Jamie Ortiz (of Puerto Rican descent) worked for the Broward County, Florida, School Board in various capacities for nearly 20 years, including, from 2009 through 2017, as an auto mechanic in the district’s garage under the supervision of Michael Kriegel. According to the testimony of both Ortiz and many of his co-workers, Kriegel had some issues with Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics, which he expressed to anyone who would listen, including Ortiz, on a daily…

A local Subway recently earned itself some bad publicity when an employee denied access to a customer with a service dog.[embedded content] While this story involved a customer, and not an employee, it did get me thinking about employee service dogs at work. I created this handy FAQ on service dogs at work for your reference. Q1:     What does the ADA say about service animals? A1:     Believe it or not, Title I of…

It’s been nearly a month since I posted the last nominee for 2019’s Worst Employer. It’s not for lack of ideas; it’s just that the prior nominees have been so awful that the bar for qualification has been set pretty high. Thankfully, France Télécom has come to the rescue. What did the former top executives at France’s national phone company do to earn their nomination? I’ll let the New York Times story take it from…

This guy turns 11 on Sunday. Happy birthday Donovan! Please keep making us smile. Here’s what I read the past two weeks. Discrimination HR & Employee Relations Technology Wage & Hour OSHA & Safety…

Rob Mendez coaches the JV football team at Prospect High School in Saratoga, California. He’s also lived his entire life with no arms and no legs. He was born with tetra-amelia syndrome, an extremely rare genetic disorder that prevented their embryonic formation. You can read Rob’s entire (and entirely) compelling story at this ESPN feature story, or watch it in this Jon Hamm-narrated featurette.[embedded content] His story also serves as a wonderful lesson for…

During a pre-employment medical examination and drug screen, an applicant tests positive for Alprazolam, the generic form of Xanax (a medication commonly prescribed for anxiety), a fact she had already disclosed during the examination. The doctor performing the medical exam and reviewing the drug screen concludes that the applicant is medically acceptable for work as an intake specialist at an inpatient mental health facility. The employer, however, has other ideas. It withdraws the job offer without…

It’s been just over 18 months since the NLRB decided Boeing Co., perhaps its most significant decision in decades. It rewrote more than a decade of precedent by overturning its Lutheran Heritage standard regarding when facially neutral employment policies violate the rights of employees to engage in concerted activity protected by section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. In Boeing, the Board scrapped Lutheran Heritage’s “reasonably construe” test (a work rule violates section 7…