First Tribune Handbook Violator: Its Creator
Published by James Peters February 6th, 2008 in Policy : Opinion, RetaliationOk, so this topic has been blogged to death by not only me, but the blawgosphere as a whole. However, I just received this update to the story.
Sam Zell, the head of Tribune Co., met with his employees/journalists last week at the Orlando Sentinel, one of the newspapers covered by his idiotic/inspiring (depending on [...]
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Employment Discrimination Against Medical Marijuana Users is Legal in California
Published by James Peters January 24th, 2008 in Discrimination, Policy : Opinion, Privacy IssuesWell, the California Supreme Court finally released its opinion in Ross v. Ragingwire Telecommunications, Inc., S138130, today and I have to say I am disappointed with the opinion, although I think the dissenting opinion was completely on the mark.
The Decision
The Court decided that employers can terminate employees in California who use medical marijuana with a [...]
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Our Gobbledygood vs. Their Gobbledygook
Published by James Peters January 23rd, 2008 in Employment Contracts, Policy : OpinionWell, my post about the Los Angeles Times article on their new employee handbook seems to have set off (or at least contributed to) a firestorm throughout the web. Some of the reaction seems off-the-mark, though.
Comments: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
The overwhelming majority of mail I received is in agreement with my comments [...]
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“Mind-Numbing Lawyer Gobbledygook” Overrated?
Published by James Peters January 19th, 2008 in Discrimination, Employment Contracts, Harassment, Medical Leaves, Policy : OpinionAn article in Thursday’s Los Angeles Times discusses their own parent company, Tribune Co.’s new employee handbook that was introduced by their CEO, Sam Zell, via a recent e-mail to employees.
This caught my eye because it is not every day that a company publicly releases or discusses their employee handbook. In fact, many handbooks [...]
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Ron Paul on Employee Rights (Part 3): Darn Those Pesky Civil Rights Laws
Published by James Peters January 17th, 2008 in Discrimination, Policy : OpinionIn this third and final installment in our series on Ron Paul’s comments about employee rights in his book Freedom Under Siege, we examine his views on civil rights legislation in general, which can be found in several sections of his book, but is best summed up with the following quote found on page [...]
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Ron Paul on Employee Rights (Part 2): Unattractive Women Need Not Apply
Published by James Peters January 16th, 2008 in Discrimination, Policy : OpinionThis is the second in our series of posts based on Presidential Candidate Ron Paul’s musings on employee rights in his book Freedom Under Siege. This installment’s “Paulism” can be found on page 17 of the book:
The idea that the social do-gooder can legislate a system which forces industry to pay men and women [...]
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Ron Paul on Employee Rights (Part 1): Sexual Harassment-What’s the Big Deal?
Published by James Peters January 15th, 2008 in Discrimination, Harassment, Policy : OpinionI have tried to tune out most of the political primary hysteria because I (1) made up my mind about who I would be supporting in the election long ago and (2) I live in California, so my opinion is not really that important at this stage.
Today I happened to stumble across some of Ron [...]
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Sometimes the "Decider" is Wrong
Published by James Peters January 12th, 2008 in Discrimination, Harassment, Policy : OpinionLet me first say that I rarely disagree with decisions by California state or federal appellate courts (at least those I am not personally involved in and therefore biased towards). However, I occasionally come across a case where I just think the court got it wrong.
In Mokler v. County of Orange, et.al. (Cal.App.Dist.4 11/26/2007), No. [...]
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CA Supreme Court Considers Employees’ Medical Marijuana Use
Published by James Peters November 7th, 2007 in Discrimination, Policy : Opinion, Privacy Issues, Wrongful TerminationYesterday the California Supreme Court heard arguments in Ross v. Ragingwire Telecommunications, Inc.
In this case, the employee was refused employment because his pre-employment drug test came back positive for marijuana. The employee had been using medical marijuana at the direction of his physician to deal with lower back strain and muscle spasms.
Case Background
Under [...]
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The “No Bad Apples Rule”
Published by James Peters March 5th, 2007 in Harassment, Policy : OpinionEmployers could avoid a LOT of lawsuits if they would just follow the “No Bad Apples Rule”, which has its origins in a book written by Dr. Robert Sutton called “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t”. Although I agree with Dr. Sutton that “bad apples” probably is [...]
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Mandatory Arbitration “Trick” Risky for All and Good for None
Published by James Peters January 14th, 2007 in Employment Contracts, Policy : OpinionJay Shepherd over at the Gruntled Employees blawg has an interesting post from the employer’s attorney perspective about why he believes mandatory arbitration clauses are a “stupid employer trick” and actually “not good for employers”.
I never understood why many employers force their employees to sign mandatory arbitration clauses, so this is refreshing to hear from [...]
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