Site Map - The Workplace

09/30/2010 - A court has ruled that a woman may pursue her hostile work environment claim even though the gender-based slurs at the root of the case were not made exclusively to one gender. The appeals court overturned a lower court’s ruling that the comments made by the abuser were not pervasive enough and that they didn’t create a hostile environment because his abuse was indiscriminate.

09/30/2010 - The employee of a federal correctional institution may pursue his lawsuit against the facility after he was fired for refusing to submit to a search of his vehicle. The question of whether inmates could access employees’ parked cars and potentially plant contraband cast doubt on the constitutionality of the search, said the court in its decision, available online.

09/30/2010 - An employee who claimed that his erratic driving behavior was caused by a workplace toxin rather than alcohol cannot contest his DWI conviction. Read the decision in which the court noted that the law prohibits driving while impaired by any substance whether taken voluntarily or due to workplace exposure.

09/29/2010 - How a company handles the media during a crisis can affect the organization's public image.

09/07/2010 - Christopher Falkenberg and Christopher Voss discuss the threat of an executive or employee kidnapping and why the Southwest could see an increase in such crimes.

08/31/2010 - An employee who was not rehired after a layoff because he was “troublesome” may not sue his former employer for age discrimination. A federal appeals court ruled that the employee’s history of disputes with coworkers and his poor reputation in the workplace served as a nondiscriminatory reason for refusing to rehire him.

08/31/2010 - An employee may not sue her employer for retaliation after the company failed to investigate her original discrimination claim, a federal appeals court has ruled. Failure to investigate in such instances does not constitute an adverse employment action, according to the court.

08/31/2010 - Outsourcing by multinational companies can unwittingly lead to child labor and human rights abuses, harming the company’s reputation and bottom line.

08/18/2010 - Come November 4, Massachusetts will no longer allow employers to ask applicants to check the box that asks whether they have a criminal record when filling out a job application.

07/28/2010 - The House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit held a hearing to consider H.R. 3149 (.pdf), which would amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) to prohibit a current or prospective employer from using credit reports to make employment decisions such as hiring, firing, or promotion. Witnesses who spoke in support of the rights of employers to use such reports argued that the information is not used in a vacuum but is among the many tools companies use to make good hiring decisions. Opponents contended that credit scores are often inaccurate and have not been conclusively linked to inappropriate workplace behaviors, such as theft.

07/27/2010 - Managers can use assistance programs to help victimized employees avoid trouble and stay focused on their jobs.

07/27/2010 - A costly overview of security-manager best practices in a book that doesn't bother to give the author's biography or professional credentials.

06/30/2010 - A woman has been awarded more than $1 million in damages after she was repeatedly harassed by a coworker who made disparaging racial and sexual remarks (.pdf). The woman’s managers refused to take action until the harasser physically assaulted the woman. (Freeman v. Whirlpool Corporation, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, No. 3:06-0593, 2009)