Author: Dan Oswald

Despite what I put on my bracket, I’m rooting for the underdog

by Dan Oswald The NCAA men’s basketball tournament kicked off last week. It’s known as March Madness. Even if you’re not a college basketball fan, you may have filled out a bracket at home or for your office pool. More than 10 million people filled one out this year. Every year, my wife, our kids, […]

Refusing to collaborate in harassment investigation can be grounds for dismissal

By Olivier Lamoureux In Séguin v. Dessau Inc., a tribunal, the Commission des relations du travail (CRT), upheld the dismissal of an employee who had behaved in a vexatious manner toward a subordinate he was enamored with. The dismissed employee had refused to collaborate in the employer’s investigation into an incident of psychological harassment.

Dealing with ‘smart slackers’? Coaching can be solution

It’s March, a time when employers find themselves dealing with office pools, college rivalries, and a tendency for sports fans to shift their attention from work to the college basketball national championship tournament. The distraction of the “big dance” can cause even the best employees to slack off as they follow games during the workday […]

Blacklisting

One of my colleagues did an evil thing last month: He encouraged me to give NBC’s The Blacklist a try. Ever since, I’ve been hooked on James Spader’s character, Raymond “Red” Reddington. Without spoiling anything for the uninitiated, Red is a fixture on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, a supremely enterprising international underworld mercenary, […]

EEOC quietly moves forward with plans to collect compensation data

by Leslie Silverman In his 2015 State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama pressed Congress to “pass a law that makes sure a woman is paid the same as a man for doing the same work.” Although the president’s plea for the passage of stronger pay discrimination laws is unlikely to sway the Republican-controlled […]

Women in business—we have seen progress, but challenges remain

by Dan Oswald March is Women’s History Month. Let’s face it, the business world has been dominated by men for too long. Episodes of Mad Men come to mind, where just 50 years ago the majority of women served as assistants or secretaries. Sure, we’ve made progress, but has it been fast enough? There are […]

Duty to accommodate doesn’t require exempting employee from essential duties

by Andrew Bratt and Megan Rolland Canadian human rights legislation generally requires employers to accommodate the disabilities of their employees up to the point of undue hardship. In the recent case of Pourasadi v. Bentley Leathers Inc. (2015 HRTO 138), the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario considered whether undue hardship was reached in the context […]

Staying on solid legal ground when seeking brain diversity in the workforce

The benefits of diversity in the workplace are nearly universally touted. Human resources professionals are eager to assemble teams representing a variety of races, ethnicities, genders, and ages. But now another kind of diversity is gaining recruiters’ attention: brain diversity.  A December 2014 article on the Fortune website reports that companies are beginning to seek […]

The business case for diversity

by Kimberly Williams Recently, my employer, Baystate Health, organized a regional Diversity and Inclusion Conference. While promoting the event on social media, I shared a video clip of one of the conference presenters who was making the “business case” for diversity. One of my Facebook friends asked, “Why are we still making a business case […]

Interrupting gender bias: Fire away!

by Michael P. Maslanka I am honored to be a Bedford mentor at the University of North Texas School of Law in Dallas. Mentors divide into numerous small groups with students, and each group reads a different book on a matter of public interest. Our book is Knowing Your Value: Women, Money, and Getting What […]