Late yesterday, Congress approved the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, better known as its $900 billion COVID-19 rescue stimulus. President Trump is expected to sign it into law. It brings me tremendous joy to announce the Worst Employer(s) of 2020.
British newspaper The Sun published leaked audio capturing Tom Cruise angrily addressing two crew members who he believed had breached Covid-19 protocols while filming "Mission Impossible 7."In his semi-eponymous movie, Buddy the Elf famously explained, "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear."
Today, I'm choosing to use my valuable internet space to spread some Christmas cheer of my own. Please don't worry, it's not me singing, which would spread whatever the opposite of cheer is. Instead, it's my resident songstress, Norah Marie, who used her iPhone to self-record and mix this lovely (IMHO) cover of "Jingle Bell Rock."
One issue the EEOC omitted from its technical guidance on the COVID-19 vaccine is the issue of race discrimination. 
Yesterday, the EEOC published its guidance on the COVID-19 vaccine under the ADA and GINA, in the form of nine Q & As. You can read them in their totality here. The TL;DR: yes, you can force employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment (although the should is an entirely different issue), subject to limits on reasonable accommodations for employees' disabilities and sincerely held religious practices or beliefs and subject to limits on pre-vaccination medical questions.
George Carlin was a genius. He just had a way of breaking down language into its most simple parts. Whether it was The 7 Dirty Words or The 10 Commandments, Carlin was just brilliant with language. For example, he dismantled each of the 10 Commandments into just two:
First:
- Thou shalt always be honest and faithful, especially to the provider of thy nookie.
And second:
- Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless, of course, they pray to a different invisible man than the one you pray to.
According to Cleveland.com, a pair of Ohio parents are facing possible criminal charges after piling 60 maskless teenagers into a party bus to celebrate their son's 14th birthday.Police learned a parent had arranged for the party bus, which originated in Cincinnati…. The parent had posted an open invitation on social media, police say.
Marc Alifanz and Kate Bischoff are two of my favorite people. They also happen to host one of my favorite podcasts, Hostile Work Environment. I promise that I'm not just dishing out these high praises because Marc and Kate invited me to guest on this week's episode to discuss the 10 nominees for this year's Worst Employer poll. 
2017: The Cancerous Boss (employer fires employee after his cancer diagnosis because she doesn't "need people with cancer working in her office," and "in America you have to work even if you're sick")2018: The Murdering Manager (company owner hires two men to rough-up a handyman who was not doing his job, and they accidentally kill him)2019: The Barbaric Boss (employer forces intellectually disabled African-American employee to work excessive hours for no pay, and abuses him for mistakes, including belt beatings and hot grease burns)
2020: ???
Who will join this dubious list? Please help me fill in those question marks.
Time is running out for you to cast your ballot for this year's Worst Employers.
Click here to vote in each of the two categories—Overall Worst Employer, and COVID-19 Worst Employer. I'll be announcing the winners (or losers, depending on your perspective) next week.
* Photo by Marcel Strauß on Unsplash
"I wish I could see your pretty lips if they match ur eyes.""Come on, sweetie. Lemme see that pretty face under there. Take it off for me, will you? Just a quick flash."
"I can be covid and make you short of breath."
"I don't wear a condom; I sure as hell aren't going to wear a mask!"
"Social distancing? My pocket rocket can still reach you."
"I'll take your mask off and stick my tongue down your throat."
These are just a few of the hundreds of awful and offensive comments to which service industry workers reported being subjected while working during COVID (report here).
Consider these statistics regarding tipped employees:
We are days away from the FDA approving two different COVID-19 vaccines, and it is being reported that the first people could start receiving the vaccine as early as Friday.While I covered the topic of employer-mandated vaccines earlier this year, I understand that everyone doesn't necessarily see or read every post I write. Thus, because of just how important this issue will quickly become for employers, today I'm directing you to my thoughts from three months ago: Coronavirus Update 9-1-2020: Vaccines — can an employer require them; should an employer require them?
I didn't write today's post. My healthcare worker sister-in-law did. Hopefully she doesn't mind that I'm sharing what she posted on Facebook earlier this week. 
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, the federal law that provides paid sick and family leave to employees for COVID-19-related absences, ends in 29 days. By its terms, the law sunsets on December 31. 
It's officially election season for the Worst Employer of 2020. Since it is 2020, however, this can't be a normal Worst Employer election. This year we have two categories: Worst Employer, and Worst Employer COVID-19 Edition.
2020 has certainly been a year like no other. People are sick and dying. Hospitals are filling up. Our essential workers are stressed and tired.
Do you remember that scene from The Deer Hunter where Christopher Walken plays Russian roulette in a betting parlor, while the patrons place bets on whether he'll live or die with every pull of the revolver's trigger? That's what I thought of as I read the allegations in Fernandez v. Tyson Foods, and not in a good way.According to the lawsuit, while COVID-19 was running rampant through Tyson's Waterloo, Iowa, facility, the Plant Manager "organized a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for COVID-19."
Yesterday afternoon, Cuyahoga County, Ohio's largest, issued a four-week stay-at-home advisory. It took effect immediately, and is in addition to the 21-day 10 pm – 5 am statewide curfew Governor DeWine implemented yesterday and which takes effect tonight. 
For last night's dinner, I decided to use the leftover meatballs from the prior night's spaghetti dinner to make meatball subs. The only problem? No hoagie rolls, which led to the following conversation with my wife:Me: I need to stop and get buns for dinner.Her: Ooh, will you toast them?Me: I'll toast your buns alright.Her: That's sexual harassment!Me: Take it up with HR.
MaryJo Delaney is suing her former employer after it demoted her from her management position following her return from a Covid-related layoff, for which she had volunteered so that she could stay at home with her 9-year-old son whose school was closed.
Today's nominee for the Worst Employer of 2020 is beyond description. NBC Bay Area provides the details:A Gilroy couple has been charged with human trafficking after forcing a man to work 15-hour shifts seven days a week for no pay at their liquor store and then locking him inside the store overnight, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office said Monday.
If the current trend continues and cases keep increasing, we will be forced to close restaurants, bars, and fitness centers. We will look at this one week from tomorrow.
— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) November 11, 2020
During yesterday evening's statewide address, and amid dangerously rising COVID-19 infections and hospitalization, Governor Mike DeWine, announced the reissuing and restating of Ohio's mask mandate. The order now contains four specific rules for businesses to follow regarding mandatory masking.
You are literally making Covid worse if you are refusing to permit employees to work from home.November third 2020
Sitting anxiously on my bedroom floor
I've got other things to worry about
Like how I did on my test today
But rather than worrying about my grades
I'm afraid my rights are gonna get taken away
Can you "point" an employee under a no-fault attendance policy for a coronavirus-related absence? For example, an employee sick with COVID-19 or awaiting test results, quarantined because of an exposure, or at home because a child needs care?For the uninitiated, no-fault attendance policies operate by having workers accumulate "points" for missing work, arriving late, or other attendance-related issues; after the accumulation of a pre-determined number of "points," employees face discipline or even termination.
The NFL has fined the Las Vegas Raiders $500,000 and stripped them of a 2021 draft pick for "brazen and repeated violations" of the league's COVID-19 protocols. The violations include repeated incidents of players and coaches not wearing masks and permitting players to attend a charity event maskless while mingling with the crowd. The fines and penalty came after repeated warnings (and prior fines) by the NFL.If your business's COVID-19 rules are to have any meaning, you need to be prepared to stand behind them with discipline and even termination if necessary. These are important safety rules that are absolutely necessary to beat back this virus, especially as cases are spiking and we are hitting record numbers on a daily basis.
Are you tired of the endless din of vote counts and election news? Let's get back to the uplifting topic of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.OSHA recently announced a spate of COVID-related citations totaling $2,025,431 in fines.
As I type at 6:30 am on the morning after, we still don't know who won the presidency. There are 9 states and 87 electoral votes undecided, and few of those states (Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania) will ultimately determine the winner.
Yet, in the wee hours of the morning, Donald Trump took to a White House podium and stated his clear and unambiguous intent to go to the Supreme Court to stop the counting of outstanding votes, which he says is "a fraud on the American public."
As we round the corner to month eight of "living with COVID-19," I thought now is a good time to ask everyone, "How are you doing?"Me? I'm tired.
Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series. In the 8th inning of their clinching game 6, the Dodgers pulled third baseman Justin Turner from the game. No one knew why at the time. It was only after the game that it was announced that the team pulled Turner because he had tested positive for COVID-19. Why then was Turned allowed to join his team on the field (maskless no less) to celebrate their victory?!
SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, describes itself as "the foremost expert, convener, and thought leader on issues impacting today's evolving workplaces." Physician, heal thyself!
Election Day is in seven days. By all predictions, this election will see a record number of voters. As long as Election Day remains a working day, employees will show up to work late, leave work early, or take long lunches, just so that they can vote.The results are. Thank you to the 244 of you took the time to answer my question: Would you boycott a business based on the candidate whom it (or, more accurately, its ownership) supports for President in this election?
The results:
Earlier this week, I posed what I thought was a simple question on the private Facebook page of my community's homeowners' association: given the current rise of COVID-19 cases, should we, as a community, rethink our trick-or-treating plans. It was intended to start a generative discussion about whether we can host public trick-or-treating safely, but it quickly devolved into insults and name-calling.The general theme of my pro-Halloween opponents was some combination of—if you don’t feel safe stay home in your basement; and we need to live our lives. People felt comfortable expressing this opinion even after others had commented about family members COVID-19 had killed.
Yesterday, the CDC made a key update to its COVID-19 guidance. It made a significant change to the definition of "close contact."
Someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period (individual exposures added together over a 24-hour period) starting from 2 days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, 2 days prior to test specimen collection) until the time the patient is isolated."
Over the weekend I got into an interesting discussion on Twitter with a couple of my favorite musicians, Brendon Benson and Caitlin Rose. Here's the question:
would you boycott an artist or actor based on the candidate for whom their voting, in this POTUS election?
— Brendan Benson (@brendanbensongs) October 18, 2020
I'd like to expand this topic further and ask, Would you boycott a business based on the candidate whom it (or more accurately, its owner) supports for president in this election?
I continue to shake my head at the callousness of employers during this pandemic. Consider this example from The Oregonian, which earns its spot as the 10th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2020. A finance manager at a used car dealership in Portland was fired by his boss during a staff meeting for questioning the company’s alleged cover-up of a coronavirus cluster, a lawsuit claims.
When you get the call, you better be prepared. This maxim holds true in business, in the law, and in life in general.Our favorite local wine bar has been hosting outdoor, socially distant concerts since shortly after the State of Ohio allowed it to reopen. Last Friday, their booked artist canceled last minute, which led to a 4:00 pm phone call for Norah to fill in.
I had to quickly work through the stress of a 14-year-old who did not know if she could pull off a three-hour solo gig on 90 minutes' notice. I reminded her that she's spent the last six months writing originals and playing covers in her bedroom, in the backyard, and on Zoom for the Rockin' the Suburbs "Friday Night Hootenanny." Thus, she made her setlist, we packed her gear into the car, and off we went.
An employee suffers an injury that prevents her from operating a motor vehicle. With no means of transportation to travel to and from her workplace, the employee calls off work, believing that her absences were excused. They weren't, and the employer fires her for excessive absences.
When an employee tests positive, an employer has certain reporting obligations. These obligations fall into two categories—reporting to OSHA and reporting to your state or local health agency under state law.OSHA
While OSHA has remained largely silent on mandates for businesses related to COVID-19, it has published specific guidance on when an employer must record and report COVID cases at work.
According to Deadspin, NFL players are terrified of COVID, but are afraid to speak up for fear of angering the NFL."I looked at my son. I looked at my family, and I just didn't think it was worth it," Jaguars player Lerentee McCray, a seven-year veteran, told me this summer after opting out. "I could catch it and bring it home to them. Or I can get it and even if it doesn't kill me, it could destroy my career long-term. I feel really weird not playing football right now, but can't. I can't risk doing something so dangerous and maybe hurting the people I love."
In the end, most players decided the money was worth the risk. So, they play.
Yet there's been a definite shift in that attitude over the past few months and even weeks, several told me in various interviews, as the virus spreads through locker rooms. Most requested anonymity for fear of angering NFL owners and the league office.
If you and I are connected on LinkedIn (and if we're not, please correct that mistake immediately), you may have noticed that my headline describes me as a the "Master of Workplace Schadenfreude."
I'm often asked, "Jon, what the heck does that mean?" Today, I have the answer.
Please watch this short video and then let's talk.
Entitled anti-masker says "I am discriminated against every single day in my county now... sometimes multiple times a day." GOOD pic.twitter.com/WmCWlAaDqD
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) October 6, 2020
This woman claims discrimination because she refuses to wear a mask in public.
Monday night saw President Donald Trump dramatically return to the White House after his three-day stay at Walter Reed Medical Center for COVID-19. We saw Marine One land on the White House lawn, President Trump emerge and walk up the stairs to the White House, remove his mask for a photo op, enter his home with his mask still in his pocket, reemerge for a reshoot, and again enter the White House maskless.
Prada v. Trifecta Productions, filed a few weeks ago in federal court in Ann Arbor, Michigan, asks whether an employer can legally fire an employee with COVID-19 based on the perception that the employee's out-of-work activities placed the business at risk.The facts are fairly simple. Nicolas Prada, worked as a waiter and assistant manager at Tomukun Noodle Bar. On June 24, 2020, he began experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and stayed home from work. He tested positive three days later. After 14 days of isolation, Prada texted his employer about being medically cleared to return to work.
Ninety percent of the [White House] complex most certainly learned about it in the news, as has been the case ever since. There are reports that COVID is spreading like wildfire through the White House. There are hundreds and hundreds of people who work on-complex, some who have families with high-risk family members. Since this whole thing started, not one email has gone out to tell employees what to do or what's going on.
With the shocking news that Donald and Melenia Trump have tested positive for COVID-19 (along with Hope Hicks, one of Trump's top advisors and key inner-circle members), I thought it is a good time to review the CDC's rules for quarantine (how long you must stay away from others when you've been exposed to someone with Covid) and isolation (how you must stay away from others when you have Covid).
Did you watch the Presidential Debate Tuesday night? Do you think it showcased the best of America? If you do, I think you were tuned to the wrong channel. In fact, I'd argue that it was the low point of American presidential campaign history, if not all of Amerian presidential history.
Wage and hour compliance is complicated enough for employers. Layer a pandemic on top of wage and hour compliance, and you have an absolute nightmare for companies.Consider, for example, hazard pay.
The human resources manager for a New Hampshire company is suing her former employer after she sent an email about COVID-19 to employees and required two employees to stay home for one week after going on vacations to China and Malaysia. 
Tomorrow night, a mere 16 miles from my home, President Trump and Vice President Biden will step in front of the cameras to make their respective cases to America in the first of three debates. Eight years ago, some of my blogging friends and I got together to propose the debate questions we'd ask each of the candidates if we had the power to do so. Given the current state of our Republic and what's at stake when we vote, we thought it would be a good idea to revisit this collective idea and do it again. 
This year has been challenging for everyone. COVID-19 has forced everyone to be innovative with everything. Case in point, high school theater. Tonight and tomorrow Norah will make her theater debut in Lake Ridge Academy's performance of The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon. Norah is playing multiple roles, including what I'm told is a hilarious Crab Person and Little Red (I believe it's red as in the color of her MAGA hat, and not red as in the color of her hood).
Let's talk about comorbidities. A comorbidity is the simultaneous presence of two chronic diseases or conditions in a patient. In the case of COVID-19, certain comorbidities are known to increase one's risk for a more severe illness.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor announced a proposed rule amending its regulations on how to determine whether a worker is an employee covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act or an independent contractor not covered by the FLSA. This proposed rule is significant because the FLSA lacks clear guidance on these important definitions, which has left employers struggling, scrambling, and risk-taking to properly classify workers for purposes of paying overtime and other wage/hour obligations.
The EEOC has sued an Arkansas Kroger after it fired two of its employees for allegedly objecting to its new dress code that required employees to wear an apron that contained rainbow-colored heart insignia. 
