Rojgar Job News

Scary stuff. It’s that time of year again. When employees dress up in inappropriate outfits and engage in general stupidity. I am speaking, of course, about Halloween. Don’t believe me? I’ve got several blog posts to prove it. For example, in prior years, I’ve warned you to be on the lookout for “Naughty Nurses”.   Yes, somewhere out there some employee is thinking this is a good idea. But costumes aren’t the only source of trouble.  Buying an employee Halloween presents with a “lustful” look in your eyes, led to another lawsuit. Then there was the supervisor was fired after he “responded to a question about his stated intention to dress as a woman for Halloween by saying that he was a hermaphrodite who menstruated and used to wear a bra.”  You’ll have to read that one for yourself. In any event, Halloween doesn’t have to be the source of trouble.  Even though one judge told one litigant th...

Caution: You may not want to get your legal advice from reading Cosmo. As I approach the ninth anniversary of this blog this week (watch for that anniversary post soon), I’ve gotten a bit more reflective as well.  Some of that is personal circumstances I’ve mentioned before; perhaps some of it is age and experience. And I find myself wanting to speak directly to employees who have brought suit against their employers. But here’s the thing: I can’t.  The simplest of explanations is that ethics rules prohibit the attorney for one party from contacting the opposing party directly. And so: End of the blog post. Well, not quite.  As I’ve discovered over the years, I also get several phone calls from people looking to sue their employers for one reason or the other. While I have to politely decline many of those requests, I sometimes wish that I could tell them a few things before they brought suit. So here goes: 1)  Odds are, your employer d...

For many years, I’ve used my first post each year to look back and ahead at the area of employment law.  My record of predictions has been about what you would expect someone predicting the future — about average. Last year at this time, I said a few things though that seem to resonate with me including this: That said, it feels like we’re in a period where employment law issues are being tweaked rather than rewritten.  There hasn’t been a new federal law on employment law in many years, for example.  And at the state legislature, you wonder how much more laws can be put in place on employment law before employers say “enough”.  (See, e.g., General Electric.) Instead, what we are seeing and will likely continue to see are new rules being promulgated at the agency level — such the decision from the NLRB last week regarding recordings in the workplace.  Even the new white-collar overtime regulations may have less of a...

At this week’s CHRO information session, I was able to review the new statistics released by the CHRO this fall regarding case filings and dismissals. They’ve now been posted live on the CHRO’s website here. It’s something I’ve covered each year and I’m always fascinated by what these statistics show — and don’t show. What’s the big takeaway this year? The trend of increasing numbers of discrimination complaints being filed that we have seen in Connecticut since 2012 (when just 1838 complaints were filed) is showing no signs of abating. Indeed, in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016, 2616 complaints were filed, up from 2482 the year before.  Thus from FY 2012 to FY 2016, that’s a huge 42 percent increase in the number of claims filed. Now, not all complaints with the CHRO are employment-related. But as with prior years, that number has been going up as well. For FY 2016, there were 2160 such complaints filed, up fro...

USDOL Headquarters in DC Over the last few weeks, there’s been a lot of bluster about lawsuits filed that are challenging the new overtime rules that are set to take place in just a few weeks. And there was also news that Congress was considering a law restricting the law as well. Both seem unlikely to come to pass and employers that have been postponing action in the hopes of a “white knight” on the issue should think twice. I covered the new rules in several prior posts (here and here, for example). But as a reminder, the rule becomes effective December 1, 2016. Note that December 1 is a Thursday, so employers will have to make sure that the entire pay period is compliant with the new rule. So, that leaves you with precious few weeks to get into compliance.  There are a number of different approaches to take and its definitely not a one-size-fits-all type of law. One suggestion though is to have your trusted attorney or HR consultant take a look at any questions...

On Tuesday, May 23rd, the Connecticut House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a measure that would greatly expand the already broad anti-discrimination provision that exist under Connecticut law.  The bill, House Bill 6668, would make several substantive changes to the protections including defining what is a “reasonable accommodation” instead of leaving that determination open. I’ve previously written extensively about the state laws covering pregnant employees before (here and here for example) so I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the current law so you can fully understand the contemplated change. But I’ll try to break it down here. Existing law makes it a discriminatory practice to: To terminate a woman’s employment because of her pregnancy; to refuse to grant to that employee a reasonable leave of absence for disability resulting from her pregnancy; to deny to that employee, who is disabled as a result of pregnancy, any compensat...

U.S. Department of Labor Headquarters A federal district court in Texas yesterday struck down (once and for all?) the changes to the overtime rules proposed by the Obama Administration.  Previously, those rules (affecting the white collar exemptions) had been stayed, but the Court’s ruling suggests that there is a fatal flaw to the proposed rules and barred its implementation. In doing so, the Court said that the salary-level test that was proposed was too high to determine which workers were exempt from overtime compensation. Of course, there was little chance that these rules were going to get the go-ahead anyways because the Trump administration has shown no desire to support them either politically or in court.  Indeed, in July, the Department of Labor sought public feedback on ways to revise the proposed rule. The ruling applies to employers nationwide. While you’ll see a round of headlines today about how this is a big decision, it really should come as no su...

The Connecticut Appellate Court today released an important disability discrimination decision that gives employers some support for employees who struggle with employees who ask for “accommodations” for an indefinite leave for a medical condition. The case ostensibly addresses the request for “indefinite leave” which I’ve previously talked about it in prior posts. But the case boils down to a familiar set of facts for employers. An employee who one day says, “I need to take 30 days off for a medical condition” and leaves the employer to twist without further response. As explained by the court: The plaintiff informed the defendant that she would be taking a leave of absence, did not provide the defendant with any time frame for her return, and did not respond to the defendant’s subsequent attempts to contact her regarding her request for leave. The plaintiff effectively asked the defendant ‘‘to hold [her] position op...

It never seems to fail; I go on vacation and the Connecticut Supreme Court issues one of the few employment law decisions it issues every year during that week. Fortunately for all of us, it concerns the fluctuating work week method of overtime computation which most employers in the state consciously either avoid or try not to understand.  (In very basic terms, the formula calculates a pay rate based on the number of hours an employee actually works in a particular weeks.) I’ve previously discussed the “perils of trying to rely on a fluctuating work week.” As recently as 2012, I said that “while it can provide some benefit for employers, it must be done properly and must not be raised after the fact.”  And I noted way back in 2008 that employers have to jump through a variety of hoops to make sure they are compliant. Add to this cautionary tale the latest Connecticut Supreme Court case of Williams v. General Nutrition Centers, Inc.  The...

Today marks an important milestone in the development of the Connecticut Employment Law Blog.  It marks the second major redesign of the blog since it was launched 10 years ago (!) this month in 2007. Back then, the iPhone was just announced and social media was something that a few college kids played around with.  And some of us used a feature called Google Reader to read RSS feeds. (Don’t believe me? I even wrote a blog post about how to read blog posts on an RSS feed here!) And the notion of using blogs or specialized websites to get employment law news was still in its infancy.  I would read “George’s Employment Blawg” — now defunct – and sometimes BNA’s Daily Labor Reports, but there wasn’t much else beyond that. So much as changed in ten years. It was time to design and structure my blog to meet the 2017 world as it stands now. First, because smartphones are a massive part of every day life, the blog needed to have a ...

Today marks Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and one of the holiest days of the Jewish year. But it’s a day of business to many. What should employers be doing for employees, though, that are celebrating the day? There are actually a few different ways to answer the question. The first answer, looking just at the legal obligations, is that the employer must provide an accommodation under Title VII. But that standard is different than an ADA analysis. Instead, the law requires an employer or other covered entity to reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the operations of the employer’s business. Thus, giving an employee a day off to observe the holiday will, in many instances, be deemed to be a reasonable accommodation to the employee. So that answers the legal obligation, but what else should an employer be doing? Well, are you e-mailing that employee on their “day off...

Last week I talked about the new state law regarding pregnancy discrimination that is going into effect on October 1, 2017.  In that post, I mentioned a new notice that was required to comply with the law. Although there is no set form that is required to be used, the Connecticut Department of Labor has created one that is available for employers to use that will comply with the state law.  It is free to download here.   Because the content is useful, I’m using it down below so that employers can cut and paste it into a handbook or into a notice to be given to employee upon starting work too.  One can quibble with some of the word phrasings that are used, but overall — and stating the obvious — if you use this, you’ll be in comp liance according to the state. Covered Employers Each employer with more than 3 employees must comply with these anti-discrimination and reasonable accommodation laws related to an employee or job applicant’...

“President Trump is a Big Fat Idiot” or, for that matter, “Secretary Clinton is a Sore Loser.” Let’s suppose you see one of your employees tweeting one of these expressions on Twitter during non-work hours from a personal account. Can you discipline or even fire your employee over that tweet? That, in essence, is at the heart of an issue that has been circulating in the sports pages (and in the President’s press briefings) over the last week due to the tweets of ESPN Sportscenter Anchor Jemele Hill from her personal account that were critical of the President. The New York Times, in fact, ran a story on Saturday discussing the legal ramifications; it was nice to be quoted in the article. While that article does a good job of summarizing the law in part, there’s a bit more to the story that is useful exploring (however briefly) in a blog post. First off, people do not generally have a First Amendment protection for things that that they say that ...

Update August 16th: Late yesterday, I received further confirmation that the provisions regarding FMLA were withdrawn entirely from the proposed Democrat-led budget bill. Moreover, the General Assembly early this morning voted on a Republican version of the budget implementer, which now goes on to Governor Malloy (who has indicated he will veto the bill). That version did not contain language on the FMLA changes either. So for now, employers can stand down. However, employers should continue to track the changes both this year and next. FMLA changes may make a return at some point.    Update at 2:06 p.m.: Since publishing this article, I’ve now heard from three people who work at or with the legislature that while they can’t find fault with my analysis of the proposed legislation as described below, the section on FMLA was intended to address a separate issue.   As a result, it appears that the section on CTFMLA changes discussed below may be withdrawn this...

If you’ve ever tried a case in federal or state court, you know that picking a “jury of your peers” is often a challenge for all.  Sometimes, otherwise qualified prospective jurors say that they have conflicts with their schedules, while others are all too happy to feel like they are participating in a Law & Order episode. (Lifted from a real-life experience.) But there’s a bigger issue in play too — jury diversity. What does it really mean to have a jury of our peers? And is jury diversity still an issue? These will be among the issues that will be on the table in an “In Community” program that my law firm is producing on September 27, 2017 along with the George W. Crawford Black Bar Association.  I sit on the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion committee and have been among the people charged with pulling this together.  I’m excited to see this program come together. You can find more information about the program her...

Typically, in our court system, we operate under the “American Rule” which means that parties have to pay their own attorneys’ fees in cases, regardless of whether they win or lose.  (Contrast that with the English Rule which is a “loser pays” system.) But there is one big exception to the American Rule — and it can be found in lots of employment law cases.   In several instances, the governing statute allows the prevailing party (or, in some instances, just the Plaintiff — read “employee”) to collect attorneys fees. This is often seen in wage & hour claims, where an overtime claim may get dwarfed by a claim for attorneys’ fees.  One blog pointed out a few years ago in an FLSA case on “how attorney’s fees can grow to be the tail that wags the dog.” A recent case out of the District Court of Connecticut also shows the impact in employment discrimination cases too. The decision flows from...

Words normally come easy on this blog. Today I should be writing a simple post about a new Executive Order that will make it easier for people to file for unemployment claims if they believe their workplace is unsafe. But I can’t.  Not right now. There’s too much pain in the United States today.  And any words that I can offer beyond  “I hear you. I’m here for you. And I will fight hard for you.” seem trivial and forced. I have lived my life with a different experience. Yes, it’s been in the face of anti-semitism (ever have pennies thrown at you in middle school and swastikas passed to you as notes?) but it’s not the same as the experiences of being black in America. For that experience, I have tried to listen to others. Back in 2014, my favorite law professor (I can say that now that I’m years beyond law school) and the one who I worked for after my first year, Kimberly Jade Norwood, wrote a guest column that I was able to ...