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When is Enough Harassment Investigation Enough?

Kollman & Saucier
11/14/2018
Employer Liability, Hostile Work Environment, Litigation, Race Discrimination
Over my career, I have dealt with my share of “you can’t make this up” situations.  The kind where outrageously offensive or harassing workplace behavior has occurred, and the employer needs to – and wants to – figure out who did it and take steps to stop it from happening again. Indeed, that’s one of the benefits of representing management:  you can have the chance to assist in helping change culture (even if that “culture” appears...
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NLRB Union Protests Board Chair and GC

Kollman & Saucier
11/12/2018
Agency Activity, NLRB, Union Activity
The National Labor Relations Board, we are told, is supposed to be the neutral government agency that addresses workplace issues between unions and employers.   And I saw a pink unicorn on the way to work this morning.   It is not unusual to hear employers sometimes suggest they are skeptical of the Board’s supposed “neutral” stance.  A number of decisions coming from the NLRB during the Obama presidency could be characterized as...
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Age and Wage Issues Among Many Resolved On Election Day

Kollman & Saucier
11/07/2018
Age Discrimination, Gender Identity, Legislative Developments, Medical/Legal Marijuana, State Law, Wage & Hour
As votes in yesterday’s elections continue to be tallied, there were several developments of interest to employers and to labor and employment practitioners alike. Age: The ADEA Applies To Public Sector Employers Of All Sizes First, yesterday morning, the Supreme Court announced its first decision of the 2018-19 term.  In a unanimous (8-0) ruling, the Court held in Mount Lemmon Fire District v. Guido that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act...
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D.C. Creates New Training And Reporting Obligations For Employers With Tipped Employees

Kollman & Saucier
11/02/2018
Legislative Developments, State Law, Wage & Hour
You may recall that earlier this year, voters in the District of Columbia passed an initiative (Initiative 77) that would have increased the minimum wage for tipped employees (who predominantly work in the restaurant, hotel, and retail service industries) incrementally up to $15.00 an hour by 2025. Recently, however, the D.C. Council changed course by passing the Tipped Wage Workers Fairness Amendment Act of 2018 (the "Act").  Most directly, the...
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Parties Seek Supreme Court Guidance on Transgender Identity Discrimination

Kollman & Saucier
10/27/2018
Employment Discrimination
Earlier this year, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. appealed the Sixth Circuit’s decision against it that found that “sex” discrimination under Title VII encompasses “gender identity” discrimination.  The case was brought by Aimee Stephens, a transgender former funeral home director, whom the funeral home terminated a few weeks after she announced that she intended transition to a woman.  The funeral home maintained that...
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Marijuana Law Does Not Compel Employer To Waive Its Drug-Testing Policy

Kollman & Saucier
10/24/2018
Medical/Legal Marijuana
Last year, I blogged about Maryland’s medical marijuana law and its potential implications on drug-free workplaces and drug testing policies.  Although Maryland courts (still) have not addressed the questions in the employment law context, courts in other jurisdictions with medical marijuana statutes have issued rulings that could provide insight on some of the issues.  Recently, a federal district court in New Jersey did just this in...
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Union Threatens Strike over Marriott’s Green Initiative

Kollman & Saucier
09/19/2018
Labor Law
News reports on virtually everything over the past week (ok, more like nearly two years) has me shaking my head at the “crazy town” world we find ourselves living in.  I have restrained myself from writing blogs about the various things I regularly find absurd, largely because it would consume more time than I have.  But reports coming out over the past few days about the strike vote taken by UNITE HERE housekeeping employees at Marriott put me...
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NLRB Proposes Joint-Employer Standard Rule

Kollman & Saucier
09/14/2018
Labor Law
Today, the National Labor Relations Board (Board) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) to establish the standard for finding that one entity is a joint employer with another entity.  Under the proposed rule, an employer may be a joint-employer of another employer’s employees “only if [1] it possesses and exercises direct and immediate control over the essential terms and conditions of employment and [2] has done so in a manner...
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Employment Law Test, Question Two.

Kollman & Saucier
09/13/2018
Religious Discrimination
Ok, class, today’s quiz involves religious discrimination.  There’s been a lot of discussion in the news lately about when it is acceptable to act on your religious beliefs regardless of how your actions affect the interests of others.  This becomes a bit tricky when employment discrimination law says you cannot treat people differently, but then someone claims that their religious views require it. For example, “my religion doesn’t permit...
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Think You Understand Employment Discrimination Law? Here’s a Test.

Kollman & Saucier
09/11/2018
Employment Discrimination, State Law
If you are a student of employment law, you likely know the basics of employment discrimination and the concept of “disparate treatment” – the theory that it is impermissible to intentionally treat someone differently because they are a member of a protected class.  That’s where you get the most typical claims of discrimination.  The “I wasn’t hired because of my national origin,” or “I didn’t get paid the at the same wage because...
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