Category: Discipline and Discharge

Book pages fanned out

The NLRB Reverses Course (again) on Employee Outbursts and Protected Concerted Activity

What happens when an employee starts yelling at the boss, makes profane social media posts about work, or engages in other “abusive conduct?”  In many cases, employers can follow their own policy and impose discipline if appropriate.  But, where profanity and heated outbursts come up in the context of complaints about the terms and conditions of the employee’s job, the...

In a Common Sense Decision, Appellate Court Clarifies Deadline for Employers to Issue Wage Statements under Labor Code Section 226

In a Common Sense Decision, Appellate Court Clarifies Deadline for Employers to Issue Wage Statements under Labor Code Section 226

It’s a situation any Human Resources professional might find themselves in – circumstances require you to effectuate a termination in short order and you have to scramble to calculate the employees’ correct final pay and prepare a paycheck. But what if the wage statement is not ready? Does the law require employers to provide a wage statement to a terminated...

Quirky Question #287:  “Cat’s Paw” Claims – How could an employer violate antidiscrimination laws, even though the decision-making manager has no discriminatory bias at all?

Quirky Question #287: “Cat’s Paw” Claims – How could an employer violate antidiscrimination laws, even though the decision-making manager has no discriminatory bias at all?

Question: We just went through a five-person layoff, and one of the individuals laid off (an African American) has hired a lawyer and is threatening to sue for racial discrimination. I have enormous confidence in the fairness of the individual manager making the layoff selections, and those selections were based on years of performance ratings.  However, the lawyer hired by our...

Quirky Question #284: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, can you still unlawfully retaliate against it?

Quirky Question #284: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, can you still unlawfully retaliate against it?

Question: One of our male supervisors wants to fire a female employee who complained that he was sexually harassing her. The harassment allegations appear to have some substance: he asked her for pictures of herself in a bikini; told her to “stay off [her] knees,” which she viewed as sexual innuendo; and told her that her regulation length shorts were...

Quirky Question #271: We’ve Got a Worried Waiter

Question: We recently interviewed a candidate for a server position at our restaurant. During the interview, he informed us that he has an anxiety disorder, which causes him to have panic attacks out of the blue. Do we have to hire him? What if he had a panic attack in the middle of serving a customer?

Quirky Question #242 – Policing Break and Time Records Pays Off

Quirky Question #242 – Policing Break and Time Records Pays Off

Question: We are a California employer.   After all the publicity surrounding class actions over meal and break periods, we instituted automatic warnings if employees take too long or too short a meal or rest break. Is anyone really enforcing this kind of discipline or are we wasting our time?

Quirky Question # 238, No Laughing Matter – Company Found Liable for Wrongfully Terminating Independent Contractor’s Agreement

Quirky Question # 238, No Laughing Matter – Company Found Liable for Wrongfully Terminating Independent Contractor’s Agreement

Question: My company relies on independent contractors, over whom we don’t exert control. They often joke around with each other. I’m not liable for employment discrimination if I terminate one of them after they complain about another, right?

Quirky Question #229, The Not-Clear-Cut Case for Canning a Cussing Worker

Quirky Question #229, The Not-Clear-Cut Case for Canning a Cussing Worker

Question: I’m the owner of a small record store. I have 13 sales clerks and 4 back room employees. Things aren’t great these days – but we get by. Fortunately, while people listen to music on their phones and the internet way more than they do CDs, we’ve refocused ourselves toward vintage record collectors and hardware sales. I just fired...

Quirky Question # 227, New Bells and Whistles in Minnesota Statute

Quirky Question # 227, New Bells and Whistles in Minnesota Statute

Question: We have an employee who we have been planning to terminate because of performance issues.  This employee may have realized this was coming because he recently sent an email to a number of people claiming that our company policies violate the law.  We have been aware of these possible problems before his emails were sent and already have been...

Quirky Question #211, Marijuana Use

Quirky Question #211, Marijuana Use

Question : One day during the lunch break, as I was heading to my car in the parking lot, I discovered two employees smoking what smelled like pot.  I approached the employees and reprimanded them for engaging in illegal activities on the job, and told them that I would have them terminated.  One of the employees, whose mother works at...