Free Republic

Amazon-owned Whole Foods will be withdrawing medical benefits for hundreds of its part-time workers starting Jan. 1, 2020, the company said Thursday. In the past, employees needed to work at least 20 hours a week to buy into the health-care plan. Now they will need to work at least 30 hours. Less than 2% of its workforce, or 1,900 employees, will no longer be eligible for medical coverage, under the new policy, the company said.

Uber will refuse to comply with a new bill passed in California Wednesday that says they must reclassify their drivers as employees rather than contractors, arguing that drivers aren’t core to its ride-share business model. Known as AB-5, the bill requires companies in the state - such as Lyft and Uber - to treat workers as employees by providing them with the full benefits and protections the designation necessitates. Under the motion’s terms, the title of employee must be issued to any worker the company exerts control over in terms of performance of their task, or if the role carried...

A married man who died of a heart attack after having sex on a business trip in France was ruled to have been the victim of a workplace accident — making his company financially responsible, according to reports. Engineer Xavier X was found dead in his hotel room in Meung-sur-Loire shortly after having sex with a local woman he’d just met, according to the Times of London. Lawyers for his bosses at the Parisian railroad construction company TSO insisted he was not performing duties when he had the heart attack — blaming the “adulterous sex act that he had had...

It looks like Mike Pence is quite the trendsetter. The US vice-president famously refuses to have dinner alone with any woman who isn’t his wife – and now working men across corporate America appear to be following his lead. A new study, due to be published in the journal Organizational Dynamics, has found that, following the #MeToo movement, men are significantly more reluctant to interact with their female colleagues. A few highlights from the research include: • 27% of men avoid one-on-one meetings with female co-workers. Yep, that’s right, almost a third of men are terrified to be alone in...

NEVER HIRE A MUSLIM: A Muslim sympathizer gives you several reasons why AUGUST 7, 2019 BY BARENAKEDISLAM If for some misguided politically correct reason, you want to be more inclusive of Muslims within your community or organization, here are some specific suggestions you could implement in your workplace. (FYI: If you do hire a Muslim, many of these so-called ‘suggestions’ will become demands) WralTechwire by Rick Smith— August 7, 2019 Editor’s note: Jess Porta is Director of HQ Raleigh. This is the second of two stories about Islam in the Triangle. Prayer Space Muslims must pray five times per day...

Banning Discrimination Of Hairstyle Will Make California The First State To Do So by: True Activist Posted on July 6, 2019 The CROWN act, an acronym for “Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural hair”, is expected to be signed into law by California Governor Gavin Newsom, making the state the first ever to ban discrimination based on hair style. Hair styles included in the bill sent to the governor include Afros, braids, twists, and locks. “ The history of our nation is riddled with laws and societal norms that equated ‘blackness’ and the associated physical traits, for example,...

The gunman who shot 12 people dead at a Virginia Beach municipal building had been facing disciplinary action for a violent fight at work, according to a report. (Snip) Craddock reportedly knew he was facing disciplinary action for the fight when he went into the municipal building with two .45-caliber handguns, at least one of which was equipped with a sound suppressor — and both of which were purchased legally.

A recent poll commissioned by Lean In found some men are increasingly struggling to interact with women in professional settings. In October, two years will have passed since Harvey Weinstein’s downfall broke the Me Too dam, inviting a surge of revelations about powerful men—some overdue, others undue—into the media spotlight. By the time one website’s brunch aficionados got around to Aziz Ansari in January 2018, the waters had already started to muddy, and public perception of the movement’s value started to shift. There was concern about the standards for purging accused men from public life, but also about Me Too’s...

McDonald’s has responded to mounting complaints about sexual harassment with employee training programs and a new anonymous reporting hotline. The Chicago-based fast-food chain sent a letter Monday to Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth detailing its efforts, in response to a letter Duckworth sent the company in December expressing her concerns about multiple sexual harassment complaints made by its restaurant employees.

LeanIn.org and SurveyMonkey’s new #MentorHer poll reveals Friday that 60% of male managers report feeling “too nervous” about being accused of harassment to interact with women in “common workplace” activities such as mentoring, socializing and one-on-one meetings.

Men are scared of women now. LeanIn.org and SurveyMonkey’s new #MentorHer poll reveals Friday that 60% of male managers report feeling “too nervous” about being accused of harassment to interact with women in “common workplace” activities such as mentoring, socializing and one-on-one meetings. That’s a 32% spike from 2018, with an additional 36% of men saying they now actively avoid women in junior-level positions — effectively chopping down their shot at climbing the corporate ladder. “The vast majority of managers and senior leaders are men,” says Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, SurveyMonkey board member and founder of LeanIn.Org, in a statement....

Full title: Mom forced to pay former employer thousands after switching jobs during maternity leave: 'I wasn’t prepared for it' Emily Manley knew exactly what to expect when she was expecting: additional expenses for baby food, clothes, formula, doctor’s appointments and medicine. But the one cost the new mom wasn’t anticipating was footing a hefty bill from her previous employer. “It was kind of a shock. I wasn’t prepared for it. I wasn’t ready for it, but I knew it was a possibility,” Manley told ABC13. The company Manley previously worked for didn’t offer paid maternity leave. But, under the...

A few years ago, Marriott debuted a new app at hotels in five cities that was supposed to save housekeepers time by telling them which rooms to clean. It was a disaster. Housekeepers ended up yo-yoing between rooms on different floors, ignoring messy rooms just down the hall. If anything, the cleaners felt that the app made them less efficient, and they worried about being disciplined by their bosses for failing to finish their work on time. “A wild-goose chase” is how Rachel Gumpert, a spokeswoman for Unite Here, the labor union that represents Marriott’s housekeepers, describes the episode. Several...

If 'sex' in federal law is replaced with 'gender identity,' the government will be unable to ensure equal opportunities for women. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes has been serving grieving families in the Detroit area since 1910. But in recent years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has targeted this small family-owned funeral home for punishment due to their refusal to participate in an employee’s so-called gender identity preferences. Why? To achieve its political objective: replacing “sex” in Title VII, a federal law, with “gender identity.” This means bypassing Congress to completely change the meaning of federal laws intended...

A case of a form of schoolyard squabbling arrived at a Court of Appeal in Australia on Monday. The court is tasked with deciding whether flatulence is a form of bullying. According to 56-year-old David Hingst, a former employee at Construction Engineering, it certainly is. Hingst sued the firm for bullying in 2017, accusing supervisor Greg Short (whom Hingst referred to as "Mr. Stinky") of being a serial offender who regularly "thrusted his bum" at him, news.com.au reported quoting The Australian Associated Press. Hingst is seeking damages of AUS$1.8 million ($1.28 million). "I would be sitting with my face to...

The way that Planned Parenthood treats its pregnant employees is cruel, illegal, and extremely hypocritical The New York Times just published this article, which is titled, “Planned Parenthood Is Accused of Mistreating Pregnant Employees.”The article cites numerous examples of how Planned Parenthood has given absolutely horrible treatment to its pregnant employees.Not only are these actions on the part of Planned Parenthood cruel, some of them are also illegal, and all of them are extremely hypocritical.If there’s any one organization that should treat its pregnant employees with kindness and respect, as well as obeying the laws regarding pregnant employees, it’s Planned Parenthood.Here...

A number of Megyn Kelly's black colleagues at NBC are shocked that the host is fighting to receive a full payout of her contract after her comments defending blackface earlier in the week. DailyMail.com spoke to a number of employees whose feelings on the subject ran the gamut from 'deeply hurt' to outright 'appalled' at Kelly's behavior and reports that she might claim her coverage of the #MeToo movement played a role in her termination. On Tuesday, Kelly defended the practice of blackface during a roundtable discussion with an all-white panel where not one participant referenced the deeply racist and...

Workers say they endured horrifying moments of wild gunfire and terror as a woman working a temporary job at a drugstore warehouse in Maryland fired on colleagues with a handgun, killing three people before fatally shooting herself, according to authorities. CBS News' Mola Lenghi reports that witnesses say the shooting followed an argument Thursday morning between the suspect and another employee. The shooting sent survivors screaming and running in all directions from the Rite Aid distribution center in northeastern Maryland. Others nearby helped the wounded, and one person tied blood-soaked jeans around an injured man's leg trying to stanch the...

The 21st century American workforce is changing, and will look very different just a few years from today given the ongoing technological innovation and the number of retirements of the baby-boom generation, which as begun, and will accelerate. In one sense, this prediction is not difficult to make. The workforce — specifically the necessary skills that comprise it — has constantly been changing throughout the nation’s history. This is all the more reason to ask: Is America ready to meet the needs of its workforce and industries to sustain a growing, competitive economy? Many signs today indicate our labor force...

The Daily Beast is working on a major story about sexual harassment and misconduct at NBC News, sources tell Mediaite. The story involves varying allegations against senior NBC News executives, and relates to alleged misconduct from years ago as well as more current allegations against network brass. One source told Mediaite that executives at NBC News are “panicked” by the reporting. NBC News did not provide comment. The Beast’s reporting comes in a tumultuous year for NBC News.