The EEOC just sued J.C. Penney claiming that it refused to hire a woman at a Brunswick, Georgia store because she was pregnant. While that is not big news (except to perhaps the woman and the management at that J.C. Penney location), the lawsuit offers some good lessons.
Why? Well, the case involves two interesting set of accusations.
Name: Andrea Towe
Title: Employee Relations Consultant
Company: Southern Company Services, Inc.
1. How many years have you been working in HR? Approximately 8 years in HR, and 6 years in Employee Relations-General Counsel.
2. Favorite thing about working in HR? I enjoy helping others with their career goals and resolving personnel issues. I also like the variety of work involved in HR.
3. Best piece of advice you ever received about a career in HR? One must have patience and superior listening skills!
REMINDER: All employers covered under the Family and Medical Leave Act (”FMLA”) were mandated by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to display the new FMLA poster by March 8, 2013.
Background: Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton signed the FMLA into law. The law, requiring all employers with 50 or more employees to provide job-protected and unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons, ranks as one of the most insidious and complicated federal statutes for employers. Instead of using the FMLA’s 20th anniversary as a catalyst to provide FMLA clarifications, the DOL instead, issued additional federal regulations that implement statutory changes ensuring the FMLA will continue to be one of the biggest compliance headaches for covered employers.
Common sense tells us that it is a good idea for certain companies – hospitals, physicians’ offices, nursing homes, day care centers, and more, to take appropriate measures to safeguard the health of both the workforce and any population it serves. By this logic, a policy requiring healthcare employees to receive flu shots seems reasonably calculated to protect employees and patrons, as well as to control the spread of communicable disease. But, is it legal?
The last post, Part 1, set forth the first five items on a wish list from an attorney’s perspective – specific ways in which a Human Resources department can minimize problems down the road. The final five items are just as important. Read on …
Human Resources professionals have a job that requires a great deal of effort – a good HR Manager will stay on top of developments in employment law; establish sound, consistent procedures for managing typical staff issues, such as leave requests, on-site injuries, and separation from employment; and cultivate good relationships between employees and management. From the other side of the phone line, however, comes a wish list from an attorney’s perspective – what the Human Resources department should consider doing to help minimize difficulty down the road and ensure as successful an HR year as possible.
Name: Lisa Montgomery
Title: Human Resources Manager
Company: Rayonier
1. How many years have you been working in HR? It is hard to believe but it will be 30 years in June of this year. I spent 16 years with Amoco/BP in various locations and 14 years with Rayonier.
2. Favorite thing about working in HR? The variety – I have been an HR generalist in the field for 29 years after having escaped the corporate world after one year as a specialist.
3. Best piece of advice you ever received about a career in HR? With HR you can work in any industry so it opens up lots of possibilities.
Our firm’s latest “Advisory” just went out this afternoon explaining the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals‘ ruling from last Friday that President Obama’s “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were unconstitutional, and therefore the Board was without the required quorum to act in a case from last year in which it found a soda-bottling company had committed an unfair labor practice.
This case involves a fascinating legal issue of the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and the separation of powers between the Legislative and Executive branches (at least for those who find such things fascinating). This decision is also good news for a particular soda-bottling company that challenged the NLRB’s decision.
The horrific Newtown, Connecticut elementary school massacre has brought the gun control debate front and center. But gun violence is not just in our schools. In August, a former employee shot and killed a co-worker near the Empire State Building before being shot by police himself, and eight bystanders were injured in the shoot-out. A 30-person Minneapolis sign company was decimated in September when an employee who was discharged shot and killed six people, including the company’s founder and a UPS delivery driver, and wounded two others before taking his own life. In November, an Apple Valley Farms employee shot four co-workers at a chicken processing plant in Fresno, California, killing two of them, before turning the gun on himself. Not long after, a ConAgra Foods employee in Indianapolis fatally shot his co-worker outside a break room, then killed himself. Two other workplace violence incidents, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas (an employee fatally shot her co-worker) and Manteno, Illinois (an employee shot and wounded his co-worker), took place in July, 2012.
Retailer Abercrombie & Fitch has been known to push the envelope at times. If you’ve seen their half-naked male models posing in store windows in only a pair of boxer briefs, then you know what I’m talking about. Nonetheless, it still may be surprising to learn that Abercrombie’s CEO only hires all-male flight attendants to work on his private jets and requires them to wear only polo shirts, jeans, boxer briefs, and flip flops as their uniform (unless it is less than 50 degrees outside, of course).