A new federal lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania prompted us to re-visit the concept of “disparate impact” discrimination, which many employers are unfamiliar with.
What is “Disparate Impact” Discrimination?
Discrimination comes in two sizes – intentional discriminatory treatment, and “disparate impact” discrimination. Intentional discriminatory treatment probably needs little explanation or examples at this point since
We would like to bring you back to “Onionhead,” the cult? religion? spiritual belief system? that is at the heart of an EEOC Title VII lawsuit which alleges that a company forced its employees to hold hands, pray, burn candles and tell co-workers “I love you.”
Christina did a well-researched post in June in which
“How do we square these two rulings”?
We asked this question on May 15th apropos a new decision from a three-judge federal appeals court panel sitting in Virginia which ruled that an employee’s calling the African-American plaintiff a “porch monkey” on two occasions did not constitute a hostile work environment. After all, it was
Tattoos, body piercings, dreadlocks – can an employer prohibit such bodily adornments? Can an employer require a “look policy?”
Depends.
We just read about a woman in Edmonton, Canada who has 22 visible body piercings and claims that employer dress codes discriminate against her, and that “one prospective employer threw out her résumé in front
It was a little disturbing and confusing to us that the EEOC jumped the gun in announcing a settlement in the Hawaiian farm labor case and was dealt a blow by the Court, which denied the EEOC’s consent decrees — at least for now.
Charles A. Krugel, a Chicago employment attorney who established and
“The most vulnerable workers” — this is a part of the EEOC’s strategic plan for enforcement. Protecting them, that is, as we noted before — think farm workers, migrant workers, workers in isolated areas, and mentally-challenged Henry’s Turkey workers. (It also appears to be on the radar elswehere, as our similar recent blog about
It is clear that if a supervisor whose romantic overtures to a subordinate are spurned attempts to have the object of his/her affections terminated than that makes out a case of sexual discrimination/harassment. But what if the jilted employee is a co-employee, and not a supervisor?
In a recent case of apparent “first
Yesterday we blogged that a hostile work environment can be created in any way, by anybody, or by any means, if the employer does not address an employee complaint that the workplace is hostile.
We reported on the settlement of a case where a large grocery chain agreed to pay $487,000 to settle an action
Traditional labor law is not our bailiwick — we do employment discrimination law. But a new NLRB ruling today has major implications for us.
The NLRB in Chicago ruled today that Northwestern University football players are employees, not students as the school argued, and therefore can unionize.
CNN said today that “the board’s decision indicates
The EEOC has just announced that “In the past two months, the EEOC has had several cases involving severe racial harassment, including a $2.7 million settlement against an environmental clean-up company, and a harassment case in which a white employee was the victim.” It has also just announced (1) the settlement of a long running