All week, I’ve be posting the one question I’d ask each of the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates during the upcoming debates:
- President Obama: protections for working families
- Mitt Romney: LGBT civil rights
- Vice President Biden: union rights and the National Labor Relations Act
- Paul Ryan: Ayn Rand and fiscal conservatism
I’m not the only one who has been posting these questions this week. My fellow employment law bloggers have also been chipping in: Dan Schwartz (who came up with the idea at his Connecticut Employment Law Blog), Eric Meyer (The Employer Handbook Blog), Robin Shea (Employment and Labor Insider), and Donna Ballman (offering a perspective from the plaintiffs’ bar at Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home).
If nothing else, we’ve been consistent with our themes:
- Family Leave Rights: Eric’s question to Mitt Romney
- Paycheck fairness and pay equity: Donna’s question to Barack Obama, Eric’s question to Joe Biden, Eric’s question to Barack Obama
- LGBT Rights: Robin’s questions to Joe Biden; Dan’s question to Barack Obama; Dan’s question to Paul Ryan
- Union issues: Dan’s question to Joe Biden, Eric’s question to Paul Ryan, Donna’s question to Joe Biden, Robin’s question to Paul Ryan
Suffice it to say that these four issues comprise some of the biggest issues facing employers now and for the next four years. Let’s hope we get some clarity on these from the candidates as we get closer to November 6.
Here’s the rest of what I read this week:
Discrimination
- Changing Attitudes: Why Employers Need to End Pregnancy Discrimination — from TLNT
- Employer’s “Shockingly Thin” Response to Anonymous Harassment = $3.5 Million in Punitive Damages — from Lorene Schaefer’s WinWinHR
- EEOC Announces Plan for Class Warfare — from Molly DiBianca’s Delaware Employment Law Blog
- EEOC’s Multifaceted Effort To Aggressively Target Employer Policies Potentially Having “Disparate Impact” — from Stoel Rives World of Employment
- Rhode Island bans discrimination against homeless persons — from Walter Olson’s Overlawyered
Social Media & Workplace Technology
- 13 Things That Will Disappear From the Workplace In Five Years — from Workplace Diva
- Law and Order: Human Resources Unit — from HR idiot
- Time for the Right Discussion About Social Media in the Office — from Social Media Today
- Will Gen Y Have Professional Regret for Embedding Facebook? — from The HR Capitalist, Kris Dunn
- Read My Hips: Is the Trade Secret Litigator Waffling on a Key Provision of the Protecting American Trade Secrets and Innovation Act of 2012? — from Trade Secret Litigator Blog
- Pondering damages under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act — from Work Matters
- “Reply All” Claims Another Victim — from Phil Miles’s Lawffice Space
- Social Media Training [infographic] — from Sharlyn Lauby’s hr bartender
HR & Employee Relations
- Mindy Kaling on Chronicling the American Workplace — from Harvard Business Review
- Background Checks That Don’t Invite Employment Litigation — from i-Sight Investigation Software Blog
- Employers: Meet members of the next generation of your workforce — from John Holmquist’s Michigan Employment Law Connection
- What can I do about a coworker who never wears a bra? — from Ask a Manager
- What Do You Say To A Naked Co-Worker? — from Evil Skippy at Work
- Politickin’ in the World of HR — from HR Schoolhouse
Wage & Hour
- Beware Draconian USDOL Settlement Terms — from Wage and Hour Laws Blog
- 7 Paycheck No-No’s the Department of Labor is Focusing On — from Wisconsin Employment & Labor Law Blog
Labor Relations
- Replacement employees: how not to do it — from Andrew Scott-Howman’s WorkFace
- Telling An Employee “Don’t Discuss It” Can Be Illegal — from Troutman Sanders HR Law Matters
- NLRB Finally Delivers Knockout Blow to Broad Employer Social Media Policies — from Jason Shinn’s Michigan Employment Law Advisor