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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All HR professionals know that a harassment claim must be investigated promptly and then appropriate action taken. In Moody v. East Mississippi State Hospital, decided by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, an employee’s suit was dismissed, in part, for exactly that reason.

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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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You are undoubtedly aware of the tragic workplace violence in Manchester, Connecticut. (Click here, here and here for recent recaps.) A few new facts have emerged but shed little light on this deadly event.  As fellow blogger Daniel Schwartz, a lawyer in Connecticut, wrote yesterday, the “awful truth” is that, no matter how right employers do things, there is no absolute way to prevent workplace violence once an employee has crossed the line and decided to kill co-workers. I came to a similar conclusion when I wrote several posts on the Fort Hood violence.

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For over 40 years, race discrimination claims have been primarily asserted by minority employees: African-Americans, Hispanics, and members of various other racial or ethnic groups. On the rare occasion when a white employee alleged discrimination, it was called “reverse discrimination.” The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, composed of six conservative Republicans and two liberal Democrats, has increasingly placed the spotlight on discrimination against whites.

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On October 14, 2009, I did a post on the value of zero tolerance policies: 0. The recent firestorm surrounding the forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod by the U.S. Department of Agriculture validates the 10/14/09 post as well as anything possibly could. Most of what has been written about the Sherrod debacle has focused on race and politics. This post focuses on employment and human resources issues. (For a similar post, see Dan Oswald.)

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The City of Chicago administered a written examination to 26,000 applicants as part of its hiring process for entry-level firefighters. After scoring the tests, the results were grouped into three categories: applicants who scored 89 or above deemed “well qualified”; applicants who scored between 65 and 88 deemed “qualified”; applicants who scored lower than 65 deemed as having failed the exam. The “well qualified” group consisted of 75.8% white and 11.5% African-American. African-American applicants filed suit, contending that the cutoff scores had a disparate impact on racial minorities.

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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.)

The Governor of Virginia has declared the month of April to be Confederate History Month. Could this present any employment problems for Virginia employers? After all, Black History Month is celebrated in February. Some employers have events at work calling attention to black history during February. Okay for Virginia employers to have events calling attention to Confederate history? What if African-American employees object?

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Wal-Mart makes a lot of announcements to its shoppers or customers. At a New Jersey store recently, an announcement came over the public-address system saying, “All black people leave the store now.” Wal-Mart officials are trying to determine from security tapes who commandeered the public-address system to create this embarrassment.

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