Category Archives: Harassment

The case against “Ghosting” for employees

Posted on August 2, 2018 by Jon Rehm

Employers are increasingly complaining of employees “ghosting” or leaving suddenly without notice. Temple Law Professor and author Brishen Rogers correctly pointed out on Twitter that employee ghosting is protected the by the 13^th Amendment prohibition of slavery. Other commentators have pointed out that employers have been “ghosting” employees for many years and that some turnabout is to be expected as unemployment declines.

Employee “ghosting” is also the flip side of employment at-will. Employers are free to fire you at any time, but you are free to quit your job at any time without notice.

The concept of giving notice before quitting isn’t rooted in any legal requirement. But giving notice before leaving a job can give employees some legal benefits. Providing written notice can provide more protections to employees if done correctly.

Unemployment

In Nebraska, if you quit your job you have to prove you had good cause for the quit to get full unemployment benefits, whereas if you are fired your employer has to prove you committed misconduct in connection with your employment to deny you full benefits. Often when an employee gives two weeks’ notice, an employer will have them stop working before the two week notice period ends. In this situation an employee, for the purposes of unemployment benefits, has been fired. So unless the employer can prove the employee committed some misconduct, then they will receive full unemployment benefits.

Putting notice in writing can be helpful because it explains why you are leaving. Under Nebraska law, there are several reasons deemed by good cause for leaving. Having one of those reasons in a letter could help you receive unemployment benefits sooner.

I recently had an employee who was asked to submit a resignation letter due to alleged concerns about her job performance. My client was smart enough to write down that she would retract her resignation if performance improved. My client ended up winning her unemployment appeal due in part to that letter as it wasn’t clear that she really intended to resign.

Other employment laws

Written notice can also help in other cases. If an employee resigns due to workplace harassment, written notice of a quit would put an employer on notice of the harassment if it wasn’t done so already. Adding in that the resignation would be retracted if the harassment was addressed would also help.

A written notice that an employee is quitting because of a medical condition could prompt an attempt to accommodate that condition under the Americans with Disabilities Act. I have seen written notice of quits because of medical conditions be helpful in winning benefits in workers’ compensation cases as well.

Giving notice is also helpful to an employee quits a new job for a new job that falls through. Courtesy can help an employee maintain a relationship with an employer and make it easier for an employee to go back to a job.

Workplace Safety and the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Jon Rehm

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking. (Photo by Julian Wasser//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

“It was horrible,” said the woman.

One minute she could see a sanitation worker struggling to climb out of the refuse barrel of a city garbage truck. The next minute mechanical forces pulled him back into the cavernous opening. It looked to her as though the man’s raincoat had snagged on the vehicle, foiling his escape attempt. “His body went in first and his legs were hanging out,” said the eyewitness, who had been sitting at her kitchen table in Memphis, Tennessee, when the truck paused in front of her home. Next, she watched the man’s legs vanish as the motion of the truck’s compacting unit swept the worker toward his death. “The big thing just swallowed him,” she reported.

Unbeknownst to Mrs. C. E. Hinson, another man was already trapped inside the vibrating truck body. Before vehicle driver Willie Crain could react, Echol Cole, age 36, and Robert Walker, age 30, would be crushed to death. Nobody ever identified which one came close to escaping.

The horrific deaths of Cole and Walker on Feb. 1, 1968, set off the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, where 1,300 mostly African-American public employees struck to protest poor working conditions, including the defective garbage truck that crushed Cole and Walker. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech in support of the striking sanitation workers in Memphis the night before he was assassinated.

On Monday, Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is celebrated as a holiday. But the rightful veneration of Dr. King should not, for the lack of better terms, wrongfully sanitize or whitewash the fact that what he fought for would be opposed by many who invoke his legacy today. The Memphis sanitation strikers are asking for the same thing that striking fast food and service workers are asking for in the Fight for 15 campaign. Most establishment types and so-called moderates in Memphis refused to support the striking sanitation workers. Today’s so-called moderates argue that paying employees a living wage is too radical and counterproductive. History has a way of repeating itself.

Nearly 50 years later, I still represent sanitation workers who are injured from defective equipment. However, bloody crush injuries like the ones that killed Cole and Walker are much less common. Part of the reason for the increase in workplace safety over the last 50 years was the passing of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Dr. King was willing to risk bodily harm and ultimately ended up being killed supporting workers who were protesting unsafe work conditions. The passage of OSHA is a small but important and overlooked part of Dr. King’s legacy. History is repeating itself again as the business establishment applauds the expected rollback of OSHA enforcement under expected future Labor Secretary Andy Puzder.

Dr. King also deserves credit for his role in passing laws like Title VII that prohibited discrimination against African-Americans, which has allowed an increasing number of African-Americans to join the professional class and otherwise realize their potential as human beings. Dr. King’s legacy can also be seen in the expansion of rights for disabled Americans, and the fact that gays and lesbians are able to get married, and the real possibility that Title VII may end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

But by some economic measures, African-Americans are worse off now than they were 40 years ago. This fact can likely be attributed to overall increases in economic inequality over the last 40 years. The U.S. Department of Labor pointed out in a recent study that the gutting of state workers’ compensation laws has exacerbated inequality. Lawyers, legislators, academics and pundits have gradually forgotten about the risks faced by workers like Echol Cole and Robert Walker and how civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr. saw the fight for workplace safety as a matter of basic human dignity and integral to the fight for civil rights.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett & Moore and Trucker Lawyers will be closed in observance of the holiday on Monday. We will re-open at 8:30 a.m. Central Time on Tuesday, Jan. 17. We encourage readers to think about Martin Luther King Jr. on the federal holiday and every day and continue to be both motivated and challenged by his words and works.

Insensitive? Yes. Crabby? Yes. Illegal Discrimination? Probably Not.

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Jon Rehm

Advertisement from the McCook, Nebraska, newspaper via Michael Schwanke’s Facebook page

KWCH (Wichita, Kansas) television reporter Michael Schwanke posted a help-wanted ad from a McCook, Nebraska, auto-glass shop on his Facebook page that has gone viral on social media and brings up some basic truths about employment law. Here is the meme:

The overarching theme here is that regular and reliable attendance and a good attitude are essential job functions for this particular job, as they are for most jobs. Do some of these requirements seem unlawful? Maybe on their face, but they probably aren’t when you do the analysis. Here are few that might raise red flags and why they probably aren’t illegal.

“Have no baby sitter every day” Yes, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of being a parent. However, most jobs require reliable and regular attendance. Sure, problems with child care can be reasonably expected, but if it becomes a pattern and it disrupts work, then it is a legitimate reason for termination.

“Have court often” There is a move to limit the use of criminal background checks in order to help ex-felons get hired, so maybe this looks bad. But again, “have court often” means that you are currently involved with the court system. If current legal issues keep you away from work too often, that could be a reason for termination. I believe that criminal background checks in employment often disproportionately affect minorities. However, barring any expression of animus against a particular race or nationality, the desire to not have your employees miss work often because of court appearances is a legitimate concern of a business owner.

“Oversleep” Sometimes medical conditions and the side effects of medications can make it difficult to wake up. Assuming your employer is covered by disability-discrimination laws, a situation like that would be covered. But again, if your job actually requires you to be present and working at a certain time and you can’t reliably meet that requirement, then your employer has a reason to fire you.

A review of the comments on the Facebook posting showed that most of the commenters were sympathetic with the employer. Regardless of what I think about those comments as an employee advocate, people with those types of attitudes and feelings are going to be the ultimate deciders of whether an employer wrongfully terminated or otherwise violated the rights of a client of mine. So if you are terminated for a reason you think was wrong or otherwise mistreated by an employer, make sure that you did your best to fulfill your duties as an employee – especially in regards to attendance.

Legal Avenues Exist for Dealing with Workplace Bullying

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Jon Rehm

Bullying isn’t limited to the schoolyard. Bullying in the workplace is also a hot topic among employment lawyers and human-resource professionals. One study states that 35 percent of employees are bullied at work. In general, if you are being bullied at work, you should document the bullying, try to constructively confront the bully and speak with HR if the bullying continues. If bullying is persistent, you should also consider looking for other employment.

Currently there are no state or federal laws in Nebraska that specifically address workplace bullying. However, in many situations, there are laws in place that employees can use to protect themselves against workplace bullying, from a legal perspective. Exercising your rights under these laws may not stop the bullying. But by exercising your rights under the laws described below you could force a smart employer to take some action against a bully. And by using these legal tools, you could also possibly expose your employer to a retaliation suit if you are fired after trying to stop a workplace bully.

1. Title VII and the Nebraska Fair Employment Practices Act: Both of these laws make it unlawful to harass a worker based protected classes such as sex, race, nationality, disability, age, and religion. If you are being harassed based on one of these factors, the law forces you to address these complaints with management in order for you to successfully bring suit. While it is difficult to win a harassment case in Nebraska, the fact that you must bring the harassment to the attention of management at least forces management to address the situation. If management is smart they will realize that they need to address the harassment or else they could be subject to legal liability. If management is enlightened, they will realize the cost of employee turnover and address the situation regardless of any potential legal liability.

Many people believe that harassment based on sexual orientation is not against the law in Nebraska. However, gays and lesbians in Nebraska may be protected from harassment in some situations under the legal theory of “sex plus” discrimination.

So what if workplace bullying is not based on a protected class? Even then, employees might have legal protections under three laws: the National Labor Relations Act; the Americans with Disabilities Act; and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

2. The National Labor Relations Act. The NLRA protects workers’ rights to act together to address workplace conditions. The NLRA applies regardless of whether a workplace is unionized. If a boss or co-worker truly is a bully, then other people will likely believe they are being bullied as well. By acting collectively, employees stand a better chance of remedying the situation. For example, in the case of Teetor v. Dawson County Public Power District, employees essentially forced management to fire a longtime supervisor who was notorious for bullying subordinates. The supervisor’s bullying was one of the reasons why employees tried to unionize. Since the employer did not want their employees to unionize, they fired the bullying supervisor.

Also by acting collectively, employees give themselves legal protections against retaliation by complaining against a bullying boss. Employees have no protection if they complain individually against a boss. The absence of other people complaining about a workplace bully could also lead a court to believe that what one person views as workplace bullying is really just evidence of a personality conflict or oversensitivity on the part of the employee.

3. The Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act. If bullying is severe enough to either cause or aggravate a mental illness, an employee may be able to invoke the ADA and the FMLA. The ADA forces employers to make reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities. In theory, an employee should be able to suggest an end to bullying on the part of the co-worker or boss as the reasonable accommodation. Also, by asking for an accommodation, an employee gives themselves legal protection against retaliation by their employer. Under the FMLA, an employee can take job-protected leave to treat a serious medical condition. Asking for FMLA leave can leave your employer open to legal liability if they wrongfully deny you FMLA leave or retaliate against your taking FMLA leave.

I hedge a little bit on the use of the ADA and the FMLA as anti-bullying tools. Employees who use the ADA and FMLA as an anti-bullying tools need to be confident that their situation is more than just a personality conflict with a boss or co-worker. An honest counselor or psychologist should be able to tell you this. It would also be helpful to get some confirmation of the bullying from co-workers and trusted friends. Employees also need to make sure that they aren’t using the ADA as an excuse for unsatisfactory performance and poor attendance. Defense lawyers are expert at sniffing out people using the ADA and the Family Medical Leave Act to cover up for bad attendance and poor performance.

But if an employee can clear those hurdles, it can make sense to ask for an end to bullying as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. I think the NLRA is a better tool to deal with workplace bullies than the ADA, but sometimes co-workers are too afraid to support a colleague who confronts management.

Not every incidence of bullying can be remedied by these laws. Also, if you work for a small employer, your employer may not have to comply with fair-employment laws. However, before a bully forces you to quit, or before you do something out of anger that causes you to get fired, you should consult with a knowledgeable employment-law attorney.

Workers' Compensation Watch

Published by Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm

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Category Archives: Harassment

The case against “Ghosting” for employees

Workplace Safety and the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Insensitive? Yes. Crabby? Yes. Illegal Discrimination? Probably Not.

Legal Avenues Exist for Dealing with Workplace Bullying

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