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United Parcel Service will pay $9.9 million to settle a lawsuit filed in a San Francisco federal court charging that it violated state and federal disability bias laws by discriminating against deaf employees and applicants. The suit charged that deaf workers weren’t given accommodations, such as interpreters for important workplace meetings, and were denied promotions. […]
Gary Ross was offered a job as a lead systems administrator for RagingWire Telecommunications in Sacramento. In connection with taking a mandatory pre-employment drug test, Ross gave the company a copy of his medical prescription for marijuana, which he used to alleviate pain from an old back injury. Ross also told RagingWire that he wouldn’t […]
Proposed revisions to Family and Medical Leave Act regulations will not be issued until March 2005, according to the latest regulatory agenda from the Department of Labor. Originally, the Bush administration announced it planned to unveil the revisions in January 2003. The changes to the 1993 leave law have lagged as the DOL repeatedly extended […]
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that two Maryland food processing plants will pay a total of $1 million to settle a sexual harassment suit on behalf of 22 female workers, all Central American immigrants. Male managers and co-workers allegedly groped the women and demanded sexual favors, and one woman was locked in a […]
A plan to streamline and strengthen enforcement of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA), has been signed by U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Attorney General John Ashcroft. The document delegates the Department of Labor’s USERRA responsibilities to the Veterans’ Employment Solicitor, and the Attorney General’s USERRA responsibilities to the […]
Are you doing all you can to prevent workplace discrimination, harassment, and retaliation? To help you determine where you could be doing a better job—and prevent costly claims—download California Employer Advisor’s Discrimination Prevention Checklist, which you can use to do a 32-point mental audit of your organization’s bias prevention program.
With Gov. Schwarzenegger poised to deliver enough voter signatures to place workers’ compensation reform on the November ballot, the Legislature reached a compromise with the governor and passed its own workers’ comp reform legislation—which the governor has now signed into law. The measure (SB 899) is expected to save employers several billion dollars a year […]
Measures to raise the federal minimum wage to $6.25 per hour, up from the current $5.15 per hour, failed in the Senate last week. One measure, introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) as an amendment to a spending bill, was rejected in a 51-47 vote, and a similar GOP-introduced bill went down in a 57-42 […]
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