposing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act [ENDA] while supporting gay marriage. Related: Jacob Sullum;
- Hyper-regulation of employment in Italy cries out for reform [John Cochrane, Tom Smith, one deterrent]
The ways of licensing boards
It’s cold/hot in here
“If an employer fails to take employee temperature complaints seriously, that employer may be opening the company up to a discrimination claim,” premised on lack of disability accommodation. “It is also important that employers are clear about regulation of workplace temperature because employees may have a tendency to adjust the temperature to their own personal preference, disregarding the comfort of others if thermostats are openly accessible. To remedy this employers should prevent open access to thermostats and have designated individuals who are allowed to adjust the temperature.” [Bacon Wilson law firm]
P.S. James Fulford: “Thermostat conflict between secretarial staff in summer dresses and lawyers in three-piece suits is common in law firms.”
Gun owners as new protected class in employment discrimination law
Way to make the country less free, guys [Missouri Freedom Watch] More: Stephen Bainbridge, Charles Sullivan on Mitchell v. University of Kentucky.
“Think carefully about ‘friending’ co-workers.”
Jon Hyman finds the National Labor Relations Board’s policy on social media in the workplace a “bungled mess.” More: Reed Smith.
Employee “loses track of time” due to disability
Trying to let the mentally disabled employee go from its store in Woodland, Calif., though, proved costly to retailer Target Corp., which has agreed to pay $275,000 to extricate itself from her wrongful termination claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act. [Sacramento Bee] The worker had found employment at Target with the assistance of a nonprofit organization that works with mentally disabled workers, and which had supplied her with a “job coach.” It remains to be seen whether employers like Target will continue to accept such placements with enthusiasm as the perceived legal risks of doing so keep rising.
P.S. Thanks to commenters for drawing out this point: yes, Target’s ultra-stringent employee discipline policy for failure to take timely lunch breaks does look like a lawyer-driven adaptation to its high legal exposure (especially in California) to class action suits claiming that employers permitted work during designated breaks. See, for example, this post and this one. Note that in each case the company feels constrained to fire the workers because they are putting in too much work, not too little.
“Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies”
Travails of French employers under the Code du Travail — though it’s not as if America doesn’t have plenty of firms that follow the same strategy of keeping head counts below a certain regulatory-trigger threshold. [Business Week]
Onboard-recorder trucker mandate
It’s the old story: many smaller truckers have been trying to resist the mandate, which costs an estimated $1,500 per truck, but some larger truckers that already use the devices have encouraged its passage. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) estimates that the mandate will cost $2 billion; it’s meant to make it easier to monitor compliance with limits on how many hours truckers can be on the road. [James Gattuso, Heritage]
FMLA leave meets ADA “reasonable accommodation”
The intersection of the Americans with Disabilities Act’s “reasonable accommodation” mandate with the Family and Medical Leave Act’s mandate of unpaid time off for illness has long posed a head-scratcher for employers. The EEOC is planning to issue clarifying guidelines on leave-as-accommodation, but organized employers fear the commission’s very liberal leadership may be working up new and extra-onerous legal interpretations. [Bloomberg Business Week; EEOC; Susan Lessack, Pepper Hamilton; Marie Larsen, Recruiter.com]