Current Events

Many persons have been wondering about their federal and state employment and collective bargaining rights. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has a long history of issuing fair and balanced judicial decisions including those that effect employees’ rights and collective bargaining. Prior to her being appointed to the US Supreme Court, Judge Jackson had to decide in AFGE whether a President’s Orders were legitimate exercises of his authority. Part I on AFGE, may be read here for continuity. Her long history of issuing decisions that were both fair and balanced, was again displayed in this matter.

Some legal scholars are concerned that US Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, decided June 24, 2022 contains rationales that will stimulate the Court’s self-encouragement for overturning other legal precedents affecting non-binary and non-cisgender rights, such as the Supreme Court precedents legalizing same-sex marriage and employee LGBTQ rights. The Court in Dobbs overturned the 50-year-old legal precedent of Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S.

Many persons have been wondering about their federal and state employment and collective bargaining rights. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has a long history of issuing fair and balanced judicial decisions in all matters before her, including those that affect employees’ rights and collective bargaining. In one such case prior to her being appointed to the US Supreme Court, Judge Jackson had to decide whether a President’s Orders were legitimate exercises of presidential authority.

 In AFGE v. Trump, 318 F.

Institutional ageism is prevalent  in many tech companies and this has been true for at least decades with Mark Zuckerberg's widely-circulated "young people are just smarter" quote from 2007. IT workers experience more age discrimination than many other professions. However, this biased attitude toward older workers which persists across the IT sector, is not just limited to the private sector and Fortune 500 companies. IT Network administrators working for public entities such just as towns, counties and the state, experience the same prejudiced attitudes. They are all too frequently forced out of jobs and replaced by younger, though not more qualified, workers.

Some unscrupulous employers are becoming savvier about avoiding lawsuits when they fire an employee for an illegal reason. One of the ruses that devious employers may implement is telling their employees that they are undergoing a massive overhaul of their business structure so that it will be an all-new model. They then tell the employees that they are terminated but encourage them to apply for a position within the new business model.

A police officer in the City of East Orange in Essex County NJ, earlier this year sued the the City of East Orange Police Department and his supervisor under Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), N.J.S.

For NJ employees who experience discrimination on the job because of their weight, relief is hopefully in sight with the introduction of legislature bills that would make discrimination based on an employee’s height or weight illegal, except in those extremely rare instances where a certain weight or height is a bona fide occupational qualification. Weight discrimination disproportionately affects women. It’s no secret that individuals, usually women, are too frequently discriminated against in hiring and promotions because of their weight. Pressure on individuals, particularly women, to maintain certain weight appearance standards contributes to eating disorders and lifelong health issues. No person should suffer discrimination on the job because the boss does not care for the employee’s weight or height.

As the average age of those in the US workforce is getting older, there is a corresponding rise in ageism in the workplace. The oldest employees are the most disadvantaged in locating new employment if they are terminated, yet too often both private corporate and public employers will not hesitate to terminate even the oldest worker even though the worker is meeting the employer’s legitimate business expectations. If you were fired and think age may have been a factor, you may have a valid claim. Don’t sit on your rights.

If you are an older worker who was terminated while younger workers were retained, you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation.

As I am sure my readers already know, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Org., decided June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned the long-established precedent of a woman’s Constitutional right to an abortion, thereby returning the issue of abortion rights left to be decided by individual states. This gives rise to a vast discrepancy in the breadth of legal rights granted to women dependent on which state a woman resides in, although the facts of two such women may otherwise be identical.

Some legal scholars deduce that we may expect to see an impetus for other rights which are long-settled precedents by the US Supreme Court, to  be overturned and similarity returned to individual states, whose state courts would then decide the legal rights of men and women in those states.

Concerns among some legal civil rights activists, that were raised by the June 28, 2022 Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Org. Opinion, were exacerbated by the line of questioning of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on her confirmation to be a US Supreme Court Justice.

These concerns arise not only because the Dobbs opinion overturns a 50-year-old precedent of established law. These concerns are also driven by the line of questioning put forth to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and statements made by US Senators during, and subsequent to,  her confirmation hearings in March 2022 during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.

During the confirmation hearings, some Senators stated it was their opinion certain issues previously decided by the US Supreme Court could also be overturned and such legal issues be returned to the states for the individual states to decide them on a state-by-state basis.