Recent trends reveal that employment retaliation claims are on the rise.  Further, courts are taking a hard line on offending employers accused of retaliation in employment.  A review of United States Supreme Court decisions in retaliation cases reveals a remarkable degree of agreement among the Justices.  Even conservative Justices who are considered supportive of business as a matter of judicial philosophy do not take kindly to retaliation against employees who have asserted workplace legal claims.

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Rick Sanchez, a CNN daytime anchor, was fired last week for going off on Jon Stewart and people like him. He did this in a radio interview. Jon Stewart came up because Stewart has repeatedly mocked Sanchez on The Daily Show. As Sanchez continued to talk, it became obvious that “the people like Stewart” were Jews. I’m not sure Sanchez said anything that was really anti-Semitic, but he did take a shot or two at Jews during the interview.

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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a class action against Area Temps, alleging that the temporary agency had honored some of its clients’ requests to deny employment on the basis of race, age, gender, and national origin. To meet its client’s requests, Area Temps devised a code to screen out applicants. The code was used to make sure the agency didn’t place the wrong person at a client that had indicated a preference.

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Can nicknames be a problem at work? Of course. Nicknames that are tantamount to ethnic, racial or sexual slurs and given to an employee by co-workers are a problem. In those cases, it doesn’t matter whether the employee is called the nickname to his face or behind his back or whether the employee complains about the nickname. It can’t be tolerated.

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If an employee files a claim of discrimination and continues to work for an employer, it’s likely that, sooner rather than later, the employee will also file a retaliation claim. Someone in management will say something or do something that the employee believes to be in retaliation for the discrimination claim she initially filed. So, an employer in this kind of situation will end up with two claims, both usually filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In time, it’s become obvious that it’s easier for an employer to defend the discrimination claim than the retaliation claim. That means the employer can win one and lose the other.

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Yesterday, significant parts of Arizona’s new and controversial immigration law were ruled invalid by a federal judge. (Read here.) Undoubtedly, there will be an appeal, so who knows what will eventually happen? Not many people disagree with the proposition that there should be a federal overhaul of immigration law. But Congress isn’t about to act on this before the November elections, and it’s unlikely Congress will act on it after the elections.

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Arizona’s state legislature has been in an immigration crackdown mode since 2006 when it passed a law to dissolve companies with a pattern of hiring illegal immigrants. In 2009, it became a crime for a state government worker to give benefits to an illegal immigrant. According to the Los Angeles Times, the legislature has now enacted a bill making it a misdemeanor for an immigrant to lack proper paperwork and requiring police officers to investigate a person’s immigration status if they form a “reasonable suspicion” that the person is an illegal immigrant.

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