The business owner can often make the choice between arbitration or lawsuit. Where do you want to be if there is a dispute with one of your employees? In litigating employment cases, I have stood before a jury of twelve people and watched their reaction to the story of an employee who was allegedly terminated… Continue Reading »
Both Title VII and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) prevent an employer from firing an employee for pumping breast milk during working hours according to a new decision from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided on May 30, 2013, called EEOC v. Houston Funding II. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) brought suit against Houston… Continue Reading »
One of the biggest mistakes that an employer can make is failing to conduct a fair and unbiased investigation when a supervisor is accused of wrongdoing by an employee. In many years of consultations with employers, I have found that companies often rely on Human Resources to provide the unbiased review of supervisor conduct to… Continue Reading »
Gary Klein worked as a floor hand on a drilling rig for Nabors Drilling USA L.P. (Nabors). Nabors asked him to sign an acknowledgment, as a condition of his employment, that he would agree to bring all disputes through the Nabors Dispute Resolution Program (Program). At some point Nabors fired Mr. Klein. Believing that he was fired… Continue Reading »
Mediation is often thought of only as an effective resolution to settling lawsuits. However, this is only one use for mediation and every day there is potential alternative dispute resolution scenarios in the workplace when there are disputes between employees, between supervisors and employees, between upper management and lower or middle management. How many times… Continue Reading »
