I’ve got some thoughts at Cato at Liberty on the overreaching way California’s Proposition 19 tried to curtail employers’ liberty in employment decisions related to pot smoking — which might have contributed to the measure’s defeat at the polls on Tuesday. Earlier here. Jacob Sullum points out that much of employers’ tendency to treat off-job marijuana use more harshly than off-job alcohol use is itself stimulated by government mandates and exhortation, prominently including drug testing programs (& welcome Instapundit readers). More: Nancy Berner, California Labor & Employment Law Blog (“Merely smelling marijuana on a worker’s clothes after lunch would not be sufficient to justify a write-up” had the measure passed.)
Posts Tagged ‘workplace’
“Use good judgment in all situations”
Nordstrom, the successful retail chain, used to boast that its entire employee manual consisted of that admonition. But things have changed since then, and per Wikipedia “new hire orientations now provide this card along with a full handbook of other more specific rules and legal regulations.” [Bruce Carton, Legal Blog Watch]
Checking job applicants’ credit references
Many employers find the practice helpfully predictive, but the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is stepping up pressure against it. [WSJ Law Blog, Hyman]
Trucker demands religious accommodation for refusal to haul alcohol, tobacco
Age of accommodation, cont’d: “in Reedy v. Schneider National, Inc. (E.D. Pa. filed Oct. 15, 2010). Vasant Reddy says that he has ‘a sincerely held religious belief that he cannot consume, possess, or transport alcohol or tobacco,’ and that he informed Schneider National of this. …Nonetheless, he says, he was ordered to transport a load with alcohol, and was fired because he refused to transport it.” [Eugene Volokh] (cross-posted at Secular Right).
“Drowning in law”
Author Philip K. Howard’s latest op-ed tells of the “legal quicksand” faced by small business owners, who
face legal challenges at every step. Municipalities requires multiple and often nonsensical forms to do business. Labor laws expose them to legal threats by any disgruntled employee. Mandates to provide costly employment benefits impose high hurdles to hiring new employees. Well-meaning but impossibly complex laws impose requirements to prevent consumer fraud, provide disability access, prevent hiring illegal immigrants, display warnings and notices and prevent scores of other potential evils. The tax code is incomprehensible.
All of this requires legal and other overhead – costing 50% more per employee for small businesses than big businesses.
Small business and the Paycheck Fairness Act
Fact-checking a Maine Congresswoman: my latest at Cato-at-Liberty.
September 30 roundup
- “Sexting” Wisconsin prosecutor to resign [AP, AtL] Was bar discipline too lax? A contrarian view [Esenberg]
- Update: jury finds “caffeine killer” guilty in wife’s death [CBS, earlier]
- Not an Onion story: “New Orwellian Tax Scheme in England Would Require All Paychecks Go Directly to the Tax Authority” [Dan Mitchell, Cato]
- “The Fight Over Fire Sprinklers in New Homes” [Popular Mechanics via Fountain, earlier]
- Pre-Miranda interrogation of (no relation) Jimmy Olsen [another legally-themed comic book cover from the series at Abnormal Use]
- Slow customer service at pizza restaurant deemed “sabotage” in employment suit [Fox, Jottings]
- Website offers defendants’ perspective on some of the Enron prosecutions [Ungagged.net via Kirkendall]
- Pedestrian killed by out-of-control driver, and jury awards $37 million against California municipality for not having built sidewalks [six years ago on Overlawyered]
Paycheck Fairness Act, cont’d
An editorial in today’s Washington Post describes it as “a flawed approach to job bias” that “would allow employees and courts to intrude too far into core business decisions,” and Jon Hyman rounds up some critical coverage in the employment-law blogosphere. Earlier here.
“Paycheck Fairness Act poised for passage”
Proponents are making the usual you-mean-you’re-against-equal-pay? noises, but the bill would go much farther than that in undercutting employers’ litigation defenses. Jon Hyman says business should be afraid — be very afraid. More: Christina Hoff Sommers, New York Times; Hans Bader and more; Keith Smith/ShopFloor.
An Easter egg for Massachusetts employers
A “new change to [Massachusetts] law now requires companies to notify employees about any potentially negative information added to their files. The amendment, which Gov. Deval Patrick signed into law on August 5, was tucked away in an ‘economic development’ bill laden with higher-profile items like the recent sales-tax holiday. …. this new personnel-records rule is going to lead to more employee lawsuits.” [Gruntled Employees via Susan Cartier Liebel]