Work Matters

Recent Posts from Work Matters

• Fort Worth law goes beyond the Employment Nondiscrimination Act

  The Fort Worth City Council voted Nov. 10 to amend the city's anti-discrimination law to make transgender, gender identity or gender expression protected classifications, according to a Nov. 16 report from the Bureau of National…

• Questions to ask when others are stuck

  Got a friend in a dead end job with a jerk boss, or perhaps a colleague at a difficult crossroads? Are they are stuck as to what to do? I have blogged before about Susan…

• 5th Circuit and Texas law part ways on the issue of comparable seriousness

  Interesting case on Nov. 4 from San Antonio's 4th Court of Appeals, City of San Antonio v. Pedro Gonzalez. The gist from the court on this gender discrimination case: A 26-year employee gets fired. He…

• Zero tolerance for zero tolerance

  A client asked the other day about adopting zero-tolerance policies: An employee commits one act in violation of the anti-harassment policy and gets fired. Or a worker engages in one violation of the ethics code…

• Lessons about anger from sports and sangha

  It was an interesting few days in sports. Elizabeth Lambert played soccer for the University of New Mexico. Last week, among other things she allegedly yanked the ponytail of an opposing player, got tossed from…

• Three questions to help resolve ethics questions

  I am a big fan of questions: They focus, they clarify, and they resolve. So, I was struck by the "Three Rules of Thumb" included in the West Point ethics system, as explained by Ronald…

• Economic dependence a key factor in assessing independent-contractor status

  It's a tough economy. One solution is to use independent contractors, not employees -- no muss, no bother. When a business no longer needs them, off they go. That's a nice theory, but it's not…

• 5th Circuit: Evidence of the alleged harasser's homosexuality is a threshold issue in a same-sex sexual harassment case

  To establish a claim of same-sex sexual harassment, must a plaintiff show that the harasser is homosexual and that the harassment was motivated by sexual desire? By a 2-1 vote in Love v. Motiva Enterprises…

• Set up incentives using reality, not wishful thinking

  How should employers create incentives for their employees and align their interests with the company's? Check out "The Five Traps of Performance Measurement," by Andrew Likierman in the October 2009 issue of the Harvard Business…

• 2nd Circuit takes on delegation of hiring obligations to independent contractors

  We sometimes lose sight of the basics. Look at a Sept. 10 case from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Halpert v. Manhattan Apartments Inc. A plaintiff sues for age discrimination, saying he was…