Sexual Harassment: What Are the Right Steps for Employers and Employees?
The following article appeared in the November 2017 South Florida Legal Guide. Employers should have a written policy that defines and prohibits sexual harassment and contains an effective complaint procedure. Employers should also train their employees to prevent sexual harassment, and lead by example. Training can include watching off-the-shelf videos or attending in-person training. Leading […]
Harassment by Non-Employees is Still Harassment
Recently I gave a seminar to a group of managers employed by one of my corporate clients and informed them that the company can be held liable for harassment by non-employees. Several managers expressed doubt about this. How can a company be held responsible for what a customer does, they asked? But it’s true –an […]
Drug and Alcohol Testing Under Florida Law
In Florida, private sector employers are neither required nor prohibited from requiring employees to undergo drug and alcohol testing. Florida has a Drug-Free Workplace Act that sets forth certain procedures for employers to follow in conducing job applicant testing, reasonable suspicion testing, follow-up testing, and routine fitness-for-duty testing. An employer is not required by law […]
Can Employers Impose Dress Codes and Appearance Standards?
Florida law does not expressly regulate private employers’ imposition of dress codes or personal appearance standards in the workplace. But certain limitations are imposed by federal and state laws prohibiting employment discrimination in the workplace. As noted by the EEOC, in most cases employers are required to make exceptions to their usual rules to permit employees […]
Employers, Don’t Forget The EEOC Carve-Out In Your Mandatory Arbitration Agreement
This blog post originally appeared in Forbes.com. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission likes to protect its turf. While the EEOC files relatively few lawsuits – it filed 167 lawsuits in fiscal year 2014, while it processed over 88,000 charges – the EEOC will not hesitate to take actions against employers that prevent employees from filing […]
Actionable Discrimination is not Always Intentional
Pepsi Beverages recently settled a matter with the federal government for $3.13 million which serves as a reminder that not all issues of employment discrimination are based on intentional conduct. Pepsi required its candidates for employment to undergo a criminal background check. Candidates who had been arrested or convicted were denied employment. Pepsi’s policy, while […]
Transgender Individuals Can Bring Claims of Sex Discrimination
In what appears to be a continuing trend, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers the states of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, has recently ruled that transgender individuals may bring claims of sex discrimination against their employers where they are adversely affected in the terms and conditions of their employment resulting from gender stereotyping. […]
What Patricia Arquette Failed to Say About Equal Pay for Women
What reasonable person would disagree with Patricia Arquette’s statement at the Academy Awards that “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America”? Clearly, there should be a federal law which requires that men and women be given equal pay for equal […]