Researchers have surveyed employees across the country about what workplace things annoy them the most.
The results are not surprising for anyone who has worked in a larger office before, with the number one annoyance being grumpy and moody coworkers.
Check out the full list here: Does "thinking outside the box" drive you mad?
What really annoys you at work? Stolen leftovers? Unnecessary meetings? Let us know!
A wave of people are calling in sick across the Pond, as thousands of people in the UK participated in "National Sickie Day". The first Monday in February has seen one of the highest rates of individuals calling out sick from work. However, individuals are no longer just calling out from work with the telltale horse voice, or claims of eating some bad chicken, with some bosses and HR professionals accepting emails and text messages from employees who claim to be ill.
What's your take on this situation? Is it high time for America to have "National Sickie Day" as well? Or is it dishonest to claim sick days when not actually sick?
The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of five New York City public students who claim they were harassed and abused by school safety officers employed by the New York City Police.
In an attempt to increase safety in public schools, the NYPD has employed these school safety officers to monitor school situations, and to ensure that all are safe to learn without the threat of violence or fear.
However, these students claim that the fear and intimidation has not come from school bullies, but the officer's themselves. The officer's are accused of abusing their authority by arresting, assaulting, and performing other actions on students in public schools who may have broken rules, but have not committed any crimes. This includes a sixth grader who had been handcuffed for drawing on a desk with an erasable marker, and other assaults on students who had violated school rules.
The five students claim that the officers acted well out of their authority, and have cause serious emotional and physical harm to them.
Read more on the New York Times City Blog, including a PDF of the complaint:
Suit Charges Abuses by School Safety Officers
On September 23, the House approved an extension of unemployment benefits for those collecting in states with an unemployment rate over 8.75%. This extension will apply to 27 states and the District of Columbia, and come at a time when many states unemployment roles are swelling while coffers are dwindling.
At the same time, Senator Max Bacchus from Montana is looking at ways to fund programs in the remaining states, not just the states with an employment rate near 9 percent. The remaining 23 states with lower rates of unemployment would seem to be left out of this current extension, forcing these states to figure out novel ways to cope with increasing unemployment.
The rise in unemployment throughout the country has been straining the budgets of states everywhere are recovery efforts are slow to trickle back down to hiring. Despite rosy pictures of economic outlooks from economists, this upturn has failed to result in substantial job hiring across the board, causing many to wonder what good is coming out of a recession if there are no jobs. This jobless recovery is a troubling paradox and a symbol of the recovery efforts so far.
We here at The Harman Firm sympathize with all workers who have been out of work and continue to look for suitable employment.
Check out this article- Facebook Breaks- detailing a proposal to allow users a ten minute "Facebook" break each day to check up on the goings on of the popular social networking site. This shows the perils of needing the internet to accomplish anything these days, and the distractions that come along with them.
This apparently comes on the heels of some reports claiming that the poplar site is draining production and causing economic sluggishness in Great Brittain.
What do you think? Should employers give workers time each day to check on Facebook? Will employees continue to do so with or without the break?
Or, should employees who spend too much time on Facebook be fired?
In an article published in today's USA Today examines how the recession has affected older, white male workers. While it has been reported that the recession has had a wide racial gap in unemployment in inner cities, the article looks across the country to see how this particular group has fared during this downtown. Conversely, the article claims that the overall unemployment gap racially throughout the country has shrank, due in part to the effect on these older white male workers.
The article explores men in their 50's who have worked the same or similar jobs throughout their lives, and are now finding themselves unemployed for the first time, and undertrained to take on new employment. Generally, older more experienced workers have ridden out periods of downturns, but the widening crises has expanded its reach to these workers who have often spent their careers with one company.
It also explores the difficulties associated with loosing a job that late in life, including having to be retrained, as well as the rising costs of health care and insurance, which get more expensive as one ages. Older workers requiring medications for conditions are finding themselves unable to pay, and have to decided which medications to take and which bills to pay.
In these many scenarios, we are seeing the personal difficulties associated with the recession, and how families are forced to cope with sudden changes in lifestyle and habits. Lets hope that the recent signs of the economy's turn around will continue, and these affected families will be able to get back on track.
President Obama last week has announced that he would continue the practice of using the E-verify system as a means to curb illegal immigrants working within this country. The program, which was established under President Bush, is an electronic database system that was intended to verify an individuals citizenship status for employers to ensure that they are hiring legal workers. However, the E-verify system is extremely flawed, relying on incorrect, incomplete and flawed information. The system has been responsible for many false positives, where a worker who is a legal citizen, cannot be verified within the system and in turn lose their job despite their actual standing. The continuation of this system is incredibly disheartening and disappointing coming from President Obama. This continuation of Bush-era policies will only hurt workers, legal and illegal and do more damage to the economy as money is poured into a broken system, while keeping individuals out of work.
The FLSA's anti-retaliation provision prohibits "discharg[ing] ... any employee because such employee has filed any complaint...." 29 U.S.C. ยง 215(a)(3) (emphasis added).
In 1993, the Second Circuit held that the anti-retaliation provision in the FLSA prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for filing formal complaints, instituting a proceeding, or testifying about FLSA violations, but does not encompass verbal complaints made to a supervisor. Lambert v. Genesee Hospital, 10 F.3d 46, 55 (2d Cir.1993)) (citations omitted).
On June 29, 2009, in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Plastics, the Seventh Circuit followed when it held that, "the natural understanding of the phrase 'file any complaint' requires the submission of some writing to an employer, court, or administrative body."
In a speech Monday morning, President Obama laid out his plans to create over 600,000 jobs this Summer through Federal stimulus money. This ambitious plan would also include 125,000 jobs for teenagers who are suddenly finding summer jobs long held by teens and adolescents drying up as older and out of work job seekers start taking whatever jobs are around.
The announcement comes on the heels of some mixed economic news last week, with job losses slowing but overall unemployment up to a quarter of a century high. The plan announced, dubbed a "Roadmap to Recovery", plans to spend money in various areas to create jobs while expanding services throughout the country. For example, money will be distributed to health centers throughout the country to expand services while keeping jobs. Money would also flow to law enforcement officials to protect times, and save departments as budget cuts threaten jobs in municipalities across the country.
According to an article in a recent issue of The American Prospect, America sits as the only industrialized nation that does not require employers to provide paid vacation time workers. This is something Congressman Alan Grayson wishes to change, as he introduced a bill last week that would mandate just that.
Grayson, a Representative from Orlando, introduced the bill into the House in response to rising concerns that many workers do not get any paid vacation time at all. Noting the laws in other nations, including China and Germany, Grayson contemplated why the United States with all its success lags behind in providing paid days off.
The bill would require all employers that have 100 or more employees to guarantee one week of paid vacation for each employee after one year of service. Three years after the bill is signed into law, it would expand to include any employer with 50 or more employees and provide 2 weeks paid vacation for any company with 100 or more employees.
Grayson was allegedly inspired by a recent family trip to Disney World, commenting on the importance of time off for working families, and to allow workers to strike a more flexible balance between work and home. This bill is particularly important for guaranteeing rights of part-time employees, who are rarely afforded benefits or any paid vacation time. While many white-collar workers are given this time already by their employers, many lower income employees do not receive these benefits and cannot afford to take such time off. This creates a profound imbalance in the work place, greatly affecting those that already receive less pay.
How do you feel about this legislation? Is this an important step forward for workers rights to ensure vacation time, or a sign of government intrusion into the workings of private companies?
A report released on May 14th found that retail prices had stayed relatively level, with consumers paying less for food and energy costs in the month of April. This is relatively good news in keeping the risk of inflation at bay.
Consumers are looking at lower prices on goods through the summer, with fuel costing significantly less than last summer's high price of $145 a barrel, potentially spurring American's to make travel plans through the season. Many people were adversely affected by skyrocketing gas prices last summer, which climbed near $4 a gallon.
However, the lower prices reflect a drop in demand, showing that demand for consumer goods could remain weak throughout the year- bad news for retailers hoping to woo customers in with lower prices and sales.
In an extremely interesting article found on the ABA website, some Fordham law students compiled a digital dossier of the Justice's personal information after the conservative Justice made some public comments questioning the need for stricter privacy controls online.
Led by law professor Joel Ridenburgh, the students collected a massive amount of personal data on Scalia, creating a"15-page dossier that included not only Scalia's home address, home phone number and home value, but his food and movie preferences, his wife's personal e-mail address and photos of his grandchildren"
Confronted with this amount of data, Scalia was fuming at this exercise, clearly unaware of his early comments regarding the need for privacy controls. As more and more individuals use the internet every day for more and more purposes, we are leaking data everywhere allowing careful internet users to create these digital profiles of individuals. When you visit a website, be more aware of what data they are asking for, and for what purposes.
Scanning the internet, I've come across more and more posts detailing the events around people getting fired- "Can you be fired for using Facebook?", "Man Fired For Not Dressing Up Like Santa", "Nurses Fired for Cell Phone Pictures of Patients" all give interesting viewpoints on these workplace stories. What most people do not realize is that a condition of at-will employment means that employers do not have to give any particular reason at all.
At will employment is the prevailing form of employment throughout most of the United States. As a provision of at will employment, employers can terminate the working relationship with an employee at any time, for most any reason or no reason at all. Likewise, an employee has no obligation to remain working for a particular company.
The exceptions to this rule come when it can be shown that an individual has been fired for reasons relating to discrimination relating to an employees belonging to a protected group- gender, race religion etc. As well, Federal statues have been signed into law that expand the rights of at will employees- the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family Leave Medical Act, and many others. New York currently has a Whistleblower statue designed to protect employees who report their bosses. However, this only comes into effect in reporting incidents that have to deal with the public health, severely limiting its use.
As the job market continues to tighten, many individuals are finding themselves without work, and without a reason for their termination. While discouraging, it does not always mean that an individual has not been discriminated or harassed in the course of their employment. If you do have questions resulting from your termination, your best bet would to discuss your situation with an employment attorney.
