Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

The Department of Labor (DOL) takes audits of employee plans very seriously.  Over the past few years, the Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA) has increased its civil and criminal audits of plans and, in 2011, collected $1.39 billion in fines in the process.  EBSA has recently added several hundred more auditors to its ranks to increase audits.

At an SEC enforcement conference held last Thursday, October 18, 2012, several SEC speakers remarked that the agency had received an average of eight whistleblower tips per day, for a total of nearly 3000 tips from 45 countries, in the first year of operation of the SEC’s Dodd-Frank whistleblower rules.  The SEC’s revised whistleblower rules, which took effect in August 2011, permit each whistleblower to receive a bounty of 10-30% of all monetary sanctions collected by the SEC on cases associated with the whistleblower’s tip.  To be eligible for a bounty, a whistleblower must voluntarily provide the SEC with original information that leads to a successful SEC enforcement action in which the SEC obtains monetary sanctions greater than $1 million.  This announcement follows the first award (and first denial of an award) of bounty payments to SEC whistleblowers in August 2012.

On April 25, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission  adopted its Enforcement Guidance: Consideration of Arrest - Conviction Records in Employment Decisions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“2012 Guidance”), expanding on its 1987 and later policy statements to its field offices.

Continue Reading...

The EEOC is targeting pregnancy discrimination in several states.  The EEOC has filed a string of recent cases in an apparent attempt to crack down on workplace discrimination against pregnant women.  A California-based security guard contractor was recently sued by the EEOC on September 20 after it terminated a female employee when she tried to return to work after her pregnancy leave.  A week later, a Texas-based restaurant was also sued after terminating eight pregnant employees. The restaurant allegedly had in place a written policy that instructed managers to terminate pregnant employees three months into their pregnancies.  One of the fired employees was terminated pursuant to the policy even though her doctor had cleared her to work without restrictions until the 36th week of her pregnancy.   In another restaurant-related complaint, this one filed September 27, the EEOC sued a Florida-based restaurant in Panama City, Florida for terminating two pregnant waitresses.  According to the EEOC, the restaurant told pregnant workers that their pregnancies made them a “liability” to the company.  In a related matter, the EEOC is seeking an injunction against a Michigan juvenile detention center to prevent it from maintaining a policy that requires women to immediately notify the company when they become pregnant.

In an update to a recent article posted in July, the California Supreme Court agreed on October 10 to hear Patterson v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, a sexual harassment case in which the court will decide whether a franchisor can be held liable for the acts of an employee of one of its franchisees.  The case comes before the court after an appeals court found that Domino’s exerted enough control over the employees of Sui Juris, its franchisee, for it to be potentially liable for sexual harassment. 

If the high court affirms the appellate court’s decision, franchisors could be vulnerable to a ...

On September 30, 2012, California Governor Jerry Brown announced that he had signed AB 2675, involving “employment contract requirements.”  This bill amends Labor Code § 2751, which requires any employment contract for services to be rendered in California that “involves commissions” to “be in writing and set forth the method by which the commissions are to be computed and paid.”  AB 2675 adds an important exemption to the definition of “commission” that will substantially reduce the possibility that the statute could be applied to non-commission compensation plans.

Employees use social media extensively in communication for personal and business reasons.   Employers are increasingly monitoring this use, and insisting on access to some of the more popular sites.   California took  notice of this trend and passed legislation to protect employee privacy.  On September 27, 2012, Governor Brown signed AB 1844 making California the third state to limit access to employees’ social media account, joining Maryland and Illinois.

When employers pay severance, it is common to withhold both income tax and payroll taxes under the Federal Income Contribution Act (“FICA”).  It is equally common for employers to pay the employer’s share of the FICA tax attributable to the severance payment.  These are common practices because Revenue Rulings issued by the Internal Revenue service classify most severance payments as “wages,” thereby subjecting those payments to the FICA tax.

On September 20, 2012, Administrative Law Judge Clifford H. Anderson struck down telecommunications company EchoStar Corp.’s policy prohibiting employees from making disparaging comments about it on social media sites. The NLRB judge found that the prohibition, as well as a ban on employees using social media sites with company resources or on company time, chilled employees’ exercise of their rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). The EchoStar decision comes on the heels of the NLRB’s recent ruling striking down Costco Wholesale Corp.’s policy barring employees from posting statements online that were harmful to the company’s reputation.

We live in a society that is obsessed with appearance, and studies show that many people equate appearance to success.  While employers may not be aware of these studies, some are trying to control appearance in the workplace by imposing weight restrictions on job applicants or employees as a condition of employment.  

Whether these policies are permissible can only be answered with a “maybe.” 

Continue Reading...