Employment Archive

In Charlton MA, A Case for Suing Your Current Employer?

July 9th, 2010. By Hunter West

In 2003 Curt Meskus had a long-standing commitment to the Charlton Fire Department as a call firefighter. At any time of the day or night he could be called in to help fight a fire, or help manage some other emergency the fire department might respond to. He would be paid an hourly rate by the fire department, a service provided by the municipality.

Then, seven years ago, Meskus was hired as the Building Commissioner for that same municipality. The latter would be a full-time job v. the on-call, as-needed structure of his fire department gig that he intended to keep.

Why not do both? Months could go by without a whiff of smoke. If he was, indeed called out during regular hours of his building commissioner job, he could always make up the lost time after hours.

Some may say Meskus has initiative. Others might call him greedy—you know, double-dipping*. But no one could argue Meskus’ status as an honest citizen who is completely above-board. When he was hired by the municipal selectmen for the building commissioner job in 2003, Meskus was up-front about his firefighting responsibilities, which he had no intention of abandoning. In fact, Meskus was the assistant call fire chief.

The municipality didn’t appear to have a problem. In fact, Meskus has been re-appointed to the position of Building Commissioner every year since by the municipal selectmen in Charlton, MA, without hesitation or debate.

Then someone complained. Another municipal employee questioned if the arrangement Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Charlton MA, Curt Meskus, Employment, FLSA
Posted in Emerging Issues, Employment | 4 Comments »

Hooters Asst Regional Manager Needs Free Gym Membership

May 19th, 2010. By AbiK

Cassie Smith, a waitress at Hooters in Roseville, Michigan—for two years now—was apparently called in for a review and basically told that she needs to take some weight off. Ok, let’s face it, Hooters is all about the eye candy. And I guess they want to get on the “wellness” bandwagon and help out a pudgy (apparently their assessment of Cassie, not mine) gal by offering her a free gym membership—and giving her what sounds like your run-of-the-mill HR-is-now-involved 30-60 day timeframe to slim down.

I’m not sure how Hooters monitors progress on this front—do they have weigh-ins? or is it all based on visual cues? Will Cassie be “ok” when she’s able to get into size XXS vs. the size XS Hooters uniform she wears now? And I wonder what business metrics—like customer retention, revenue increase vs prior month—those kind of measures—will be monitored and considered in direct relation to Cassie shedding those pounds? I muse and I digress…forgive me.

You can see more about this case—what’s basically a weight discrimination case—on the video above. But what I love is the double-standard. Take a look at the picture of this guy at the right, pulled from a WDIV tv (Detroit) report—he’s the Assistant Regional Manager for the Hooters where Cassie works. Now, I don’t like to point fingers or be the pot calling the kettle black, but…I’m hoping Hooters has offered him a nice little gym membership and that he’s taken them up on the offer.

The other interesting thing about this is the Hooters’ company line about image. We’ve now heard from two “head office” Hooters folks: Alexis Aleshire, PR Manager, and Mike McNeil, VP Marketing. They both defend (a given) the company’s stance on image and appearance by pointing to the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and the Radio City Rockettes. Ok, again there is more eye candy. But at least those gals have to DO something—as in something physical. As in they probably should be in decent shape in order to merely perform their jobs. I know, I know—there’s still a “looks” component. But I’m hard-pressed to come up with a correlation—aside from sex appeal—between the cheerleaders and Rockettes who work out, practice and perform together, and the Hooters waitresses who show up for their shift.

Closing thought…if men only like women of a certain mold, who’s frequenting those big and beautiful dating sites? And what—they’re not showing up at Hooters every now and then?

Tags: Cassie Smith, Discrimination, Hooters
Posted in Employment | 1 Comment »

Hey Hollister: What about Cross-Dressers?

May 12th, 2010. By AbiK

So American Eagle Outfitters has “agreed” to get rid of a rule they had that banned male employees from showing up to work in women’s clothes, and to be fair, women employees from showing up in men’s clothes.

For American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), the issue arose out of a complaint filed by Make the Road New York with NY State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office that stated there was a “pattern of discrimination against transgender job hunters.”

According to the NY Daily News, a probe into the situation revealed that, indeed, there was such a pattern.

Of course, a spokeswoman from AEO has issued a statement indicating that “AEO is not admitting to the findings”.

Meanwhile, AEO has also agreed to train its staff on transgender issues such as how to refer to a transgender employee—is he a she or she a he? I’m not sure how one crafts the lingo on that in the company handbook other than to simply follow the wishes of the transgender employee. Bathroom assignments I guess are another issue, and one I’m not tackling here. None the less, it’ll now be addressed in AEO’s training.

But it begs the question, what about retailers like Hollister—who recently came under fire for allegedly dismissing an employee for another form of dress: a hijab. This isn’t a judgement statement here, but you’d have to agree that a head scarf is perhaps a little less visually in the raise-an-eyebrow range for most customers than a gentleman in hose and heels. I’m exaggerating here, but I’ve certainly come across a wide variability among cross-dressing styles.

So would a qualified gent in hose and heels get a job at Hollister?

Tags: American Eagle Outfitters, Discrimination, Hollister
Posted in Employment | 5 Comments »

Medical Marijuana Catch-22: You’re Fired

March 24th, 2010. By AbiK

How in hell do the fourteen states where it’s legal—yes, LEGAL—to use marijuana for medical reasons have such a progressive law that, on the flip side, opens the door for employers to fire medical marijuana card-carrying employees who test positive for marijuana use?

According to a cnn.com article, Keith Stroup, who’s on the legal counsel team for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says he gets around “300 emails and phone calls a year from medical marijuana who have been fired or had job offers rescinded because of a failed drug test.” 

Stroup goes on to say, “Usually they talk about how they have lost their job and I tell them there’s not a thing they can do about it.”

True, in most at-will employment states an employee can be fired for any reason—except for those reasons that put the employee in a federally protected class—such as race, gender, and religion.

But medical marijuana-use employees are not a federally protected class. So employers pretty much Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Discrimination, Employment, Labor Law, Marijuana, Medical Marijuana
Posted in Discrimination, Drugs/Medical, Emerging Issues, Employment | 8 Comments »

How to Handle the Co-Worker you can’t Febreeze

March 18th, 2010. By AbiK

Remember the one about the airline passenger that was booted off a Jazz Air flight because he smelled?

Hey, don’t underestimate that ol’ olfactory system. Think I’m kidding? One woman’s sense of smell just netted her a $100,000 settlement. How? As a Detroit city employee, Susan McBride had complained about a co-worker’s perfume and room deodorizer (must’ve been into fragrance layering)—that the smell of them made it difficult for her to breathe. She also complained of migraine headaches, nausea and coughing.

From a report on The Early Show (CBS), it seems McBride’s boss didn’t respond to her complaints, and apparently didn’t tell the co-worker with the love of all things aromatic that there was a teensy little issue that, quite frankly, she stunk and it was unbearable.

So, McBride sued.

Here’s the kicker—Detroit city employees in three buildings (yes, three!) are now being warned not to wear anything that delivers a scent—no top notes of jasmine, no undertones of sandalwood, skip the tea rose-scented potpourri, the eponymous Tim McGraw cologne, the Glade plug-ins, and by all means, leave the Red Door at the door. The Early Show report also mentions folks should leave behind the deodorant, though if you’re flying Jazz Air you may want to pack a travel size somewhere—just in case.

Seems the question here comes down to a question of rights. And, as labor and employment lawyer Joelle Sharman is quoted as saying on The Early Show, “A person doesn’t necessarily have a right to wear perfume, but the person does have a right to be able to breathe in the workplace. So if an employee comes into work and says to his or her boss, “I can’t breathe, this perfume is triggering a condition that is affecting my ability to breathe in the workplace,” and reports to his or her boss, the boss has to reasonably accommodate that person.”

Tags: Detroit, Office, Scent, Smell
Posted in Employment | No Comments »