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This is a case in which the Ninth Circuit determined that AT&T (then Pacific Telephone and Telegraph) violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of Title VII (PDA) by not offering the same retirement benefits to women who took time off due to pregnancy as those offered to employees who took time off due to other disabilities, despite the fact that the women had taken the time prior to the establishment of the PDA.

From SCOTUSblog:

In late May 2008, the United States – in response to the Court’s late January call for the views of the Solicitor General – filed a brief in which it urges the Court to grant certiorari. First, the government argues, the Ninth Circuit erred in holding that AT&T violated Title VII when, in calculating benefits, it failed to credit pre-PDA pregnancy leave; such a conclusion, the government emphasizes, gave an unintended retroactive effect to the PDA. Second, the government contends that efforts by the Ninth Circuit and respondents to characterize AT&T’s NCS system as facially discriminatory are “seriously flawed,” reasoning that when the petitioner adopted and applied its pre-PDA pregnancy leave policies, there was no law requiring pregnancy leave to be treated like other temporary disability leaves. Consequently, the policy could be discriminatory only if the PDA had retroactive effect, which it clearly did not. Indeed, the government continues, not only was it not retroactive, but the PDA “did not even apply prospectively to benefits programs” until 180 days after its enactment.

The United States next argues that, to circumvent the fact that the PDA did not at the time of its passage require employers to credit employees for pre-PDA pregnancy leave, the Ninth Circuit held that AT&T was nevertheless required to adjust the NCS date to account for pre-PDA pregnancy leave whenever it calculated benefits for any employee who had taken pre-PDA pregnancy leave. However, in the government’s view, “that kind of perpetuation-of-past discrimination claim is” – notwithstanding respondents’ arguments to the contrary – directly foreclosed” by a line of Supreme Court precedent starting with Evans and most recently revisited in Ledbetter.

With more and more of our society retiring, I have a feeling that we’re going to see a number of these types of cases arise over the next few years. Whatever the outcome, it’s certainly going to be a landmark decision.

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During his travels, he danced a goofy little dance in front of landmarks in different countries. During his second go-round (sponsored by Stride Gum), he danced some more, this time with people whose respective countries he visited.

It’s a beautiful video and it made me cry because what Matt is doing makes it seem that it would be easy for us just to put away our hatred of each other and just dance a goofy little dance with the world.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

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(06-19) 13:05 PDT WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court today overturned a California law that prohibited employers from using money they get from the state to campaign against labor unions.

In a 7-2 ruling, the court said the law, the first of its kind in the nation, conflicts with federal labor laws that allow employers to speak freely against unionization, as long as they do not use threats or coercion.

The federal law that protects workers’ right to join a union also favors “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open debate in labor disputes,” said Justice John Paul Stevens in the majority opinion. He also said employees have a right to receive information opposing unions.

The union-sponsored law, signed in 2000 by then-Gov. Gray Davis, barred state contractors and other companies that receive at least $10,000 from the state in a year from using any of that money to support or oppose union organizing. The law was suspended by a federal judge in 2003 but reinstated in September 2006 by a federal appeals court in San Francisco.

This is another interesting one. I’m sure that the NLRB is going to appeal this as violating employee rights under the NLRA.

The ruling can be found here.

Another one to keep an eye on. It’s been a busy day in the Courts.

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SAN FRANCISCO: A federal appeals court in San Francisco has made it more difficult for employers to legally access e-mails and text messages sent by their workers on company accounts.

Under Wednesday’s ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, employers that contract an outside business to transmit text messages can’t read them unless the worker agrees.

The ruling also lets employers access employee e-mails only if they are kept on an internal server.

The case originated from a lawsuit by Ontario, California, police Sgt. Jeff Quon and three other officers. They sued after wireless provider Arch Wireless turned over to the police department transcripts of Quon’s text messages to them in 2002. Police officials read them to determine whether department-issued pagers were being used solely for work purposes.

A lawyer for the city of Ontario and its police department says his clients probably will appeal Wednesday’s ruling.

I expect that this one is going to raise a lot of questions as to the electronic rights of employees and employers.

I, for one, am really looking forward to the impending dialogue.

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Feasibility Study is an illustration of a man’s anxious emotional struggle the day after he loses his job. The goal was to make more of an emotional landscape than a concrete narrative. This was my Masters thesis project at the Glasgow School of Art

A beautiful piece. You can see more of Ryan Fedyk’s work here.

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Jackson Lewis has a great article outlining some of these challenges, particularly around benefits and taxes.

Definitely worth a look.

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UPDATE: As it turns out, our very good friend Chuck Cirino did the video, editing and music for this piece. Yay Chuck!

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From California Wage Law:

In this case, Advanced-Tech had filed a motion for summary adjudication on the overtime claims on the ground that the plaintiff could not prove that she was not paid one-and-a-half times her regular rate of pay for the days she worked in excess of 8 hours per day and/or in excess of 40 hours in one week. The moving papers argued that she was paid time-and-a-half for her holiday work, and the holiday/premium pay was properly credited against overtime pay to the extent she worked in excess of a 40-hour workweek.

The opposition argued that she was entitled to premium pay for holidays, and if she worked in excess of 40 hours in the same week, she was also entitled to additional overtime payments because the pay provision for holidays set forth in her employee’s handbook was part of her regular rate of pay, citing Santa Monica Police Officers Assn. v. Board of Administration (1977) 69 Cal.App.3d 96, 100, footnote 3.

Advanced-Tech argued in the reply that in the applicable weeks, she worked 60 hours; she was paid at her regular rate for 40 hours; she received 12 hours of holiday pay; and she received 8 hours of overtime pay. Therefore, she was paid properly under section 510, with the premium holiday pay credited against overtime.

The trial court denied Advanced-Tech’s motion for summary adjudication and Advanced-Tech filed a petition for writ of mandate. The Court of Appeal issued a writ directing the trial court to grant the motion.

A rare victory for a California employer. Go figure.

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It’s nice to know one is never alone in one’s office angst.

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Thanks to my wonderful husband Scott for turning me on to this site.

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Gee, with unemployment rates rising nationally (5.5% in May) and California holding at 6.2%, why oh why would we ever need an extension of UI?

Yes, I realize that the defeat of this bill is good news for employers, but I can’t help but think that there for the grace of the unemployed go I.

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From Salon’s Machinist blog:

Site founder Robert Hohman calls this the “give to get” model. You tell Glassdoor where you work, how much you make, what you do, how you like it, what you think of your bosses, and, if you want, how you feel about the whole situation. This is all anonymous, of course (the site will vet you: Glassdoor verifies your e-mail address, and its staffers, who read every comment posted to the site, will contact you if they sense something fishy, like if you say that there isn’t a single thing amiss at your bankrupt company).

In return for your dish, you get full access to Glassdoor. And once you’re in, you’ll have a ball, whether you’re actively looking for a job or are just interested in the scuttlebutt at a certain firm. I suspect folks will linger at the salary data, which is graphed and sorted by employee function.

According to Techcrunch:

Glassdoor.com has taken $3 million Series B in a round led by Benchmark Capital…CEO and Founder Robert Hohman was previously the President of Hotwire.com, and the team includes Richard Barton, CEO of Zillow and Tim Besse, previously in senior management at Expedia.

Whatever the response is, it looks like it’s going to be a PITA for all of us in HR. Salary.com was bad enough with their inflated sense of salaries (and the inevitable employee who tried to prove that he was being underpaid because HR people don’t know what they’re doing…) but now real salaries out in the open for all to see. Never mind the confidentiality concerns and issues around trade secrets.

Oh joy.

I feel a migraine coming on.

UPDATE: Okay, my migraine is slowly fading. When I mentioned this site to my colleague, she laughed and said that this would be a good way to get free salary statistics. Good spin on that one. Thanks!

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Don’t get Lost. And remember that no man (or woman) is an island and that to everything there is a season.

(Thanks Scott!)

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I don’t know whether this really happened or if it was staged. Either way, it’s a good reminder to brush up on those “Violence in the Workplace” policies. The CDC and NIOSH are great resources to learn about risk factors, prevention and non-violent solutions.

UPDATE: It was indeed a fake. I knew it!

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My beloved State Supreme Court has ruled that marriage between same gender couples is considered to be completely legal and that the same civil rights apply to all Californians.

From SFGate:

In a 4-3 ruling that elicited passionate responses on both sides of the debate and touched off celebrations at San Francisco City Hall - the scene of nearly 4,000 same-sex weddings four years ago that were invalidated months later - the court said the right to marry in California extends equally to all, gay and straight alike.

The state Constitution’s guarantees of personal privacy and autonomy protect “the right of an individual to establish a legally recognized family with the person of one’s choice,” said Chief Justice Ronald George, who wrote the 121-page majority opinion. He said the Constitution “properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as opposite-sex couples.”

This is going to change how we process things like benefits in California and I’m sure there is going to be some scrambling on the part of those who provide insurance plans to California employers, but all in all I see this as a very good thing.

I love where I live.

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