Banning discrimination against the unemployed?

I joined the host on Connecticut’s WTIC Thursday morning to discuss President Obama’s proposed ban on employer discrimination against unemployed job applicants:

For more on this bad proposal, check out Charles Lane, Washington Post (“really bad idea that will probably destroy jobs in a misguided effort to save them”); Richard Epstein/Hoover (“most ghastly” element of jobs plan), Mickey Kaus (“Worst idea in the speech? …a museum-quality case of liberal legalism ignoring the economic cost of the mechanisms of liberal legalism”), Steve Chapman (“may very well have a positive impact on hiring. Just not in America”), Neil Munro, Adler/Volokh, Business Insider, Ted Frank/PoL, NYT “Room for Debate”, Dan Indiviglio/The Atlantic (“While this is a lovely political talking point, it won’t cut unemployment and could even make matters worse for jobless Americans”), Atlantic Wire, Tim Cavanaugh/Reason, Jay Goltz/NYT “You’re the Boss” (“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”), National Review, Kerry Picket/Washington Times (Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill.: “If it takes lawsuits to get work opportunities, then so be it”), earlier (& welcome Tim Cavanaugh/Reason “Hit and Run” readers).

Filed under: discrimination law, on TV and radio, workplace

Labor and employment law roundup

“EEOC showing late summer spike in discrimination suits” [NLJ]
In new Lamons Gasket case, NLRB generously protects unions from many secret-ballot decertification elections [Hyman] Some employers rename quickie-elections proposal “ambush elections” [ShopFloor; see also Hannah Bowen, CRC, PDF] “NLRB’s Pro-Big Labor Ruling Trifecta is Bad News for the Economy” [Ivan Osorio, CEI] Did NLRB have legal authority to issue rule requiring employers to post union-rights posters on pain of criminal penalties? [Schaumber/NRO via Ted/PoL]
Wage and hour law roundup: Law clerks fail in bid for overtime pay [Above the Law] “U.S. Open Umpires Sue for Overtime” [Fox Rothschild] Lawsuit challenges unpaid Hollywood internships [NYT]
Public sector labor reform: Let the lawsuits begin! [Daniel DiSalvo, Public Sector Inc.]
“Verizon Settles EEOC Disability Suit Based on No-Fault Attendance Policy” [Workplace Prof]
Just can’t win dept.: after white firefighters extract large settlement from city of New Haven over reverse discrimination, Second Circuit rules that black firefighters can sue the city over the same “validated” test [WSJ, Schwartz]
Screening job applicants through personality tests: when is it legal? [Hyman]
Way to discourage employers from offering sabbaticals: have courts construe them as deferred vacation benefits [Cal Labor] Way to discourage volunteers [Cain, FindLaw]
No, rules Judge Preska, the law doesn’t obligate employers to provide work/life balance [Hyman, Greenfield, PoL]
Another purportedly disabled firefighter fit enough to run an Ironman event [WITI] “Can you pay me under the table? I would lose my disability” [Coyote]

Filed under: labor unions, public employment, wage and hour suits, workplace

Mandatory disclosure by labor “persuaders”

New Department of Labor regulations will require, on pain of serious criminal penalties, regular disclosures by lawyers, consultants, advisers, website developers, P.R. firms, pollsters and many others whose activities might persuade employees not to sign union cards. (Current regulations require disclosures only regarding consultants who actually meet with employees, as opposed to generating information that might reach them.) The result will be to give the Jimmy Hoffas of the world a road map to put legal pressure on (maybe even “take out“) a wide range of consultants and back-office employees in areas like safety, productivity management and general HR (say, employee-handbook writing), many of whose activities have predictable impact on bargainable issues and worker inclination to unionize. [Labor Union Report](& Legal Ethics Forum)

Filed under: labor unions, workplace

Go for it, Sacramento

Please do regulate babysitting much harder, urges Coyote [earlier; see also]

Filed under: small business, workplace

Calif. bill proposes work rules, meal breaks for babysitters

The bill would also require employers of babysitters, i.e. parents, to prepare extensive paperwork and keep it on file for at least three years after a wage payment. Some critics say the obligation to provide periodic breaks would require families to hire a second sitter to relieve the first. Homeowners would be required to permit all-day domestic workers to prepare their own food in the family kitchen and would be forbidden to object to the workers’ choice of food. AB 889, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-S.F.) and grandly labeled the “Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights,” has passed the lower house in Sacramento and will now be considered by the Senate. [NBC Los Angeles, Matt Welch, Sen. Doug LaMalfa, earlier] Last year New York made itself the first state to extend general workplace regulation to domestic employment.

Filed under: California, wage and hour suits, workplace

“If I could press a button and instantly vaporize one sector of employment law…”

In a new Reason symposium on how to revitalize the American job market, I explain my answer to that question.

More: This set off a round of discussion on employment blogs including Jon Hyman (nominating FLSA for vaporization), Suzanne Boy (concur), Daniel Schwartz (leave laws), Suzanne Lucas (citing “the fabulous Overlawyered.com”), the ABA Journal, Tim Eavenson, Jon Hyman again, HR Daily Report, and Russell Cawyer. Also relevant on age discrimination laws: a June symposium in the NYT’s “Room for Debate” feature; ComputerWorld on age bias and IT.

Filed under: accolades, age discrimination, wage and hour suits, WO writings, workplace

The way of the telegraph messenger

The once-envied Connecticut economy may be headed in that direction should its lawmakers continue to pile new burdens onto the state’s employers, or so I argue in my new Cato post.

Filed under: Connecticut, workplace

California workplace seating suits, cont’d

AP: “Nearly every national [retail] chain is under legal attack in California for failing to provide ‘suitable seating’ for cashiers and other employees who are expected to spend most of their work day on their feet.” For more on recent plaintiff victories under California’s distinctive bounty-hunting labor law, see this April link.

Filed under: California, workplace

“Bang bang” not actionable behavior

Per a Connecticut appeals court, looking at an employee and saying “Bang bang” does not, even when added to some other impolite conduct, rise to the level of “extreme and outrageous” behavior required to trigger a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress [Daniel Schwartz]

Filed under: Connecticut, emotional distress, workplace

Employee misconduct and ADA protections

Will the law protect your right not to be fired if you shout profanities at your supervisor and throw things? Press coverage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) may ebb and flow, but the law’s protection of mental, emotional and behavioral disabilities continues to generate extreme results in workplace cases, as attorney James J. McDonald, Jr. has documented in a series of articles. I discuss at Cato at Liberty.

Filed under: disabled rights, workplace