In an ironic twist, a manager’s alleged attempt to protect an employee from racism resulted in a discrimination claim by that employee.

In Ikome v. CSRA, LLC, the employee hailed from Cameroon and had very dark skin. He helped his employer, an information technology services company, win a contract in North Carolina with the Environmental Protection Agency and became project manager on the contract. Within weeks, however, he was replaced as project manager by a lighter-skinned African-American coworker. In his lawsuit for color and national origin discrimination, he alleges that his manager told him that people in North Carolina are “rednecks” (The manager denied using the term, but the employee’s allegations are assumed to be true at this point in the litigation, before it goes to a jury). The employee interpreted this to mean that rednecks are racist, and a lighter-skinned person would be more acceptable to them. Continue Reading Attempt to Protect the Employee from Racism Leads to Discrimination Claim!

NLRB logo

The National Labor Relations Board has now addressed the use of mandatory arbitration agreements following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis, which upheld the enforceability of arbitration agreements containing waivers of the right to bring class or collective actions over employment-related disputes, rejecting the NLRB’s then-position that such waivers violate the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), as discussed in our prior E-lert. Continue Reading NLRB Expands Scope of Mandatory Arbitration Agreements

Hey baseball fans, as well as all you casual observers of the sport.  If you’re like me, you’ve noticed the huge spike in home runs (Commissioner Manfred says the balls are not juiced), some of the unexpected blockbuster trades just before last week’s trade deadline, and the emergence of young second generation stars like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Fernando Tatis Jr.  But there’s another significant development that you may have overlooked.  I know I was asleep at the switch and did not see the news over the winter about the renaming of the Disabled List or DL, as it’s been called for over 100 years.  Truth be told, as an employment and labor lawyer, I’ve always wondered about that term.  When a player went on that list with a hamstring pull or a sprained ankle, was I to assume he was really disabled?  Especially as that term is defined under the Americans with Disabilities Act?  Of course not. Even though the ADA can sometimes be expanded to include even transient conditions, a player with a pulled hammy is not disabled. Continue Reading Why Is Giancarlo Stanton on the Injured List, not the Disabled List?

In May of 2013, some Walmart employees boarded buses bound for Bentonville, Arkansas to attend the Company’s annual shareholders meeting. The buses formed a caravan, picking up employees at Walmart locations on the way. The employees handed strike letters to their managers before departing.

The caravan was dubbed the “Ride for Respect.” It was organized by OUR Walmart, a group formed with the assistance of the United Food and Commercial Worker Union (UFCW). Once in Bentonville, the employees held demonstrations, attended the shareholder meeting, and engaged in other activities to publicize their grievances. Continue Reading Ride for Respect: Intermittent “Hit and Run” Strike or Presumptively Protected Work Stoppage?

Last week, I attended a training seminar hosted by the EEOC.  Sharon Rennart, a Senior Attorney Advisor at the EEOC, presented in part on how the ADA may apply to employees with Opioid Use Disorder (“OUD”).  OUD may be diagnosed where there is a problematic pattern of use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, manifested over a 12-month period by the presence of at least two out of eleven elements, including: Continue Reading What the EEOC Thinks About Opioid Use and the ADA

As promised, today we give you and third and final installment of our three-part series addressing the new opinion letters issued by the U.S. Department of Labor on July 1, 2019.  To read about the other letters issued by the DOL, check out this blog post and this blog post.  The final opinion letter, FLSA2019-9, addresses permissible rounding practices for calculating the number of hours worked by an employee. Continue Reading U.S. Department of Labor Issues New Opinion Letters: Part Three – Rounding Hours

In our last blog post, we revealed a three-part series intended to address the new opinion letters issued by the U.S. Department of Labor on July 1, 2019.  The second of these opinion letters, FLSA2019-8, addresses whether paralegals employed by a trade organization are exempt from minimum wage and overtime requirements under Section 13(a)(1) of the FLSA – an issue of admittedly more limited interest, except as to employers of such individuals. Continue Reading U.S. Department of Labor Issues New Opinion Letters: Part Two – Paralegals

On July 1, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor issued three new opinion letters that address compliance issues related to the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).  These letters are official, written opinions by the Department’s Wage and Hour Division that respond to fact-specific scenarios posed by employers and employees alike.  We are going to address each of the opinion letters in separate blog posts over the course of the next week.  But for now, let’s dive into the first of the three opinion letters! Continue Reading U.S. Department of Labor Issues New Opinion Letters: A Three-Part Series (Part One – Bonuses and the Regular Rate)

A recent case caused me significant concern on behalf of employers. As you may know, before an employee may file a federal discrimination lawsuit against their employer, they must first file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (And, on a related note, just recently, the U.S. Supreme Court held that this charge-filing requirement was a procedural one that could be waived by the employer, as we discussed in our E-lert). But what happens if the EEOC never notifies the employer of the charge? Continue Reading Penalizing the Employer for the EEOC’s Mistake?