Free Republic

LIMA (Reuters) - Peru's top court has ruled that workers cannot be fired for being drunk on the job, a decision that was criticized by the government on Wednesday for setting a dangerous precedent. The Constitutional Tribunal ordered that Pablo Cayo be given his job back as a janitor for the municipality of Chorrillos, which fired him for being intoxicated at work. The firing was excessive because even though Cayo was drunk, he did not offend or hurt anybody, Fernando Calle, one of the justices, said on Wednesday.

A federal judge has dealt a major defeat to Florida's business lobby by upholding the main thrust of a new law allowing employees with concealed weapons permits to take their guns to work. The so called "guns-at-work" law was the product of a three-year constitutional clash that pitted the powerful National Rifle Association against equally influential business groups over two basic constitutional concepts: the right of private property and the right to bear arms.

Walt Disney World fired a security guard on Monday after he protested the company's decision not to allow people with concealed weapons permits to keep guns in their cars on Disney property. Disney terminated Edwin Sotomayor, 36, of Orlando for violating three Disney employee policies, essentially for failing to cooperate with an internal investigation, said spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez. Sotomayor vowed to continue his fight. At issue is Florida's new law that allows people with concealed weapons permits to keep firearms in their vehicles in employee parking lots. Disney advised its employees late last month that the theme-park resort is exempt...

Bobby Jindal signs bill giving employees the right to have firearms in their automobiles "on company property".

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- A new state law went on the books Tuesday saying people could bring guns to work if they kept them locked in their car. Disney, though, said it was exempt from the new law and its 62,000 employees needed to keep their guns at home. Friday, a worker who protested the park’s decision told Channel 9 he was suspended. The worker was well aware that he could end up losing his job when he took the gun to work Friday morning, but said that the principle at stake means enough to him that he was willing...

It seems too lunatic to be true. But here a hair salon boss reveals how she was driven to the brink of ruin - and forced to pay £4,000 for 'hurt feelings' - after refusing to hire a Muslim stylist who wouldn't show her hair at work For Sarah Desrosiers, meeting Bushra Noah was not a moment in her life that she would describe as especially memorable. Not only was it brief - lasting little more than ten minutes - but it was rapidly obvious to Sarah that Bushra was not the person for the junior stylist position she was...

SAN FRANCISCO -- An employer has no right to read an employee's text messages without the worker's knowledge and consent, and federal law bars service providers from turning over the contents of the messages to the employer who pays for the service, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today. The court's unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel stemmed from a lawsuit by Ontario Police Sgt. Jeff Quon and three others against the city's service provider and the city and Police Department for violating his constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches. Although the city had informed employees...

Howard Weyers tried the "carrot" approach by giving his employees incentives and encouragement to quit smoking. But when that didn't work, he resorted to the stick. A big stick. Weyers, owner of a health care benefits administrator in Lansing, Mich., gave his 200 employees an ultimatum in 2004: Quit smoking in 15 months or lose your job. He refused to hire smokers. Ultimately, he extended his smoking ban to employees' spouses and monitored compliance through mandatory random blood testing. Weyers' method, while effective, wouldn't fly in California because the state has laws that prohibit employers from making hiring or firing...

The workplace is becoming friendlier for gay and transgender employees, according to a report released today by the Human Rights Campaign, a national advocacy group. According to the report, "The State of the Workplace for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Americans 2004," at least 8,250 employers provided domestic partner benefits at the end of 2004, a 13 percent increase over the previous year. Among the Fortune 500, 216 companies provided domestic partner benefits, 10 times the number in 1995, when 21 of the companies offered the benefits. "As we suspected, corporate America is well ahead of America generally in terms...

The job candidate interviewing to be a terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress seemed to have exceptional qualifications: a 25-year Army veteran and former Special Forces commander who spent a career hunting terrorists and often personally briefed the vice president, defense secretary or Joint Chiefs of Staff on sensitive operations. The interviews and salary talks went well for David Schroer. A job offer followed, and he accepted. Then the new employee brought up one last item: Once work began, the name would be Diane, not David.

Suppose you could eliminate the factors often blamed for the shortage of women in high-paying jobs. Suppose that promotions and raises did not depend on pleasing sexist male bosses or putting in long nights and weekends away from home. Would women make as much as men? Economists recently tried to find out in an experiment in Pittsburgh by paying men and women to add up five numbers in their heads. At first they worked individually, doing as many sums as they could in five minutes and receiving 50 cents for each correct answer. Then they competed in four-person tournaments, with...

DETROIT -- A jury awarded $10.6 million to one-time radio host who was fired after complaining a co-worker's perfume made her sick. Erin Weber said WYCD-FM fired her in 2001 after she complained she was allergic to another host's perfume. She said the station owner, Infinity Broadcasting Inc., discriminated against her for a disability — allergies — and retaliated after she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Apple has been sued by a former employee for alleged discrimination. Shaune Patterson says that she was wrongfully terminated from the company because she was a Lesbian. Formerly employed by Apple as a human resources compensation consultant, she has filed suite in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco. The amended complaint, filed on May 16, 2005, alleges that Shaune Patterson was suspended for one month and then subsequently wrongfully terminated from her position, after she complained that her white counterparts, who were junior to her, were making higher salaries than she was....

DENVER (AP) - Ross Hopkins still likes to drink Bud, even though he says a brief tryst with a Coors beer cost him his job at a Budweiser distributor. Hopkins, 41, is suing American Eagle Distributing Co., saying the company wrongly fired him for drinking Coors in a bar two years ago. "They flat-out told me: 'We're putting food on your table so you could put it on theirs?"' he said Tuesday. "I thought I could drink it, no problem." Hopkins' lawsuit, filed in a Greeley, Colo., court, seeks unspecified damages for lost wages and benefits. No trial date has...

Man Fired By Bud Distributor For Drinking Coors Sip Of Coors Costs Man Job At American Eagle Distributing Company POSTED: 6:38 am MDT May 17, 2005 UPDATED: 7:23 am MDT May 17, 2005 MILLIKEN, Colo. -- A former employee of a Budweiser distributor said a sip of Coors cost him his job. Ross Hopkins, 41, said he was fired as a supervisor at American Eagle Distributing Company after he was seen by the son-in-law of the company president with a Coors at a Greeley bar. His apparent disloyalty led to his dismissal two days later. And now Hopkins is suing...

Companies look to save on insurance

NEW YORK (AP) -- Employers are catching more workers using methamphetamine, but the drug’s spread into the workplace appears to have slowed considerably, a new study finds. Employers who screen job applicants and workers for drugs saw the number testing positive for amphetamines increase by 6 percent last year. Positive tests for methamphetamine, one of two stimulants in that class of drugs, increased by 3 percent, according to a report to be released Monday by Quest Diagnostics Inc. The figures are based on the results of 7.2 million workplace drug tests conducted in 2004 by Teterboro, N.J.-based Quest, one of...

Firing Smokers - Reading Beyond the Headlines Trend: You smoke? You're fired!May 11, 2005 By Stephanie Armour More companies are taking action against employees who smoke off-duty, and, in an extreme trend that some call troubling, some are now firing or banning the hiring of workers who light up even on their own time.The outright bans raise new questions about how far companies can go in regulating workers' behavior when they are off the clock. The crackdown is coming in part as a way to curb soaring health care costs, but critics say companies are violating workers' privacy rights....

BERRIEN SPRINGS -- At a meeting last week with school officials, Christine John was congratulated on her March marriage, John says. Then, said the first-year kindergarten teacher at the Village Seventh-day Adventist Elementary School, she was asked why she was four months along in her pregnancy when she had been married just two months before. John said the meeting ended when she was told her services were no longer necessary. In a statement prepared by the Niles-based Edwin Bertram agency, she said she wasn't allowed to retrieve her belongings or return to the school during regular school hours. "I was...

TROY, Mich. (AP) — Delphi Corp., intent on containing costs in tough times, is cracking down on absenteeism by threatening to withhold pay or vacation days from hourly employees who refuse to sign waivers releasing their medical records. The Troy-based automotive supplier had had a less formal policy asking workers to sign medical record releases. In April, however, Delphi revised the waiver form to give employees fewer choices over what records are released and by more aggressively investigating absences it considers suspicious. "If the employee will not sign the `consent to release medical information' form, management will have to make...

KOKOMO, Ind. -- Workers at DaimlerChrysler's Indiana Transmission Plants I and II better allow more time for parking if they drive Fords or General Motors vehicles. A new policy that took effect Monday designates about 80 percent of employee parking spaces at the plants for Chrysler vehicles only. It forces workers to park much farther away if they drive a car or truck made by a competing manufacturer. Workers have been told that non-Chrysler vehicles parked in the reserved areas will be towed to Indianapolis at a cost of $200. A Chrysler spokesman saud most Chrysler plants across the country...

KOKOMO, Ind. -- Workers at DaimlerChrysler's Indiana Transmission Plant I and Plant II better allow more time to walk in from the parking lot if they drive Fords or General Motors vehicles. A new policy that takes effect today designates about 80 percent of employee parking spaces for Chrysler vehicles only and forces workers to park much farther away if they drive a car or truck made by a competing manufacturer. In case employees forget, there's new blue lines painted on the parking lot and signs that declare ''DaimlerChrysler Parking Only'' and ''DaimlerChrysler Vehicle Parking.'' 'Wide support from employees' Workers...

Text of Steve Ballmer E-Mail to U.S. Microsoft Employees Regarding Public Policy Engagement REDMOND, Wash. -- May 6, 2005 -- In response to widespread public interest in the company's position on anti-discrimination legislation, Microsoft Corp. today released the following text of an e-mail sent today from Steve Ballmer, CEO, to all Microsoft employees in the United States: Date: May 6, 2005 To: All Employees of Microsoft in Puget Sound; All Employees of Microsoft in MSUS Subject: Microsoft’s principles for public policy engagement During the past two weeks I’ve heard from many of you with a wide range of views on...

No more smokers. Is the next step no more Democrats? So the CEO of a Michigan company announced a no-more-smokers policy. Employees of Weyco Inc. could not smoke at the office, in the parking lot, in an ally or even at home. Weyco founder Howard Weyers gave his employees who smoked 15 months warning and offered them smoking cessation courses. Weyco eventually fired or forced out workers who refused to take nicotine tests to show that they did not smoke. "We're not telling you, you can't smoke," said Weyco CFO Gary Climes. "We're telling you, you can't smoke and work...

SEATTLE, April 26 - Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, has indicated he may reconsider his company's decision not to support a Washington State gay rights bill amid the growing firestorm inside and outside the company that exploded after the recent disclosure that Microsoft had changed its position on the bill. In an interview with The Seattle Times on Monday, Mr. Gates, who rarely grants interviews and declined through a spokesman Tuesday to grant one to The New York Times, indicated that he was surprised by the backlash to the company's turnaround on the legislation. He also suggested that Microsoft,...

INDIANAPOLIS -- The City-County Council on Monday night rejected an ordinance that would have prohibited businesses with at least six employees from considering sexual orientation and gender identity in employment decisions. The ordinance, which also would have prohibited the refusal of housing and real estate opportunities for people based on sexual orientation and gender identity, was turned down by an 18-11 vote. Conservative groups and gay-rights advocates had lobbied council members about the proposal. Some opponents of the proposal said current laws were adequate. Before Monday's meeting, council member Scott Schneider said he opposed the plan because it elevated a...

Norway's Supreme Court supported decisions refusing Conoco Phillips the right to fire two workers who surfed the Internet for pornographic images on company time. The two workers on the Ekofisk field lost their jobs after being caught peeping at porn on the job in the summer of 2002. The pair took their case to court and won at both the municipal and appeals level, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports. Conoco Phillips appealed the decisions to the Supreme Court in order to have a clarification of what employees can do on company time and what employers can do to enforce violations of...

Single mom files pregnancy discrimination suit By Domingo Ramirez Jr. Star-Telegram Staff Writer In the two months that she worked for a Saginaw sports-lighting company, Mellissa Brucker says, she didn't get a bad performance review. Brucker, a single mother, said she got a raise and had her benefits enrollment moved up by several days. But on Oct. 29, the 32-year-old Fort Worth woman said, KMA Associates fired her just days after she told company officials that she was pregnant. This week, Brucker filed a sex and pregnancy discrimination lawsuit in federal court in Fort Worth against the company, seeking undisclosed...

WEST SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - A woman who was fired by Costco in 2001 for refusing to remove her eyebrow ring has accused the company of religious discrimination, saying she is a member of the Church of Body Modification. Kimberly M. Cloutier said she wears her eyebrow ring as a sign of faith. She has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider hearing the case. The church, established in 1999, counts about 1,000 members who participate in practices such as piercing and tattooing, according to a December ruling by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a trial judge's...

It's nice to hear Americans talk about privacy and fighting for their rights. But sometimes I have to say: Do you know what you're talking about? In Okemos, Mich., a 71-year-old health nut named Howard Weyers runs a health-care benefits company called Weyco. Weyers thinks his employees should be healthy, too, so years ago, he hired an in-house private trainer. Any employee who works with her and then meets certain exercise goals earns a $110 bonus per month. So far, so good. But then, in November 2003, Weyers made an announcement that shocked his staff: "I'm introducing a smoking policy,"...

It's nice to hear Americans talk about privacy and fighting for their rights. But sometimes I have to say: Do you know what you're talking about? In Okemos, Mich., a 71-year-old health nut named Howard Weyers runs a health-care benefits company called Weyco. Weyers thinks his employees should be healthy, too, so years ago, he hired an in-house private trainer. Any employee who works with her and then meets certain exercise goals earns a $110 bonus per month. So far, so good. But then, in November 2003, Weyers made an announcement that shocked his staff: "I'm introducing a smoking policy,"...

<p>One-third of the employees at a Goshen plant that makes campers lost their jobs after they tested positive for illegal drugs, company officials said. Keystone RV Co. Inc. tested all 120 employees at the Goshen plant #304 last week after receiving a tip from police, company officials said. That information was shared during the firm’s ongoing relationship with law enforcement, a spokesman said. “We care about our employees and we value the safety of our employees,” said Ken Julian, human resources director. “We took steps to back up what we say,” he said of the drug testing. A total of 40 of the workers tested positive for either marijuana, cocaine, amphetamine or methamphetamine during the plantwide drug screening April 11, the company said. Testing positive for one or more of the illegal drugs is reason for dismissal at Keystone. “We even had individuals who were disciplined come back and give us praise for what we did,” Julian said. The Goshen plant 304 is a site where fifth wheel camping trailers are built. Keystone, a subsidiary of Ohio-based Thor Industries, is the largest employer in Elkhart County, with about 3,000 workers. The company makes travel trailers and fifth wheels under several brand names and has 20 plants in Goshen and two in Oregon. “There was some feedback from the police that one of our plants was having troubles with drugs. We responded to this,” Keystone president Ron Fenech said. Julian said it was the first time Keystone had tested all the workers at one plant at the same time. Workers at the plant were sent home for the day with pay after occupational health care staff took urine samples from them. The factory resumed normal production the following day. A police officer was on hand in case of problems, but Julian said the tests went smoothly. “It was a very cooperative group of individuals,” he said. Workers were informed of the preliminary test results immediately, and the samples then were sent to the South Bend Medical Foundation for confirmation, he said. “Those who tested positive were put on unpaid leave until we got confirmation,” he said.</p>

Workers Dismissed After Rejecting Employer's Smoking Policy April 8, 2005 — If you don't like your job, you can quit. Does it work the other way? Can my boss quit me if he doesn't like, say, something I do at home? An employer in Michigan has done that, and it's making lots of people say Give Me a Break. Howard Weyers runs WEYCO, a health-care benefits company in Okemos, Mich., and he's a health nut. He's 71 years old, but still lifts heavy weights. One day, he decided his employees should be healthy too. First, he hired an in-house private...

HAZLETON -- Timothy Cerullo believes Luzerne County transportation officials fired him because he’s fat. The 500-pound Hazleton man says his bosses were constantly on the lookout for mistakes, and refused to allow him to drive a van that was easier for him to get in and out of and drive – all because they didn’t like his appearance. Cerullo, 44, said he can’t easily swing his legs up to climb steps because one of his calves remains sore from a blood clot surgery, and both legs often swell up with fluid. “The vans the county got are too high, and...

It was easy to miss with so much else happening in the world, but there was a hugely important decision last week by the U.S. Supreme Court involving older workers and how they're treated on the job. The justices made it easier for workers age 40 and older to sue employers for age discrimination, even if the workers can't prove that the employer deliberately intended to discriminate. All that is needed for proof, the court said, is that a given policy, requirement or practice in the workplace has an "adverse impact" on older workers. That includes layoffs that seem to...

A federal judge today ordered an employer who fired a juror in the middle of a fraud trial to appear in court to explain himself or face arrest.U.S. District Judge David Hittner issued the order after juror Mike Borowski, a construction superintendent, complained last week that he had been fired from a construction job in River Oaks.Hittner ordered Sam LeComnte, owner of Multi Building Inc. of Lewisville, to appear in court Thursday to explain why Borowski was fired. The order said that if LeComnte failed to appear, an arrest warrant would be issued.Michael Bradshaw, area superintendent for Multi Building, said...

Workers 40 or older can sue their employers for practices that favor younger workers even if there was no intentional bias, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in an important age discrimination case. The decision upheld the reach of the 1967 federal law that bars discrimination based on age and covers an estimated 75 million workers 40 or older, who account for about half the U.S. civilian labor force. By a 5-3 vote, the justices ruled the law did cover policies that have a "disparate impact" on older workers, even if the employer was not motivated by intentional discrimination....

WILMINGTON, N.C. - A former sheriff's dispatcher who quit her job after her boss found out she lived with her boyfriend is challenging North Carolina's law against cohabitation. Debora Hobbs said she was told to get married, move out, or find another job after her boss found out about her living situation. The legal arm of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina filed the lawsuit Monday on her behalf. The lawsuit seeks to abolish the nearly 200-year-old - and rarely enforced - law that prohibits unmarried, unrelated adults of the opposite sex from living together. North Carolina is...

White women lag in pay among college graduates Associated PressPosted March 28 2005 WASHINGTON -- Black and Asian women with bachelor's degrees earn slightly more than similarly educated white women. A white woman with a bachelor's degree typically earned nearly $37,800 in 2003, compared with nearly $43,700 for a college-educated Asian woman and $41,100 for a college-educated black woman, according to data being released Monday by the Census Bureau. Hispanic women earned $37,600 a year. The bureau did not say why.  

Black and Asian women with bachelor's degrees earn more money than similarly educated white women, and white men with four-year degrees still make more money than anyone else. A white woman with a bachelor's degree typically earned nearly $37,800 in 2003, compared with nearly $43,700 for a college-educated Asian woman and about $41,100 for a college-educated black woman, according to data being released today by the Census Bureau. Hispanic women took home slightly less at about $37,600 a year. The bureau did not say why the differences exist. Economists and sociologists suggest some possible factors: the tendency of minority women,...

An Islamic civil rights group says it has reached a settlement with the Dell computer company involving 31 Muslim employees who wanted to time out from work to pray at sunset. Coincidentally, a bill reintroduced in Congress on Thursday would address situations such as the one at Dell. The workers walked off their assembly-line jobs at Dell's computer manufacturing plant in Nashville, Tenn., last month when they were told they had to choose between praying on the job or losing the job. Devout Muslims pray five times a day.) In a settlement announced late Thursday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations...

The manager of a Dunkin' Donuts shop who told his employees to speak only English in front of the customers is an Ecuador-born 20-year-old who said he was just responding to customer complaints. But the sign he posted, inviting customers to complain if they heard foreign conversation behind the counter, got the attention of the corporate office. Dunkin' Donuts said the manager's approach was inappropriate. The chain does require employees who interact with the public to be fluent in English, but it doesn't forbid them from speaking other languages. A company statement says the ability to speak other languages helps...

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 3/15/2005) A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today announced that it has been retained as legal counsel by 21 of the 30 Muslim employees recently forced from their jobs at a Dell Inc. plant in Nashville, Tenn, for seeking to perform religiously-mandated prayers in the workplace. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the workers, who were forced to choose between performing the prayers and keeping their jobs, signed the retainer agreements in a meeting with CAIR in Nashville on Saturday.

In the fictional world of George Orwell’s "Nineteen Eighty-Four," Big Brother is everywhere, controlling all aspects of a person’s life. Around every corner in the totalitarian state of Orwell’s Oceania, giant posters stare back at you with the ominous warning, "Big Brother is watching you." If Jim Matthews gets his way, the nightmarish world of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" may soon become a reality in Montgomery County. Jim Matthews is the big brother of maniacal talk-show host Chris Matthews of MSNBC fame. Jim Matthews is also the chairman of the Board of Commissioners in Montgomery County, just outside Philadelphia. In a move...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Thirty Muslims walked off the job at a Dell Inc. plant after alleging the company refused to let them pray at sunset — the latest dispute over prayer between an American business and its Islamic employees. The Muslim workers, who were packaging Dell computers through a temporary labor agency, are taking the dispute to mediation, both sides said Friday. Most of the employees are from Somalia. Abdirizak Hassan, executive director of the Somali Community Center of Nashville, said the workers walked out of the company's Nashville plant last month because they were not allowed time for prayers....

The Supreme Court yesterday let stand a lower court ruling that a California company could not inquire about the immigration status of a group of Hispanic and Southeast Asian women who filed a lawsuit against the firm for job discrimination. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, in an opinion by Judge Stephen Reinhardt, had agreed with a federal magistrate who barred the questioning, saying many of the millions of illegal aliens now in the country were reluctant to report discriminatory employment practices. "Granting employers the right to inquire into workers' immigration status in cases like this...

J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times Tanya Frazier and her daughter, Vanessa. Tanya Frazier, the office manager of a 50-person payroll management company in Burbank, Calif., received a call last September from the elementary school her daughter attends, telling her to pick up her flu-stricken 9-year-old. But when she stayed home from work the next day to care for her daughter, she was fired. Just why is a matter of dispute. Ms. Frazier said she was shocked, because she had missed work only a handful of days that year. Her boss, Jerry Schwartz, said in an interview that...

Three Bay Area men whose job offers as flight attendants were withdrawn because they concealed their HIV-positive status can sue American Airlines for disability discrimination, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The airline is entitled to request relevant medical information but, under state and federal laws, must wait until all other background checks have been completed and a job has been offered, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That allows the applicant to decide whether to disclose personal information and also makes it possible to determine whether an application wasn't rejected for an illegal reason, the court said....

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- The battle over bulge continues at an Atlantic City casino. The "Borgata Babes" aren't getting a break on their weight. The Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, N.J., won't budge on its new weight requirements. The Borgata has rejected a union grievance challenging the casino's imposition of weight limits on cocktail servers -- known as "Borgata Babes" -- and costumed bartenders. It said they are performers whose personal appearance and grooming are a key part of Borgata's image. The babes have to squeeze into skimpy costumes. Last month casino officials announced that the Borgata...