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.

Despite expected legislative gridlock and election-year politics, 2012 turned out to be an exciting year for changes in the labor and employment law landscape.  The headlines just kept coming. Some of the top stories were:

I recently attended a luncheon in which one of the Commissioners for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the “EEOC”) spoke.   According to this Commissioner, the EEOC has identified the following items as among its priorities:

  • Bringing credit checks under the realm of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”),  which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, and  national origin, because of the credit checks’ disparate impact on minorities.    [For more information about the EEOC’s concerns about this practice, click here.]

HR professionals know that employment litigation can be expensive.  Very expensive.  One reason litigation has become so expensive, especially recently, is because companies use and store massive amounts of electronic data, including emails and computer files such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents.  When a company is sued for an employment law violation, the plaintiff (in most cases, a former employee) is entitled to “see” all of those electronic files that may be relevant to the claims brought or the defenses relied on by the employer.  This process is commonly referred to as “e-discovery.”

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).

We previously posted about the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”)’s new fact sheet, entitled “Application of Title VII and the ADA to Applicants or Employees Who Experience Domestic or Dating Violence, Sexual Assault, or Stalking,” and considered the fact sheet’s examples as to how an employer might violate Title VII’s prohibitions in discriminating against applicants or employees who experience domestic or dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking.

In this post we’re going to consider the ADA examples provided on the fact sheet, and our recommendations for how you can avoid discriminating against the victims of domestic violence in your workplace.

As HR professionals, we often think about how to prevent domestic violence from spilling over into workplace violence, through the use of workplace violence policies, domestic violence response teams, and “no guns in the workplace” policies.

You may not, however, have given much thought as to how to prevent discrimination and retaliation against victims of domestic violence who are employed by your company, or who have sought employment with your company.  This issue is crucially important to victims of domestic violence; when they lose their jobs, or fail to obtain employment, they lose the ability to be economically independent, and oftentimes then remain controlled by their abuser.  This issue is also critically important to employers, who may inadvertently subject themselves to liability if they are not aware of the federal, state, and local laws that protect the victims of domestic violence from discrimination and retaliation.