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Honor your mothers and fathers: Avoid family responsibility discrimination

Mother’s Day has just passed, and Father’s Day is coming up, so what better time to talk about family responsibility discrimination (FRD)? According to a University of California Hastings College of the Law study, the number of FRD cases being filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) jumped almost 500 percent between 1971 and […]

Keeping Talent: How to hold on to your youngest workers

We’ve already written about how to attract Gen Y workers — or Millennials, as they prefer to be called — but keeping them is an entirely different story. “Millennials may be defined by the fact that they will never stop marketing themselves. Their resumes will be constantly updated online at social networking sites,” says Libby […]

Question and Answer: Diversity ideal, but not always good for business

As president of San Diego training firm Cross-Cultural Communications, Sondra Thiederman has spent the last 25 years helping companies create diversity programs that actually work. Author of the book, Making Diversity Work: Seven Steps for Defeating Bias in the Workplace, Thiederman’s clients include General Motors, Xerox, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Marriott Corp., American Express, and AT&T. We […]

Job-bias charges rose nine percent in 2007

Each year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) publishes information about the number and type of discrimination charges employees have filed along with the amount of money it has recovered on their behalf. In fiscal year (FY) 2007, 82,792 private-sector discrimination charges were filed with the agency, and it recovered $345 million in monetary relief […]

Razzoo’s to pay $1 million for sex bias against men in settlement with EEOC

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Razzoo’s, a Dallas/Fort Worth-based restaurant chain, will pay $1 million and furnish significant remedial relief to settle a sex discrimination lawsuit. Razzoo’s operates 11 Cajun food restaurants throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolis and also has locations in Houston and Concord, North Carolina. The EEOC said that Razzoo’s […]

Mother’s Day: May 11, 2008: Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau

The driving force behind Mother’s Day was Anna Jarvis, who organized observances in Grafton, West Virginia, and Philadelphia on May 10, 1908. As the annual celebration became popular around the country, she asked members of Congress to set aside a day to honor mothers. She finally succeeded in 1914, when Congress designated the second Sunday […]

OSHA Applies to All Businesses

At a top-level management meeting of Unsafe Corporation, located in midtown Manhattan, the newest addition to the legal department, Eager Beaver, inquired into the company’s efforts to ensure Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) compliance. Laughter was heard around the table, punctuated by the CEO chiding, “The OSH Act doesn’t apply to us. Where […]

Where Is the Line on Retaliation after Supreme Court Rulings?

In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion expanding the range of employer conduct that employees could use to support a retaliation claim. But as with anything new, questions immediately arose. Is a dirty look now considered retaliatory? An off-putting e-mail? What about a humiliating public censure? This uncertainty left employers understandably concerned. But […]

Not All Monsters Are Bad

Litigation Value:  $300,000 per claim (until respected HR manager is in place). Though there is so much to write about — office romance, sexual harassment, what Kevin might be regarded as, pranks involving animals, and fraud — tonight, in honor of Toby’s departure, I want to focus on monsters.  It is no secret that Michael […]