We’re supposed to assume complete good faith on the government’s part and complete bad faith on the part of employers?
Chief Justice John Roberts asked this question of Assistant Solicitor General Nicole Saharsky during oral argument earlier this week in Mach Mining v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a case that will test the limits of how far the EEOC has to go to try to conciliate a charge of discrimination prior to filing an enforcement action in court.
The oral argument did not go so well for the EEOC. Irin Carmon at MSNBC, Jess Bravin at the Wall Street Journal, and Julie Goldscheid at SCOTUSblog have the details.
Here’s the rest of what I read this week:
Discrimination
- Are punitive damages recoverable in a Title VII discrimination case? — via Employment Law Bits
- Fitness for Duty Release Did Not Undermine Legitimate Reasons for Termination — via Laconic Law Blog
- Year-Starting Stumbles: The EEOC’s Aggressive Tactics Shot Down Twice In The First Week Of 2015 — via EEOC Year-End Countdown
- Employer Fails to Provide Leave of Absence to Probationary Employee, Pays the Price — via Jeff Nowak’s FMLA Insights
- 7th Circuit Finds Employer That Included Employee's EEOC Complaint in SEC Filings Enough to Show Retaliation — via Wisconsin Employment & Labor Law Blog
- Recent 404(b) “Other Acts” Cases In Title VII Employment Context — via David Neel’s Cleveland Employment Law Blog
Social Media & Workplace Technology
- Should You Be Performing Facebook Background Checks? — via ERC Insights Blog
- Facebook at Work tackles office communication with familiar tools — via Engadget Mobile
- Lawsuits, Discovery, and the Right to Privacy In the Context of Social Media — via Molly DiBianca’s Delaware Employment Law Blog
- BYOD and Employee Habits—Employer Concerns — via HR Daily Advisor
HR & Employee Relations
- Is Your Organization Ready for Another Northeast Ohio Winter? — via ERC Blog
- Workers may be temporary, but OSHA is forever: clarifying employer duties — via HR Hero Line
- My Employee Jokes About Strangling Difficult Customers — via Evil Skippy at Work
- HR 101: To Background Check or NOT to Background Check — via TLNT
- 8 New Year's Resolutions for HR — via Next Blog
- Is Policy The Enemy of Trust? — via Next Blog
Wage & Hour
- Since You Asked: A Modest Wage & Hour Law Proposal — via Dan Schwartz’s Connecticut Employment Law Blog
- President Obama to push for paid sick leave for American workers — via Eric Meyer’s Employer Handbook Blog
- Converting employees into contractors? Prepare for expensive, protracted litigation — via Business Management Daily
- Make sure smartphones mean smart business: Beware of wage-hour hazards — via Technology for HR
- Workers Are Bad at Filling Out Timesheets, and It Costs Billions a Day — via Harvard Business Review
- Can My Boss Dock My Pay For Mistakes? — via Donna Ballman at AOL Jobs
Labor Relations
- Can Companies Fire Workers Who Blab About How Much Money the Boss Makes? — via Matt Austin Labor Law
- U.S. Chamber Files Suit to Block NLRB’s New Election Rule Which Would Speed Up Elections — via Wyatt Employment Law Report
- New Year, New Rules, New Union-Avoidance Strategies — via Employment Law Watch
- Want to Be Happy? Join a Union — via The New York Times