Please join us for our next employment law seminar, Social Media, Drone Usage and OSHA, on Thursday, June 27. Demetrius Pyburn will discuss social media, focusing on social media policies, the use of social media at work to send sensitive company information and the policing of employees authorized to post on behalf of the company through the company’s social media pages. He will also talk about how the use of drones will impact HR…

The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced that it reached a settlement with an agricultural company located in California. The settlement concludes an investigation into whether the company discriminated against workers based on their legal status in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Immigrant and Employee Rights Section, is responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination provision of the INA. This provision prohibits discrimination against individuals…

South Carolina was ranked earlier this year by the Domestic Violence Advisory Committee as “the nation’s sixth-worst state” among the rates of women murdered by men. The Committee also found that the state’s “domestic-violence homicide rate” is more than 1.5 times the national average. Even with such troubling information, some employers have chosen to shy away from addressing domestic violence as an issue impacting the workplace. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, however, relatives…

Please join us for our next employment law seminar on May 23 where Garrett Steck will walk attendees through an ICE audit and review employer compliance. Chris Gantt-Sorenson will also provide a brief update on legislation discussed at our February seminar, including South Carolina’s Pay Equity Act, Lactation Support Act and Background Checks. The presentation will be live streamed to our offices in Charleston, Columbia, Florence and Greenville so you can attend in the city…

Copperheads were fairly common in my yard growing up. One afternoon the family dog came to the door with a live snake flailing around from her mouth. Luckily we recognized this before she came in, but I wonder what would have happened if she had pushed the door open (like usual) without us noticing her and dropped the snake, alive, inside the house? Some surveys have indicated that a substantial number of employees take information…

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently released its annual report of enforcement and litigation data for fiscal year 2018. The report provides a snapshot of employment discrimination law in the U.S. and often indicates trend lines, providing insight for employers on the breadth of employment discrimination claims. A few notable statistics: 76,418 – number of workplace discrimination charges received by the agency $505 million – dollars paid by employers as a result of…

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a trio of closely watched job discrimination cases that could for the first time resolve at a national level whether lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) employees are entitled to the protections of Title VII. The trio of cases reflect the split among federal courts on this issue. Two federal appeals courts have ruled that employers violated Title VII by firing gay and transgender employees. A third…