Blogs

Employment Law

Elon Musk’s “What Not to Do” Moments – Part 3: Just Say No to Twitter!

Elon Musk has become a treasure trove of “what not to do moments” on Twitter for U.S. employers. Recently I blogged about Musk’s twitter exchange dust up with Haraldur Thorleifsson, a disabled Twitter employee, with Musk appearing to question whether Thorleifsson was disabled and to criticize his work ethic. Musk subsequently apologized to Thorleifsson, claiming…

April 6, 2023

Employment Law

FTC Votes to Extend Public Comment Period for Proposed Ban on Non-Competes

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) recently voted to extend the public comment period for its proposed new rule to ban employers from imposing non-competes on their workers. The public comment period was extended by the FTC for 30 days, until April 19, 2023. Originally the public comment deadline had been March 20, 2023. The proposed…

March 20, 2023

Employment Law

Elon Musk’s “What Not to Do” Moments, Part 2: Don’t Forget to Tell Your Employees That They Have Been Terminated!

In Part 1 of Elon Musk’s “what not to do” employment law moments, I wrote about the possible legal risks of a disparate treatment or hostile work environment employment discrimination claim that can arise under the ADA or Title VII when an employer makes disparaging and insensitive comments about an employee’s protected characteristics. In Musk’s…

March 13, 2023

Employment Law

Elon Musk’s “What Not to Do” Moment: Don’t Insult Your Disabled Employees on Twitter!

As a management-side employment law attorney, I spend much of my time advising employers on how to comply with the ADA’s disability accommodations requirements, no easy task, often using examples of what they should avoid. Thank you, Elon Musk, for providing a stark example this week with tweets that were publicly dismissive of Haraldur Thorleifsson,…

March 9, 2023

Employment Law

Equal Pay and Your Workplace: What Employers Need to Know

Equal Pay Day was originated in 1996 by the National Committee on Pay Equity to highlight the gap between men’s and women’s wages. The next Equal Pay Day is March 14, 2023. It symbolizes how far into 2023 women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. Equal pay and pay equality…

March 8, 2023

Employment Law

NLRB Changes Rules for Employee Severance Agreements

On February 21, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) issued a significant decision in McLaren Macomb, ruling that an employer may not offer employee severance agreements containing broad confidentiality and non-disparagement restrictions because such restrictions amount to an impermissible waiver of the employees’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). McLaren Macomb reverses…

February 24, 2023

Employment Law

Best Practices to Reduce Employer Risks in Implementing a Reduction-in-Force

The ever-present question for businesses this year is whether the U.S. economy is already in a recession or is slowly heading toward one? Traditional economic metrics show that the U.S. is not in a recession, for now. The Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes over the last 12 months have increased the cost of borrowing…

February 22, 2023

Business and Financial Services

Data Security in the Technological World

In today’s digital age, data security is a critical concern for individuals, businesses, and governments alike. With the increasing use of technology, the risk of data breaches, unauthorized data access, and theft of sensitive information has become a major concern for organizations of all sizes. At Bean, Kinney & Korman, we often advise clients on…

February 16, 2023

Employment Law

DOL: Best Practices to Minimize Risks of Remote Worker Unpaid Wage Claims

By most public health indicators, the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us. Remote work, a by-product of the pandemic, is here to stay. At the apex of the pandemic in late 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) issued a Field Assistance Bulletin (“FAB”) 2020-5 to provide guidance to businesses on “how…

February 14, 2023

Employment Law

OCR Says School Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Activities Do Not Violate Title VI’s Prohibition Against Race Discrimination

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) recently issued a Fact Sheet that makes clear to educators, and elementary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions that “diversity, equity, and inclusion training and similar activities,” in most circumstances, do not violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act’s (“Title VI”) prohibition against discrimination based…

February 8, 2023