On Memorial Day, we honor all members of the armed forces who have died for our country. While no words are sufficient for such a memorial, I’ve tried to do a post on Memorial Day during the time I’ve been blogging. For my two previous posts, click here and here. Most of us, employers and employees alike, tend to think holiday when this day approaches. That’s okay, but it’s important to take a few moments to remember the day for what it is.

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To take you into the long weekend, here are a few posts from fellow bloggers definitely worth the read. To those of you who have the weekend off, enjoy it. To those of you who have to work, make the best of it. I appreciate those who work at odd times, on weekends, during holidays, etc. You make it possible for those of us lucky enough to have time off to get things we probably take for granted but would definitely miss if we couldn’t find them when we want them.

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Men at Work sing this week’s song. I’m putting an employment interpretation on this 1980′s hit. It seems to me that the singer could easily be any kind of employee at any level. He’s tired late at night. He just doesn’t feel right. He wants to be left alone. He may have skipped work for a day. He fears The Man and is afraid that The Man will find him out.

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I read this on the Employment Law Post and chuckled. When the top 10 reasons why supervisors don’t need basic legal training were listed, that was intended to be funny and to make a point. The list doesn’t contain anything new, but we’ve all heard these reasons before and a lot of other ones as well. And, of course, the point is that there is no good reason for not providing managers and supervisors basic legal training.

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I doubt there’s any way to calculate work-related suicides in the U.S. Most people don’t kill themselves at work, although something at work may have been the final straw for an employee dealing with other problems as well: family, debt, mental illness, etc. The growing number of suicides at Foxconn Technology in China has been in the news lately, and employers in this country should pay attention. The U.S. economic downturn, fear of a global economic collapse, continuing layoffs, reduced hours, increased job duties, and furloughs translate into a lot of troubled people.

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As reported in the WSJ Law Blog (which links to other news reports about this matter), drug maker Novartis has been hit with a verdict of $37 million in compensatory damages and another verdict of $250 million in punitive damages. The company was found guilty of sex discrimination in denying female employees, particularly pregnant employees, the same pay as comparable male employees, opportunities for promotions and more. It’s possible that Novartis could be hit with additional damages. This may be the largest jury verdict ever in an employment case.

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Is there humor in your workplace? Did  you know there’s a TV show about it?  Watch the clip below and see if your workplace can handle the kind of professional humor recommended. As the front man says, if a sense of humor can keep a marriage together, then maybe it can keep a groups of employees together.

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It’s not deadly, but in New York City, spitting on a bus driver is an assault — at least under the contract between the Transport Workers Union Local 100 and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. It’s also commonly called “aisle rage”: a resentment toward declining mass transit. In 2009, 51 spat-upon bus drivers took, on average, 64 days of paid time off after the spitting incidents. A total of 80 drivers were spat upon in 2009, which means that 21 of them took no time off. Being off 64 days is the equivalent of three months with pay.

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The state of Louisiana has been much in the news, it seems, for a long, long time. Unfortunately, the news has been about disasters. Louisiana’s crises, the global economic crisis, and what appears to be a crisis of trust in citizens everywhere has kept the spotlight on government and the politicians who run it. Everyone is sick of  bad government. When I think of Louisiana and government, one man always comes to mind: Huey Long. He’s regarded as the most brilliant and corrupt politician Louisiana has ever produced. I was looking for something  Huey Long said that might be relevant to the issues of the day, and I found the following, which may not be all that relevant but is quintessential Huey Long:

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As previously noted (here and here), the controversy surrounding Richard Blumenthal’s run for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut provides the basis for considering what employers are sometimes faced with considering: resume fraud. It doesn’t appear that the controversy will end soon, so maybe more lessons about the subject are yet to come. Blumenthal did receive his party’s nomination this past weekend.

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A male professor at the University of Cork in Ireland has been disciplined with two years of intensive monitoring and counseling after discussing a scientific paper with a female colleague. The paper titled “Fellatio in fruit bats prolongs copulation” offended the female professor, who was also given a copy. She claimed sexual harassment. Though an investigation found that no sexual harassment had occurred, the university’s president censured the male professor by imposing the two-year discipline, which has the effect of preventing the male professor from obtaining tenure.

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A Staten Island middle school teacher was suspended after eighth graders used vulgar words during a state-mandated lesson on behaviors that can transmit H.I.V./AIDS. The 26-year veteran teacher with an unblemished record wrote polite words for sexual organs, sexual acts and bodily fluids on the board in the classroom. She then asked students to supply terms they knew for those same things. Students provided bad words, took them home, shocked their parents, and caused the principal to suspend the teacher.

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In two cases filled with what some would call legal mumbo jumbo (but important nonetheless), the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unanimously (!) in favor of employees. In Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance, the Court found that an employee was entitled to recover attorneys fees under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). In Lewis v. City of Chicago, the Court determined that discrimination charges had been timely filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), allowing the employees to proceed with their race discrimination lawsuit. (For good summaries, see Ross Runkel, here and here.)

In Choi v. Marciano, a Los Angeles jury awarded America’s largest 2009 verdict against Guess Jeans mogul George Marciano. This verdict is worth special attention, because the underlying lawsuit arose out of an employment matter. Five former Guess employees claimed that Marciano defamed them when he accused them of stealing and sued them for embezzlement. Each employee was awarded $74 million for a total of $370 million.

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An earlier post advised that new help is on the way for employers struggling with dress codes and employees struggling to comply. The Prep is still in the works, but it’s already having an impact. According to the New York Times, khaki pants are making a comeback as part of workplace dress. They are well on the way to replacing various kinds of denim  pants, which should never have been allowed in the workplace to begin with. But I digress.

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