Fiona W. Ong

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I am constantly amazed by the lack of judgment that people exhibit in their social media postings. A recent example of this is Emerson v. Dart, in which a corrections officer who was suing her employer for discrimination decided to threaten potential witnesses through a Facebook post!
Continue Reading Extraordinary Employee Misconduct – Threatening Witnesses Through Facebook

I was amused by a recent case involving rather odd facts. Apparently an employee arrived at work with windblown hair. Her co-worker said “I can fix that for you.” The employee responded, “Sure, go ahead.” The co-worker then picked up a pair of scissors and proceeded to CUT THE EMPLOYEE’S HAIR! Now, that probably would have been fine (or at least somewhat understandable) if they worked at a salon, but these employees worked at a hospital! In the pharmacy department!Continue Reading Extraordinary Employee Misconduct – Giving a Non-consensual Haircut!

Finally! The new Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) forms and notices are here!

As FMLA-covered employers sadly know, the FMLA requires employers to provide certain very detailed notices to employees requesting FMLA. In addition, employers may request only very specific and limited information from employees and their (or their family member’s) health care providers. The Department of Labor provides model FMLA forms and notices that meet the FMLA’s requirements on its website.
Continue Reading Time to Update Those FMLA Forms!!!

A recent case brought something to my attention that I had not focused on before. As noted by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in Vodopivec v. Anthony’s LLC, Section 1981’s specific prohibition on “race discrimination” encompasses more than just the traditional notions of race – it also includes ancestry and ethnicity! But not national origin. What?!!!
Continue Reading Race Discrimination Under Section 1981 – The Lines Are Blurred

In light of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s recent announcement of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to rescind the majority of its controversial electronic reporting requirements (which we discussed in our July 2018 E-Update), I decided to review some previous guidance on these requirements (yes, because I am that much of a nerd). The requirements had been imposed through a final rule issued in 2016, which also sought to provide additional protections to workers for reporting work-related illnesses and injuries – specifically targeting safety incentive programs and drug-testing programs. I was shocked to realize that OSHA asserts that post-incident drug-testing of employees pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement violates the Occupational Safety and Health Act!
Continue Reading OSHA Pre-empts CBA Drug-Testing Provisions?

Recently, I blogged about a press release from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in which it misstated the law on post-offer medical examinations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. I was hoping that was a one-off mistake. But another recent EEOC press release has given me some concern, because I believe that it again misleads employers on their obligations under the ADA – this time with regard to associational discrimination.
Continue Reading Another Misleading EEOC Press Release on the ADA…

Back in 2016, on behalf of the Worklaw®Network, a nationwide association of independent labor and employment law firms of which Shawe Rosenthal is a member, we filed suit against the U.S. Department of Labor to block the DOL’s new interpretation of the “persuader rule,” which is the advice exemption of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (“LMRDA”). Several other suits were filed as well, a nationwide injunction was issued by a federal court in Texas, the DOL issued a proposed rule to rescind the new interpretation, and now, repeatedly citing the favorable decisions in our lawsuit and directly quoting the comments to the DOL’s proposed rule we submitted on behalf of Worklaw, the DOL has officially rescinded the rule.
Continue Reading We Sued the DOL, and the DOL Blinked

I was perusing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s recently released Volume 2 of its 2018 Federal Digest of Equal Employment Opportunity Law (yes, I know I need some better hobbies), and noticed an article entitled, “Assessing Workplace Harassment Prevention Methods Through Comparisons With Similar Crime Prevention Strategies.” The article posits that “[b]y comparing harassment prevention strategies to similar crime prevention efforts, for which empirical research already exists, the EEOC hopes to identify useful tools for preventing workplace harassment.” Well, that struck me as an interesting, if somewhat questionable, approach. But let’s look at what the EEOC says.
Continue Reading The EEOC Compares Harassment Prevention to Crime Prevention

This week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission trumpeted a $4.4 million settlement in a lawsuit in which the EEOC claimed that Amsted Rail had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by disqualifying applicants based on the results of a test for carpal tunnel syndrome. In the EEOC’s press release, Andrea G. Baran, regional attorney for the EEOC’s St Louis District Office, was quoted as follows: “While it is lawful under some circumstances for employers to conduct limited medical exams after making conditional offers to job applicants, it is not ‘anything goes’.” Wait, what? Actually, I thought it was “anything goes” at that point!
Continue Reading What Is the EEOC’s Position on Post-offer/Pre-employment Medical Exams?