Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
By Donna Gallant When the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (San Francisco) affirmed an order certifying the largest employment discrimination class action ever in the United States, Wal-Mart was left facing a class of up to 1.5 million members. Employers were left wondering just how big and powerful these opponents might get. On December 6, […]
Q: I own and operate a business in which physically demanding work is part of the employees’ daily activities. I recently hired several employees who I thought were qualified for the job. However, I quickly learned that they weren’t in good enough health to do what was required of them. This is causing a lot […]
By Alix Herber and Hadiya Roderique Across Canada, human rights legislation prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of age. This applies to all aspects of the employment relationship — job advertisements, application forms, job interviews, hiring decisions, denial of promotional opportunities, and termination decisions. Data from the Ontario Human Rights Commission for 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 […]
An old maxim says “never talk about religion or politics,” but how realistic (or even desirable) is that advice? And as the worlds of religion and politics collide, talk of one often crosses the line into speech about the other. While employers don’t want to trample on anyone’s right of free speech, they also can’t […]
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on an individual’s religion. Unless, that is, your employer is a religious organization. When three former employees sued World Vision, the question was whether the Christian charity qualified for the exemption. In a recent decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which […]
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review what has been called the largest employment class action in U.S. history — Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes. The class of plaintiffs is estimated to include approximately 1.5 million former and current female Wal-Mart employees seeking monetary relief that could amount to billions of dollars in back pay. […]
By David Wong Attendance management programs themselves aren’t discriminatory — they just need to be carefully designed and properly applied. Such is the latest conclusion in continuing litigation between Coast Mountain Bus Company Ltd. and the Canadian Auto Workers, a battle over an attendance management program covering transit operators in the Greater Vancouver region in […]
When the show started, I thought it was going to be a doozy, with Pam conducting Sabre’s Hygiene Day, but it quickly shifted to something far more, well, mundane — and far more complicated — personal relationships at work. No, not the intimate kind — rather, the kind where workers become friends, in some cases close friends, […]
Kidnapping day laborers = possible jail time for Dwight; giving Oscar another paid vacation and use of a company car= $15,000; settling claims related to Andy’s sex-ed course = more than just some free pizza; watching Michael try to convince an elderly stranger that they were once lovers = priceless. Between Michael tracking down his former girlfriends […]
For a week, the nation’s news reporters were captivated by a Florida preacher’s plans to burn the Quran on the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Although he ultimately backed down, his campaign and the heated debates and protests over planned mosques near ground zero and in other parts of the country have drawn […]