Current Events

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Must My Employer Allow Me to Pump Milk at Work? Accommodations for Breastfeeding Employees


New Jersey breastfeeding employees gained new legal protection from job discrimination under state legislation signed into law which expanded the classes of persons protected from discrimination.  This Article updates the December 2017 article on breastfeeding mothers at work.

First introduced in 2016,  http://www.njleg.state.

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Tuesday, February 6, 2018

If I Reported Other Employees to My Boss, Can I Get Fired? Was this Protected Activity?

Not all of an employee’s reports or complaints to a supervisor about the employer’s business practices that involve other employees are “protected activity”. If it is protected activity and the employer retaliates, the retaliation is illegal.

If an employee reports to a supervisor, that another employee is discriminating, or harassing him or creating a hostile work environment because of the employee’s protected class status, i.e., based on race, disability, age, etc., the reporting about the offending employee is a protected activity under the retaliation provision of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.


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Tuesday, January 30, 2018

I’m off Work for Pregnancy Illness, Can I Get More Time off for My Baby?

I frequently get asked when a pregnant woman requires time off from work because of her own serious medical condition related to her pregnancy, if she can also ask for additional leave to care for her newborn child. Both the federal statute, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the New Jersey=s Family Leave Act (FLA) allow certain covered employees who work for certain qualified employers, i.e., employers who are covered under the statute, to take time off to care for certain family members under certain conditions.

The major difference between the statutes is that the federal statute, Family and Medical Leave Act, additionally allows an employee to take time off because of the same employee=s own serious health condition, when such serious health condition renders the employee unable to perform the function of his/her employment position.


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Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Has My Boss Retaliated Against Me? What Comprises Retaliation?

Employees may feel as though their job status is in limbo, when after what they believed to be a frank and honest discussion with their boss, they begin to feel a chill in the workplace atmosphere, experience that others are distancing themselves from them (fearing a potential reprisal) and some of the conditions of their employment have changed. It is very disturbing when an employee bought things to the attention of management in good faith, such as what he/she believed were discriminatory practices, unsafe working conditions or that the employer was not adhering to certain legal regulations or guidelines, and felt a burden lifted and all was "now good", only to subsequently think the employer is retaliating for such honest reporting.


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Thursday, January 11, 2018

Can I Sue My Employer for Transferring Me?


Generally an employer has the right to run their business or agency to promote their own financial interests and in the case of a public entity to best fulfill their purpose. The relevant legal term is “bona fide business purpose”. “Bona fide” is Latin for "good faith," and in terms of employment transfers, it signifies that honesty exists in the business purpose for the transfer, and that it is not being done for illegal reasons. One illegal reason would be that you are a member of a “protected class” under the law, and the employer is discriminating against you because you are member of that class; by way of example, you are black and the boss doesn’t like blacks or has a


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Wednesday, January 10, 2018

When My Employer Won’t Allow Extended Leave for Medical Treatments


This Article updates the Thursday, October 12, 2017, post, “Employer Breast Cancer Discrimination Because I Am Female?” which described the case of a corporate executive, a female who was head of original programming for a major cable television network, was fired in while on medical leave for breast cancer.

Sometimes an employer illegally discriminates against a woman with breast cancer because of a bias against women in addition to disability discrimination. One of the more common forms of discrimination against a female worker with breast cancer is when the employer will not allow an extended FMLA leave or another type of accommodation that the employer routinely gives to male employees with cancer.


Read more . . .


Monday, January 8, 2018

Extreme Race Discrimination including Nooses, KKK Emblems, and Racist Names at Work


As shocking as it may seem to some workers, blatant and egregious racial harassment in the US workplace still rears its ugly head in the 21st century and at times even includes KKK emblems, nooses and the N-word. An employer’s illegally using race as a factor as to who to promote and decisions as who to let go, is the more common form of race discrimination in today’s workplace. However, blatant and egregious racial harassment in the workplace, even in the form of KKK emblems, hangman’s nooses, and use of the N-word, is far more common than is generally known.


Read more . . .


Wednesday, January 3, 2018

I Work for a Small Employer, Can I Get Time Off for My Own Medical Condition?


It comes as a surprise to many that the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) which grants family and temporary medical leave under certain circumstances, does not apply to all employers and that not all employees are covered under the Act.

Which Employers Are Required to Give FMLA Leave?

For the FMLA to apply, the employer, if a private employer, must have 50 or more employees. Private employers with fewer than 50 employees are not covered by the FMLA, but may be covered by state family and medical leave laws.

However, if you are an employee for a government agency, including elementary and secondary schools, local, state and government agencies, the FMLA applies to all such employers, regardless of the number of employees.

If My Employer Has over 50 Employees, Does That Mean I Will Be Allowed FMLA Leave?

Persons have come to me assuming that if they work for a large employer, they will automatically be entitled to leave under the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).


Read more . . .


Saturday, December 30, 2017

Older Workers Fight for Their Right to Work in Behemoth Class Action Lawsuit


Finally, the issue of discrimination against older persons seeking work, those who cannot even submit a job application because they are deliberately shut-out of learning about the open positions because of their age, is garnering some national attention. I have successfully represented numerous age discrimination plaintiffs, female and male, who were employees in the private and public sectors, from cafeteria workers to professionals, and was successful in obtaining six figure settlements for them.

On December 20, 2017, a class action lawsuit on behalf of older workers was filed by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) against hundreds of large employers including Amazon.


Read more . . .


Tuesday, December 19, 2017

I Am a Breastfeeding Mother and My Employer Will Not Let Me Express Milk or Pump Milk While I Am at Work. What Can I Do?


I Am a Breastfeeding Mother and My Employer Will Not Let Me Express Milk or Pump Milk While I Am at Work. What Can I Do?

Let’s face it: if men were breastfeeding and required breaks at work to pump their milk, whether or not they had a civil right to breastfeed, which for working people naturally entails being allowed breaks at work to pump milk, would not even be an issue. There would be dedicated spaces at work to pump milk.

For years progressive attorneys and women’s rights groups have lobbied for civil rights of women who breastfeed to be allowed time at work to pump or express milk. While a federal law was passed in 2010 called the Break Time for Nursing Mothers Law, there was wiggle room for employers with less than 50 employees to circumvent the law if they could prove enforcing it would created an undue hardship on the business.

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Thursday, December 14, 2017

Gender Stereotyping at Work, If You Experience Same Sex Harassment but Think It’s Not Sexual in Nature


Persons may wonder if harassment is actionable,  when they are being ridiculed or otherwise harassed at work by members of their same sex when they do not perceive the harassment as necessarily being “sexual” in nature,  i.e., they do not feel like they are being sexually “ hit on” by the harasser, and they do not perceive it as the harasser being sexually or otherwise attracted to them.

The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, N.J.


Read more . . .


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