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Source: HR World EditorsIt is hard to keep up with all of the excellent employment law and HR-related materials on the web these days. Seems like each week brings a new blog or web resource. So, after too much delay, I have finally managed to update the blogroll with links to many of the other fine sources of HR-related information on the web. Give it a look. And, if I have missed your site, drop me a comment and we will get the link up.
On a related note, I want to announce an upcoming feature here at the HR Lawyer's Blog. Within the next couple of weeks we will begin providing regular spotlights of the excellent websites that link to this humble blog. My hope is to let our readers know about other fine blogs and websites that they may not be aware of. I figure it makes sense to begin with those sites that link to us because (1) we mush share a similar audience; and (2) the publishers of these sites obviously have excellent taste.
The sites will be chosen at random from the pool links that our web statistics engine provides. If you have recently linked to us, drop a comment to this post and I'll make sure your site goes in the hat for the HR Web Spotlight.
Happy Blogging!Peter Mullison over at the Colorado Employment Law Blog has a good article on employee privacy in the workplace, or more specifically, the lack thereof. Peter discusses the Court's opinion in United States v. Barrows, a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decision finding that an employee did not have a protected privacy interest in the child pornography files found by a co-worker on this personal computer that he brought to work.
The analysis in this case is slightly more involved because the employer in question was a government entity and therefore state action was at issue. In cases involving employees of private employers, the employee's positions would be even weaker.
Mullison points out two rules to live by:
1) Stay away from kiddie porn; and2) Recognize that your privacy rights in the workplace are less than you might think.
Good rules.
Source: Colorado Employment Law BlogIn a closely watched case I last wrote about here, the law firm Sidley Austin Brown & Wood has agreed to pay $27.5 million dollars to settle an age bias suit brought against it by the EEOC. The case had to do with the question of the EEOC's ability to seek money damages and reinstatement for partners who were downgraded from partner status by the firm in 1999 and others forced out because of an age-based retirement policy.
The firm had long argued that the partners were just that, partners, and therefore not covered employees under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The agency argued that the partners were really employees with no real policy-making power in the firm or power to hire or fire other employees.
Apparently, after the Supreme Court refused to intervene prior to trial and overturn the Seventh Circuit as to this question, the firm decided it was worth $27.5 million to put the case behind it. Now the question becomes how many more firms will be targeted by the EEOC as this type of "partner" structure is not at all uncommon.
Source: Chicago Tribune
Technorati Tags:Age Discrimination, EEOC
Last week a New York Knicks coach Isaiah Thomas was found liable for sexual harassment against a former colleague. The jury awarded $11,000,000.00 in damages against the team's owner and its chairman.
Madison Square Garden, which owns the Knicks, and MSG president James Dolan were ordered to pay the amount to Browne Sanders for allowing her to work in an actionable hostile environment. Ms. Sanders filed her lawsuit in January 2006, alleging that management failed to act despite her repeated complaints against Thomas' behavior. When Browne Sanders threatened to sue, the company suspended her and then fired her when her accusations were deemed groundless.
Following the verdict, Thomas insisted he was innocent, stating "I want to say it as loud as I possibly can. I'm innocent. I'm very innocent. . . . I'm extremely disappointed that the jury could not see the facts ... and I will appeal." The problem for Thomas and the Company, of course, was what Thomas had previously stated during his sworn deposition. Here is a clip:
I am assuming that Thomas is talking about different "facts" that the jury was not able to see.This is a question that I get quite often from employees: What are the limits of what I can say in the workplace? The answer is usually "Not as much as you think." Many employees are surprised to learn that, generally speaking, employees of private sector employers have no constitutional "free speech" rights in the workplace.
The Delaware News Journal has an article on the limits of free speech in the workplace that employees would do well to read if they have questions in this are.
We have previously covered instances in which employees have been fired for posting something on their blog that their employer did appreciate. With the advent of Facebook, MySpace and other social media, the problem is only becoming more acute.
Employers are wisely beginning to respond to the situation by publishing their own policies governing such communications. You can find IBM's blogging policy here. And here is Yahoo's policy as to personal blogs.
If your company does not have its own policy yet, you might give these two policies a look to get a general idea as to what an employer's expectations will likely be regarding its employee's conduct in the online world.Enter keywords:
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