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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...

Through a recent FOI request, I was able to take a peek at the latest case statistics coming out of the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. (The CHRO has since added them to the website as well.) I’ve done these recaps in years before (here’s 2016 for example) and I think you can learn a lot not just on the latest statistics but when you compare them to prior years. So, what do the numbers from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017 show? Well, for the first time in several years, we’ve seen a noticeable  decrease in the numbers of complaints filed. In FY 16-17, 2376 total complaints were filed, down from 2616 the prior year – a 9 percent decrease.  Of course, it’s still  up from FY 11-12 when just 1838 total complaints were filed. And what about employment discrimination complaints in particular? The report also shows a drop in the number of complaints being filed, 1936, as compared to 2160 in the prior fiscal year.  That represents ...

Earlier this week, the Judiciary Committee (by a 25-16 vote) approved of Senate Bill 132, being labelled by it’s proponents as the “Time’s Up” bill but covers both harassment and discrimination cases. I covered an announcement of this a while back.   As the bill moves closer to consideration now to the state Senate, it’s time for employers to start paying attention to what’s in the bill.  The CBIA has expressed concerns about some aspects of the bill. Here are a few highlights: To require employers to provide every employee with information concerning the “illegality of sexual harassment and remedies available to victimes of sexual harassment”. To require employers of  three or more employees (currently set at 50) to provide two hours of sexual harassment prevention training and with such training being provided not just to supervisory employees, but  all employees. To eliminate affirmative defenses that employers oth...

Last week, I posted about a proposed Governor’s bill that would expand the training requirements for some employers. However, that appears to be just a small part of a wider political battle that is about to be raised. Yesterday, a group of Senate Democrats proposed, according to a handout, the “Largest Overhaul in Modern Connecticut History of Sexual Harassment Laws” that would significantly alter the landscape for nearly all Connecticut employers. They’ve titled their proposal the “Time’s Up Act: Combating Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault”.   The bill has yet to be drafted, but the outlines are being shared by Senate Democrats and will be pursued first in the Judiciary Committee (not the Labor & Public Employee Committee as you might expect). According to their handout, the proposed bill will contain the following relating to discrimination or harassment laws: Require that any notice of sexual harassment remedies and policies...

This post is for the employment law nerds out there. You know who you are. You pore over the statistics that show a correlation between the unemployment rate and EEOC filings.  (I see you Lawffice Space.) You rate who the “Worst Employer” is of 2017.  (Can’t wait for the announcement next week, Ohio Employer’s Law Blog.) You listen to podcasts about employment law. (Yes you, Hostile Work Environment podcast from Marc Alifanz.) And, if you’re the publisher of this blog, you pore over meeting minutes of the Connecticut Commission of Human Rights and Opportunities. Someone has to do it. And in reading the minutes of an August 2017, I saw a references to a new Case Assessment Review process in place since July 1, 2017. “What was this?”, I thought at the time.  I got excited. And then in October 2017, in a moment of brilliance  extreme employment law nerd-ism, I sent an old-fashioned Freedom of Information request for that procedu...

In yesterday’s post, I talked about the basics of what is and is not “sexual harassment”. Continuing the theme of going back to the basics, employers in the Constitution State have certain posting and training requirements that must be followed. These requirements are found in the administrative regulations set up by the CHRO regarding sexual harassment prevention. I first detailed these in a post WAY back in October 2007 (!) but they remain just as important today as ten years ago. For posting : All employers who have 3 or more employees must provide notices that say sexual harassment is illegal and address what the remedies are for such harassment. But here’s a free shortcut: The CHRO has prepared a model poster that complies with the statute and is free to download.  You can do so here.  It’s a good time to remind employers too that employers should also update their “Discrimination is Illegal” poster also offered by the CHRO....

So a few weeks back, I suggested that we were entering into a new era of sexual harassment cases and wondered out loud when the statistics would back up my observations. We now have our first signs.  Maybe. In my exclusive continued look at the case statistics from the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, we can see the first signs of an increase. But as I’ll explain below, it’s difficult to know if this is a statistical anomaly. Despite significant drops in most types of discrimination complaints, the number of sexual harassment complaints in Connecticut went up last fiscal year to 145, up from 135 the year before. As a percentage of overall claims, sex harassment employment claims are just 3 percent of the overall claims filed, up from 2.5 percent the prior year. But here’s the issue: When you look back at prior fiscal years in 2014 and 2015, the number of sex harassment claims is still below those years. In other words, is it a trend u...

With Memorial Day coming up this weekend, it’s often a time (or it ought to be a time) to reflect on the sacrifices made by our military.  And at the same time, consider how we, as a society, treat our veterans. This issue was highlighted for me many years ago.  During a court proceeding in which fraudulent behavior of the witness was being discussed, the witness brought up his past military service, perhaps as a way to seek leniency from the court. To my surprise, rather than dismiss the comment as outright pandering to the court, the judge took a few minutes to express appreciation to the witness for his service and to note that the judicial system should be sensitive to the needs of veterans. The court didn’t rule in favor of the witness but I was still struck by the judge’s sensitivity.  It was a learning moment for me that all of us involved in the legal system ought to treat veterans in a similar way — with, at a minimum, recognition for...

On “Survivor”, one of my favorite broadcast TV shows (or, as my YouTube/Netflix watching teens might say — “what’s that?”) the notion of “immunity” plays a central role in the outcome of an episode. And in a decision released last week by the Connecticut Supreme Court, whether or not to grant immunity again plays a pivotal role for religious employers. In its unanimous decision, the court refused to grant outright immunity to a religious institution from an employment discrimination claim.  The case, Trinity Christian School v. CHRO , can be downloaded here. For religious institutions, the case serves as reminder that while the employment discrimination laws may be more limited in their impact (more on that in a second), seeking “immunity” from such claims is a step too far for the courts. In doing so, it’s helpful to note that the U.S. Supreme Court decided earlier this decade that the “ministerial exception...

The Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities can sometimes be seen as an easy punching bag by legislators, employees, employers and employment law attorneys. But there’s one area that has been an unequivocal success and where you won’t see almost any headlines. The CHRO several years ago developed the Kids Court Essay Competition which runs each year.  In it, it gives high school and middle students the opportunity to talk about topics that are important to them and shine a spotlight on others who may not have the same opportunity.  In doing so, the competition focuses on important and contemporary civil justice issues. This year’s essay topics were: #Dreamers: The Immigration Debate #Hate Crimes: Don’t Pull the Trigger #MeToo #Where I Live, Who Can I Become #Educational equity: race, power & privilege The CHRO received over 300 (!) entries.  Out of that, five essays were chosen as finalists at both the middle school and high school le...

As part of my continuing series of posts about the CHRO, and following up from the 75th Anniversary panel discussion earlier this week, I wanted to provide an early look of the statistics that are soon to be released by the agency. I was provided a preliminary draft in preparation for the panel presentation; it should be out in the next week or two and I was asked not to divulge the specific numbers.  Stay tuned for my deep dive into the numbers when they are officially released. (As a refresher, you can see last year’s numbers here.) But there are few trends that are readily apparent from the draft. First, as we have all suspected, sexual harassment claims filed with the CHRO are up substantially over the prior year.  This is not too surprising given the publicity regarding the #metoo movement.  Still, we haven’t seen these types of numbers in nearly 15 years.  When the final numbers are released, expect a big increase in sexual harassment claims from FY...

Yesterday I had the opportunity (along with my fellow Shipman & Goodwin partner Peter Murphy) to speak as part of the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities’ (CHRO) 75th Anniversary celebration. The panel — The Barriers to Employment Legal Update and Panel Discussion  — was chock full of the types of insights, data and analyses that is so often overlooked in this Twitter generation. We spent a good 90 minutes talking about the changes that have been going on at the CHRO and talked about what types of changes could be made in the future. Frankly, it’s far too much for one blog post. So I’m going to tackle them in a few posts.  Today’s post: The re-emergence of the Case Assessment Review. Indeed, if you haven’t been before the CHRO in the last year, you may be unaware that this is perhaps one of the biggest changes to the agency procedure over the last year. Hyperbole? Actually no. At least not when you look at the statistics r...

Last year I talked about how the new era of sexual harassment claims was coming.  The open question was: Would the number of claims actually increase? The answer to that is now known: Yes. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released its preliminary data regarding workplace harassment today. And it’s findings shouldn’t be a surprise if you’ve been paying attention. Among the notable pieces of data: Charges filed with the EEOC alleging sexual harassment increased by more than 12 percent from FY 2017. The EEOC recovered nearly $70M for victims of sexual harassment through administrative enforcement and litigation, up from $47.5M in FY2017. Reasonable cause findings in harassment claims increased to nearly 1200, up from 900 in FY 2017. And public interest is skyrocketing: The EEOC’s website traffic to its sexual harassment page more than doubled in the last year. In Connecticut, the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities hasn’t yet rele...

The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunity (CHRO) was sued yesterday by its longtime (and former) Regional Manager Pekah Wallace.  The federal lawsuit claims her employment termination was improper and provides a whole host of information about what has been going on behind the scenes at the agency. You can download the complaint here.   (As with all new lawsuits, my standard warning applies — these are allegations in a complaint, not a determination from a court.) I’ll leave it for others to opine on the merits of the case because my firm represents a number of clients before the agency. The allegations, however, show, at a minimum, that there was a great deal of friction going on at the agency for a number of years — even while the agency was investigating the outside complaints of employees against their own employers too. Ms. Wallace alleges violations of: Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 31-51q (applying the First Amendment to the workplace); F...

Senate Bill 3, titled “Combatting Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment” has been modified since first introduced and passed the Senate late last week.  Despite the title, the bill would impact every discrimination case filed in the state and would make significant changes to the sexual harassment prevention training requirements. It is awaiting a vote in the House and now’s the time for employers to see the major changes being proposed. Let’s wait to see what final passage looks like but as it stands right now, here are the key changes: The bill expands sexual harassment prevention training to cover all employers who have supervisors and non-supervisors for employers with 3 or more employees.  The CHRO is to develop free, online training that employers can use.  Training must be updated every ten years by employers. Employers will be required to send a copy of a Sexual Harassment Policy via e-mail to its employees or post on its website if employe...

Late on Tuesday (April 23, 2019) the CHRO released new Legal Enforcement Guidance on “Pregnancy, Childbirth, or Related Conditions at Work”.  Or you might call it a “Bluepaper” instead – as a “one-pager” on the subject called it. That one-pager was prepared by the Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School’s Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization seemingly with the blessing and approval of the CHRO which also posted it to its website late Tuesday. So is it a Bluepaper or Guidance? Well, it’s titled “Guidance” so let’s go with that.  Indeed, the CHRO’s guidance here follows similar guidance released on other laws by the Connecticut Department of Labor such as this one on Paid Sick Leave. What are the highlights of the guidance?  In a lot of ways, the guidance mimics (as it should) the current law on the subject. It also mirrors the language already present in the p...

Earlier this month, the EEOC released its statistics regarding charges for 2018.  I love looking at these because there are certain trends that always pop out. (You can see some prior years here and here.) Here are five big takeaways that employers in Connecticut can learn from these numbers. Charges Continue to Go Down — a Lot.  For the seventh year in a row, the number of charges processed by the EEOC continued to go down.  In 2018, the EEOC handled 76,418 charges, a 9.3 percent drop from 2017.  This is down substantially from the high water mark in 2011 of 99,947 and the lowest total in general since 2006. But, Some Claims are Way Up.  Perhaps not surprisingly given the attention that continues to be paid to the #metoo movement, sexual harassment claims are up. In 2018, the EEOC received 7,609 sexual harassment charges — a 13.6 percent increase from 2017. Sex Harassment Claims are Also More Costly .  The EEOC received $56.6M in mo...

Just wrapped up a trial so hoping to get these blog posts with a little more frequency. On October 1, 2019, the new training requirements on sexual harassment prevention became effective. I’ve recapped them before here in my “Definitive Employer Guide to Connecticut’s New Anti-Sexual Harassment Law” post from June. I noted then that all employers with three or more employees must train  all of their employees by October 1, 2020 (or within six months of hire, after that time). How is an employer going to do that at a minimal cost? Well, the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) was required to develop a free, online training course for employers. That training is now live and is, in fact, free! You can access it here. I’ve taken a brief look through it and it’s set up with several different YouTube videos and some written materials as well.  While there is no substitute for in-person, classroom-style training, the CHR...

In preparation for a webinar I gave this week with my colleague Chris Engler (which, by the way, you can access here) I took a deeper dive into the statistics from the annual report released by the CHRO, in a followup to my initial report here. When you look at the numbers in a snapshot, it’s sometimes hard to see where things are going. But thankfully, the CHRO has nearly two decades’ worth of data to parse through. So, I thought it might be useful to go back a decade to the 2008-09 annual report and compare it with 2018-2019 to see if we can gain a larger perspective on both the work of the CHRO and where we are in the state of employment law. Overall, I was left with questions that don’t have easy answers. So, let’s go through a few of the data points; the reports are all pretty much written the same way, with the same categories used: Complaints filed by Region : Overall, all complaints (housing, employment etc) were up in FY 2019 to 2625 from 2001 ten y...

If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, you know that this is my absolute favorite time of the year. No, it’s not Thanksgiving (though we should give thanks as I’ll explain in a second). But rather, it’s the release of the Annual Case Processing Report from the CHRO!  Yes, we should give thanks to the CHRO for putting this out.   It really is helpful to understand some trends and to see how the CHRO’s statutes are being put into practice. But before we look at this year’s numbers, you should probably read my post from last year to get your bearings.  When last we checked, sexual harassment claims were up, employment discrimination claims were up, and cases withdrawn with settlement were down. So what trends does the report for 2018-2019 show? Here’s what stands out. Sexual Harassment claims continue to rise and are now at their highest numbers in the last 20 years. In 2017/18, there were 235 claims file. Last year? 279....