On the heels of my dress code post, a word on the latest in fashion design seems appropriate. A Spanish designer has developed a spray-on fabric as the newest form of clothing. If it has staying power, the spray-on may be the next clothing problem employers will have to face. It seems fraught with all kinds of mischief — from those wearing it and from those looking at people who are wearing it. This may make traditional skintight apparel obsolete. But don’t change your dress code just yet.

Last week’s news about the clothing of a female sports reporter named Ines Sainz and the reaction by New York Jets players is still in play. My post on the subject provoked a few mixed comments and several private emails, some agreeing with me, some not. Since it’s still talked and written about, often in the context of sex discrimination or sexual harassment, it seemed to justify a tip of the week.

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Shatkin, Shifflett, Maples and Knight worked together as administrative assistants. Shatkin, Shifflett and Maples didn’t  get along with Knight. These three employees had strong religious beliefs and decided to seek a higher power’s help in dealing with Knight. After the workday had ended and Knight had left for the day, Shatkin, Shifflett and Maples gathered at Knight’s cubicle. Shatkin rubbed olive oil on the metal doorway of the cubicle to invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit. Shifflett began chanting to remove the demons that possessed Knight. Maples offered an amen.

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Well, Hewlett-Packard apparently regards Mark Hurd more highly than we thought. HP fired Mark Hurd, its CEO,  for filing false expense reports. (Here and here.) This decision resulted from a sexual harassment claim against Hurd, although HP ’s investigation turned up no evidence of harassment.

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Last week, I had a post about the restaurant server who filed a claim with the Tennessee Occupational Safety Health Administration, contending that Tennessee’s law allowing registered gun owners to bring their guns into restaurants and bars that serve alcohol violated TOSHA. Why? Allowing guns to be brought into places that serve alcohol creates a dangerous and unsafe workplace for employees who work in the restaurants and bars because of the threat of violence.

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Like a few other states, Tennessee has a law on the books that permits registered gun owners to bring their guns into establishments serving alcohol. A server in a Nashville restaurant has filed an anonymous complaint with the Tennessee Occupational Safety and Health Administration claiming that mixing guns with alcohol creates an unsafe work environment under TOSHA.

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About a decade ago, a group of female employees of Wal-Mart filed a sex discrimination class action against the company, beginning the case known as Dukes v. Wal-Mart. It now involves more than a million current and former female employees and is easily the largest employment discrimination lawsuit in American history. Wal-Mart has now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review this case — not based on whether discrimination occurred but based on whether it’s permissible for a case involving so many women can proceed as a class action.

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There have been several posts on this blog concerning an employer’s right to monitor an employee’s activity. (Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) This can include reviewing how an employee uses her computer at work; placing cameras throughout the workplace to monitor employee activity; searching an employee and an employee’s property at work to enforce drug, weapons, and other policies; listening to employee telephone conversations at work; and placing GPS monitoring devices on vehicles used by employees.

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Residents in 14 states plus DC are able to obtain prescriptions from their doctors for medical marijuana to deal with pain. Only the law in Rhode Island, however, prevents employers from firing employees who use medical marijuana. In the other states, there’s a big gray area when it comes to employers’ use of their drug testing policies to terminate an employee who tests positive, despite a doctor’s prescription.

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Much has been written about the problem with bullies in the workplace. A few posts on the subject have appeared on this blog. (Here, here, here, and here.) Some states have even considered legislation to deal with this problem. I don’t have the answer. I don’t think state legislatures do either. I do have a few suggestions and tips.

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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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Harvard is one of the most revered teaching and research universities in the U.S., usually ranked number one. Lately, the school has been teaching in a way it doesn’t like. Dr. Marc Hauser, Harvard professor and scientific researcher, is accused by the school of eight instances of scientific misconduct. Ironically, Hauser has been the leading scientist in the exploration of cognition and morality. Hauser’s quest to delve into issues of right and wrong in the minds of humans and animals has run off the rails. In addition to Harvard’s investigation, the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Office of Inspector for the National Science Foundation are investigating Hauser.

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In a recent Slate article, Sharon Lerner rips both federal and state governments for the paucity of leave given women after the birth of  a child. The article also discusses leave laws across the country. I will avoid joining the philosophical debate on pregnancy leave (which is what Lerner’s article is mainly about), but the article will serve as the basis for this week’s tip.

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Already plenty strange (see previous post), Hewlett Packard’s firing of CEO Mark Hurd has become more strange. As it turns out, HP’s board of directors asked a public relaltions firm to tell HP what to do. I’m not making this up. One of the oldest and most respected technology firms in the U.S. decided on the future of its CEO based on snake oil.

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The flight attendant who got his 15 minutes of fame a few days ago has become a folk hero to fellow attendants. Flight attendants are fed up with passengers — whom they divide into four categories: (1) all about me; (2) business; (3) casual; and (4) deer in headlights. They find (1) and (4) to be the most troublesome. All flight attendants have wanted to do what their folk hero did. They also purport to speak for all employees who hate their jobs.

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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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It’s not unusual for employers to require certain employees to sign agreements containing restrictive covenants. These covenants might restrict competition for a period of time. These covenants might take the form of non-solicitation and non-disclosure restrictions, which say the employee can’t solicit the employer’s clients or customers or disclose proprietary information. If an employee has had significant contact with clients or customers, a non-solicitation agreement is quite important.

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The New York Times revisits a matter I blogged about on December 30, 2007: the firing of a teacher in training because, on her MySpace page, there was a picture of the would be teacher at a party wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic cup, with the caption “Drunken Pirate.” She was discharged. She then sued. She lost. The court pretty much agreed with my post. In the exhaustive Times article on various aspects of the Web and one’s privacy, Jeffrey Rosen says something must be done to keep one email or one picture from ruining one’s life.

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I’ve done several posts on cursing in the workplace. (Click here, here, here, and here.) Wall Street firms, known for their unwritten cursing-with-abandon practices, have been under the gun lately because of all the emails that have been reviewed as part of various ongoing investigations. It’s clear Wall Streeters can curse better or worse (depending on your point of view) than sailors. Thus, according to the Wall Street Journal, firms are cracking down on profanity, especially when it comes to emails.

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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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