New York Employment Attorneys Blog

A 70 year old employee of K-Mart has settled her claims out of court, following her termination from the retailer. The employee worked as a Pharmacist for the company for years. Her boss allegedly made repeated comments about her age, and said it was time for her to retire. Whe she did not voluntarily resign at his request, the boss apparently changed her schedule to work Sundays, making the employee miss church.

The settlement, $120,000, marks a major victory for this employee, as well as increasingly aging workers everywhere faced with increasing discrimination.

Read more here: Kmart Settles Age Discrimination Suit For $120K

In a rather appalling and head-scratching move, the Attorney General of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, issued an opinion to his states colleges stating that colleges should not put into place policies that prohibit students being discriminated against because they are gay.

The opinion, issued sometime last week, has raised the ire of groups defending gay rights throughout Virginia. Based on some interpretations, Cuccinelli seems to want it to be perfectly legal for universities to discriminate against students who identify as gay.

It is staggering that an individual who is in charge of enforcing the law in the state of Viriginia would have such an opinion, claiming that universities are beyond their rights to enforce such policies.

Universities are supposed to be centers of learning, and creating shared experiences with other individuals. The idea that universities should be openly hostile to people with different sexual orientations is laughable at best, and disgusting and hateful at worst.

The EEOC has found that a principal at Brooklyn's Khalil Gibran International School was forced out amid a storm of racial and national origin discrimination. The school, which is the only public school focused on teaching Arabic, faced a number of challenges from individuals who were opposed to the ideology of the City-funded school.

The school, which was founded in 2007 and was led by Debbie Almontaser, a Yemini woman. The school was met by a flurry of opposition by Conservative groups who called Ms. Almontaser a terrorist, a 9/11 denier and radical Muslim. Further, Ms. Almontaser sat on a board for a group, which had lent space to a group who created shirts with the word "intifada" on them- to which Ms. Alomontaser said she had no knowledge of.

Following the New York Post's radical misinterpretation of her remarks, and the ensuing media storm, Ms. Almontaser resigned following pressure from the teachers union and the Department of Education.

The EEOC's finding is both a positive take on this case, as well as surprising, in that the EEOC rarely takes such a strong position on these cases such as this.

We at the Harman Firm hope to see Ms. Almontaser prevail on her claims, and believes that the Department of Education should launch a detailed investigation into her claims before others are fired at the whims of reactionary groups.

A broad coalition of supporters are renewing the push for the Wage Theft and Responsible Employer Protection Act, a bill that is awaiting votes in the New York State Senate and Assembly. The bill would toughen penalties on employers that unlawfully withhold pay from their employees, and would provide for penalties that would double the fines paid to employees.

The supporters, groups of advocates for low income wage earners and other groups advocating for the poor and working families of New York, say that the bill is essential to close gaps that have been created, allowing for the exploitation of workers who earn minimum wage in the state.

According to a study by the National Employment Law Project, New York state's low wage earners are cheated of nearly 18 million dollars a week in lost, unpaid or deferred wages by their employers, amounting to over a billion dollars a year.

We at The Harman Firm applaud these groups standing up for the rights of underpaid and workers who have been taken advantage of by their employers. It is is sad that we have to continue to strengthen penalties against these employers rather than have employers who understand fair treatment, but it is reassuring to see that these groups are not taking these abuses sitting down.

The EEOC has recently proposed new rules dealing with the treatment of age discrimination in the workplace. Following the Supreme Courts decision in Gross vs. FBL Financial earlier this year, defendants in employment age discrimination suits have had a much easier time defending themselves in these situations, as plaintiffs now had to prove that age was the main and most significant factor motivating their termination- a ruling which has greatly limited plaintiffs rights in these situations.

Under the rule change, the EEOC hopes to better define the "Reasonable Factor Other than Age" (ROFA) that employers have used to defend themselves from claims of age discrimination and disparate impact. The proposed changes clarifies the reasons, and whether the reasons themselves are reasonable and justifiable:

- Whether the employment practice and the manner of its implementation are common business practices;
- the extent to which the factor is related to the employer's stated business goal;
-the extent to which the employer took steps to define the factor accurately and to apply --the factor fairly and accurately;
-the extent to which the employer took steps to assess the adverse impact of its employment practice on older workers;
-the severity of the harm to individuals within the protected group, in terms of both the degree of injury and the number of persons adversely affected, and the extent to which -the employer took preventative or corrective steps to minimize the severity of the harm, in light of the burden of undertaking such steps; and
-whether other options were available and the reasons the employer selected the option it did.

While it does not tackle the erosion of rights in claiming age discrimination in the Supreme Court's decision in Gross, it will at least be helpful in clarifying what constitutes a reasonable factor, and give Judges' more room in ruling on age discrimination cases.

If claims by a former employee are to be believed, Prada is no longer just picky about the look of the models they hire. An employee working for the company in Japan has claimed that he was forced to fire over 15 employees that, he was told were "old, fat, disgusting or not having the Prada look,"

The employee was also told that he should lose weight himself if he wanted to stay at the corporation.

While the employee is bringing suit in the UK, it is definitely an interesting conversation to have here in America. "Look" policies at fashionable stores in the United States has been a hot button issue at some points- look at Abercrombie's termination of a girl with a prosthetic arm and a Muslim girl with a headdress to see how these policies can cross the line from brand identity to open employment discrimination. While brand identities are an important part of any fashion company, no company should be able to take such action in violation of local, state and Federal laws concerning employment discrimination.

What do you think about Prada's treatment of these employees?

Gothamist- Is Licking Your Employee's Hand Sexual Harassment?

Feel free to weigh in on this...uhm..situation.

Mixed News on Job Market Survey

Staffing website Manpower Inc. has recently released the results of a survey it has conducted regarding employers and their staffing needs for the growing year. The good news is that amongst 18.000 employers, 73% state that they anticipate no changes to their current hiring plans. Further, only 8 percent plan on cutting work, which is down considerably from last years levels. Even more optimistic, 16% of employers surveyed plan on adding new employees to their payroll, showing that there is some hope to be had to be found in the current economic climate.

In a report released on March 3, the AARP claims that the last decade was one of the worst for older employees. Most staggering amongst the findings in the report is that older employees unemployment rates jumped over 331% over the last ten years.

Whereas the decade started on a bad note for older employees, with layoffs coming to make way for younger employees, the recession beginning in 2007 and 2008 has only compounded the problems faced by these workers, making the lives of workers 55 and over extremely difficult in these times.

Uncertain economic conditions, eroding pensions and savings, coupled with individuals living longer and healthier lives than previously has all contributed to a glut in unemployed workers 55 and over. This group includes individuals who are looking to return to a career after a break or retirement.

Coupled with unemployment, respondents in the report claimed that they believe their age was a hindering factor in their inability to find adequate employment. These statements reflect the trend that older workers are continually being discriminated against on the basis of their age, and steps need to be taken to protect the rights of elderly workers.

Check out a blog published in the SF Chronicle recently regarding the trend of more men reporting sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct: Men filing sexual harassment complaints: a rising trend?

Of note, the blog states that

Women still file the overwhelming majority of sexual harassment claims with the EEOC and state and local agencies. But lawyers at the commission say they've noticed the increase in complaints by men -- more than 2,000 were filed in 2009 out of about 12,700 cases

A group of long-time target employees in Arizona have come forward claiming that they were forced out of their positions because of their age. Following a series of terminations, a group of employees noticed a pattern regarding the layoffs, which had affected mainly older employees who had began working for the company in Arizona in the early 80's. These employees were mostly salaried employees with benefits, making nearly $50,000 or more. While nearly all of these employees had helped build the stores, and had a long history of effective performance, one by one they were forced to resign or face termination.

The group of employees claim that as they got older, new and younger managers would build cases against them, bring up false charges against them and harass them, all in an effort to terminate them. The older employees were referred to as "blockers" in management meetings- meaning that they got in the way of younger employees and needed to be terminated.

The account, which can be read in greater detail here- Longtime Tucson Target employees say they were forced out because of their higher salaries, is a depressing account of the ways in which the increasingly elderly work force is being treated as they age. No employee should be subject to such blatant discrimination based on their age as they are still capable and valued employees of an organization.

In what seems like a bad week for New York politicians (See Patterson, David; Rangel, Charles), it is being reported that Congressman Eric Massa from Upstate New York is planning to resign on charges that he sexually harassed a male staffer.

Massa, who is a freshman Democratic Congressman, is married with two children, made the announcement after the House Ethics committee was notified of the complaints of the staffer, and intended to conduct an investigation into these claims.

Massa was previously diagnosed with terminal cancer, but had stated that he has made a complete recovery and has been cured.

While its not very surprising to find another member of Government caught up in a career ending scandal, the fact that Massa had sexually harassed another male coworker depicts the rise of male/male sexual harassment in our society, and the serious ways these claims are being treated.