Clarity beats chaos: Why rescinding the EEOC’s harassment guidance is a mistake

Today at 10 a.m., the EEOC is scheduled to vote on whether to rescind its 2024 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace. 

If the Commission votes "yes," it will be a terrible result for employers — not because the Guidance was perfect, but because clarity beats chaos every time.

Dry January isn't a moral virtue or wellness trend. It's an economic gut punch.

Every January, like clockwork, Dry January comes roaring back.

If you want to take a month off drinking, good for you. Truly. Your body, your goals, your choice. No judgment, and it shouldn't be anyone else's business either.

But we also need to stop pretending Dry January is harmless.

For a whole lot of craft breweries, Dry January isn't a "challenge." It's a revenue problem. A jobs problem. A "can we make payroll in February" problem.

The 1st nominee for The Worst Employer of 2026 is … The Harassing, Retaliating, Evidence-Erasing Employer.

If you're looking for the blueprint for how to turn a workplace into a legal catastrophe and land on my Worst Employer list, look no further than Bryant v. C&M Defense Group. A jury just awarded Makita Bryant $5.5 million after what reads less like an HR failure and more like a master class in how to do everything wrong.

WIRTW #786: the 'propaganda' edition

What the hell is going on at the Department of Labor?

On January 10, the DOL posted this on X: "One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American."

Read that again. Slowly. If that doesn't make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, it should.

Myriad people immediately flagged the post as sounding eerily similar to one of the Nazi Party's central slogans — "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" (one people, one realm, one leader). And they're not wrong to hear the echo. Even if you want to give the DOL every possible benefit of the doubt (you shouldn't), the vibe is unmistakable: nationalist propaganda, identity worship, and "blood and soil" messaging dressed up as patriotism.

And it wasn't even that subtle. The post was paired with a black-and-white montage of Revolutionary-era imagery and propaganda-style art — the kind of aesthetic authoritarian movements love because it sells nostalgia, certainty, obedience, and "purity" in one neat package.

Keep in mind, this is the Department of Labor. Its job is supposed to be enforcing wage-and-hour laws, protecting workplace safety, ensuring fair labor standards, and helping people get employed and trained. Not cranking out memes that wink at fascist tropes and flirt with Nazi-era rhetoric, slogans, and iconography.

This isn't happening in a vacuum. Union leaders and historians are sounding alarms about a "rhetorical shift towards white supremacy" within the federal government, with campaigns featuring idealized, mostly White male workers, "Americanism" over "globalism," and messaging designed to convince the "real Americans" that only people like them belong. Indeed, ICE is recruiting potential agents with the tagline, "We'll have our home again," a lyric tied to white nationalist groups.

When federal agencies start talking like this, it's not "patriotism." It's not an accident. It's propaganda — and it's the point.

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Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.

When “irreparable harm” isn’t: 8th Circuit slams brakes on a noncompete injunction

Employers love preliminary injunctions in restrictive covenant cases. And courts are supposed to grant them only in extraordinary circumstances.

The 8th Circuit just reminded everyone what "extraordinary" actually means.

Filing an EEOC charge doesn’t automatically buy an employee job immunity

Some believe that once an employee complains to the EEOC, discipline must stop. Supervisors must tread lightly. Performance problems must be ignored.

The 4th Circuit just reminded everyone that's not how Title VII works.

In Andrews v. DeJoy, the court affirmed summary judgment for the Postal Service on a retaliation claim brought by a clerk who had a long history of documented performance problems — both before and after she filed an EEOC complaint.

After loudly clashing with her supervisor and being escorted from the building by police, the employee, a clerk, filed an EEOC charge. After her post-suspension return to work, management continued documenting attendance issues, insubordination, and performance deficiencies, eventually issuing a notice of removal (later reduced to a suspension through arbitration).

She sued, claiming retaliation. She lost.

WIRTW #785: the 'sometimes a coffee cup is just a coffee cup' edition

Arsenal–Tottenham is one of the nastiest rivalries in sports. If you don't follow English football, think Eagles–Cowboys, Yankees–Red Sox, or Ohio State–Michigan, and then crank it up a notch or ten. London neighbors. More than a century of history and hatred.

Which is why it was a really, really big deal earlier this week when Thomas Frank, Tottenham's manager, was photographed holding a coffee cup with an Arsenal logo on it.

Social media lost its mind.

By all accounts, it was an accident. Spurs were away at Bournemouth. Arsenal had just played there over the weekend. Frank grabbed a cup from the away dressing room without noticing it belonged to his club's biggest rival. Asked about it, he responded the only way he could: "Of course I wouldn't do that. That would be really stupid." He added that with Spurs not playing well, it would be "absolutely stupid" for him to focus on something so trivial instead of the football.

Fair enough. Especially when the Arsenal sit 22 points clear at the top of the table and Spurs are mired in 14th.

Your workplace could have its own version of this moment. The trade show photo. The LinkedIn post. The Instagram story that lives forever in screenshots. There's your employee—company badge on—wearing the wrong quarter-zip. Holding a competitor's tote bag. Standing a little too close to a rival's booth. Marketing panics. Leadership fumes. Someone asks whether "this is a problem."

Start with the obvious question: Was it intentional? Most of the time, no. Swag is everywhere. People grab what's clean, warm, or nearby. That's not disloyalty. It's human.

Next question: Was there any real harm? Did a customer complain? Did a deal fall apart? Or did only internal pride take a hit? If the damage is theoretical or ego-based, you're already flirting with overreaction.

Then ask the most important question: What culture are you reinforcing? If you treat honest mistakes like acts of betrayal, employees learn to hide things—or to stop using judgment altogether. A quiet reminder about branding expectations is reasonable. Discipline usually isn't. Sure, if an employee is deliberately promoting a competitor or repeatedly ignoring guidance, that’s a different conversation. But earn that conclusion with facts, not outrage.

Not every rival logo is treason. Sometimes it's just the wrong cup in the wrong locker room. Sometimes a coffee cup is just a coffee cup.

And for the record…

Up the Arsenal! Come on you Gunners!

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Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.