Latest news with #workplaceRights
Al Jazeera
16 hours ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
US Supreme Court clears greater path for ‘reverse discrimination' claims
The United States Supreme Court has issued a ruling that will make it easier for people to claim workplace 'reverse' discrimination based on identities such as being white or heterosexual, in a victory for conservatives who have long pushed back against laws that protect minorities. The nation's highest court ruled unanimously on Thursday in favour of an Ohio woman named Marlean Ames, who said she was passed over for a promotion at work because she is straight. The decision reverses a previous ruling by a lower court stating that plaintiffs from some majority groups must show 'background circumstances' to demonstrate that their employer is 'that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority', rather than minority groups that have historically faced discrimination in the US. 'We conclude that Title VII does not impose such a heightened standard on majority group plaintiffs,' wrote liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. 'Therefore, the judgment below is vacated, and the case is remanded for application of the proper prima facie standard.' The Thursday ruling could affect lawsuits in 20 different states and the District of Columbia, striking a blow to a previous practice wherein members of groups who have not historically been on the receiving end of discriminatory practices had to clear a higher bar when pushing claims of workplace civil rights violations. Conservatives in the US have argued for years that steps to address the legacy of discrimination against ethnic and racial minorities, such as considering race in academic admission or job recruitment, themselves constitute a form of discrimination against white people. Ames previously stated that she was 'pushed aside' at her job at the Ohio Department of Youth Services in favour of LGBTQ employees. She sued for damages in 2020, alleging that her rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, originally passed during the civil rights struggle for Black people in the US, had been violated. The state's Republican Attorney General Dave Yost defended the department's actions in court papers, stating that department leaders had said Ames lacked the vision and leadership for the job for which she was rejected.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Warning as worker sues for $800,000 over right to disconnect: 'People are nervous'
The right to disconnect will be tested for the first time by a Queensland primary school teacher who is suing her former employer for nearly $800,000 over allegations of unlawful dismissal. A workplace lawyer said the new law was having a major impact on Australian workplaces, and employers were becoming more 'nervous' about being caught out. The teacher has alleged that Cairns Hinterland Steiner School fired her for not responding to allegations of inappropriate behaviour sent to her during school holidays, when she was not required to work. This is the first public legal action to cite the right to disconnect, which was introduced in August last year, as part of a dismissal case. McCabes Lawyers principal Tim McDonald told Yahoo Finance he doesn't expect this case will lead to more people using the right to disconnect to sue. However, he said both employers and employees were becoming much more conscious of their rights. RELATED Damning research shows right to disconnect fails Aussie workers: 'Scared to switch off' Coles and Woolworths checkout move that there's no coming back from: 'Will only accelerate' Aussie couple making $1,200 a day from job anyone can do: 'Went off like an explosion' 'People are a lot more conscious of the hours that employees work and there is concern generally about compliance issues,' he said. 'Employers don't want to get caught out with pay claims for work outside of hours. Employees are a lot more conscious of their rights here. 'People are nervous about it, and people are conscious about it.' The right to disconnect allows employees to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact from their employer, or work-related contact from another person, unless such refusal is 'unreasonable'. The right applies to all Australian businesses with more than 15 employees. It will apply to small businesses from August this year. The law allows workers to apply for orders to stop employers from contacting them outside of work hours. Workers also have the right to launch adverse action claims, which opens the door to compensation claims. Fair Work Commission records show only two employees have applied for the right to disconnect orders since it came into effect. Neither case has proceeded to a decision. The teacher has filed a statement of claim in the Federal Court over allegations she was unlawfully dismissed, partly because she tried to use her right to disconnect. According to the Australian Financial Review, she alleged she was targeted because she made complaints about child safety at the school and against a person charged with reviewing the school and its staff. She later took leave and claimed she was not fit for work due to stress. The school sent her misconduct allegations during the school holidays, with a requirement to respond in that period. She objected that it was outside her working hours and claimed that she had a right to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact, or attempted contact, from an employer during the period unless the refusal was unreasonable. The school argued she was not on school holidays and refused her request to extend the response time until after the holidays finished. She argued that had she not been dismissed, she would have stayed on in her job for six years. She said she lost $730,000 in income and has asked for $50,000 for hurt and humiliation. The school has denied allegations, including that it breached the teacher's right to disconnect or stopped her from exercising it. RMIT University professor of law Shelley Marshall said the case was unlikely to provide a definitive interpretation of the legal limits of the right to disconnect. "While the right to disconnect is a high-profile and novel element of this case, it's important to recognise that it's only one aspect of the teacher's broader legal claim,' she said. "However, applying the law in practice is complex. In industries with genuine operational needs outside regular hours, such as education or emergency services, the line between necessary communication and unlawful overreach is far from clear.' Marshall said the case appeared to involve multiple alleged breaches, including unfair dismissal and general protections under the Fair Work Act. McDonald said it would be difficult to prove the right to disconnect entitled people to some sort of money. 'I'm not seeing that these laws are providing an ability to get a whole lot of money out of employers like this case seems to be suggesting,' he said. While McDonald doesn't expect to see a wave of right to disconnect cases in the future, he noted that the new laws did "have an impact" on workplaces. McDonald noted employers were also conscious of claims around the right to refuse unreasonable working hours, which is a National Employment Standards entitlement under the Fair Work in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data
Irish Times
26-05-2025
- Irish Times
EBay customer support agent sanctioned for four minutes of inactivity loses dismissal case
An eBay customer support agent who quit after being written up for failing to explain four minutes of inactivity on his computer to his manager's satisfaction has lost his claim for constructive dismissal. The employee told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) earlier this year he had 'people dying left, right and centre' in his personal life at the time of the events that led to the warning, including a friend who 'went into the river in Navan'. His former manager said: 'Anything over 60 seconds is considered work avoidance.' A claim for constructive dismissal brought by the worker, Eanna Donoghue, under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against eBay Europe Services Ltd, has been rejected by the tribunal. READ MORE Mr Donoghue quit on March 5th, 2024, the day he was told a company appeals officer had decided to leave a written warning for 'work avoidance' on his personnel file – effectively barring him from seeking promotion for a time, he said. He had been in the €41,000-a-year job for just short of seven years. The tribunal heard Mr Donoghue's former line manager, Niamh Seoighe, wrote to him on Thursday, December 21st, 2024 telling him she had observed on a screen recording that he closed off a customer issue by email in a minute and 36 seconds, but left the page open for a few minutes. 'I couldn't take it any longer,' Mr Donoghue said, telling the WRC the reprimand for 'work avoidance' followed a period when he had 'people dying left, right and centre' in his personal life, including a friend who 'went into the river in Navan'. 'For some reason that was just ignored. A perfect record for seven years, and she [his line manager] still thought it was reasonable and fair to give me a warning on that incident,' he said. Mr Donoghue's said the reprimand over the four-minute inactivity incident in January 2024 and informal 'verbal counselling' on November 28th, 2023 for lateness was linked to filing grievances, starting with complaints against two operations managers on November 16th that year. He said he was aggrieved to get 'a warning for going to the bathroom for four minutes, for not closing off an email' when he claimed he had called people out for 'doing 10 times worse' in the past. Mr Donoghue had 'informal verbal counselling' for lateness in the months before the downtime issue arose, the tribunal heard. Three instances of lateness were officially recorded on Mr Donoghue's file. The company submitted he had actually arrived late on eight occasions. The tribunal heard Mr Donoghue had car trouble at the time and was trying to get from Navan, Co Meath, to Blanchardstown, Dublin 15, by bus. He told the WRC the Minister for Transport had admitted to a newspaper 'the NX [bus] didn't turn up'. 'That was out of my control, I couldn't get to work,' he said. Mr Donoghue's position during a disciplinary meeting had been that he 'forgot to close the email' before taking a break, and that 'he might have gone to get a cup of tea', counsel for the respondent Mark Curran BL said in cross-examination. 'To this day I'm not sure,' Mr Donoghue said. 'I took a couple of calls in this time,' he said. 'You did say you took a personal call about the person in the river,' he said. 'I took a personal call, but I'm not sure if it was in that four minutes,' the complainant said. Ms Seoighe said in her evidence that she wrote to Mr Donoghue before Christmas that year looking for an explanation after observing on a screen recording from his computer that he had finished responding to the email but failed to mark himself as available for up to five minutes. 'It was call avoidance,' she said. 'If I'm going on the 'break unpaid' ops code, I'm being skipped; it's going to someone else on the team, they're getting additional calls,' she said. '[For] idle time on an email, anything over 60 seconds is considered work avoidance,' she said. Her position was that the issue was exacerbated by Mr Donoghue's failure to use an hour specifically allotted for him to answer her queries on the downtime and because of that she 'had to follow up several times'. The written warning given to Mr Donoghue by Ms Seoighe was upheld in a paper-based appeal. In her decision, adjudicator Eileen Campbell wrote that she had 'every sympathy' for the difficulties Mr Donoghue had experienced in his personal life. She wrote that Mr Donoghue 'appears to feel that he has been treated unfairly by the imposition of a first written warning for behaviour of a type he would have called out in respect of agents in the past'. 'When his team leader does her job and addresses an issue with the complainant he considers it to be unreasonable behaviour and alleges he is being targeted,' she wrote. She noted further that Mr Donoghue quit 'without any attempt at raising a grievance' about the warning. 'I am not persuaded by the complainant that resignation was his only option,' she concluded, dismissing the complaint.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Employer will pay $42K to settle EEOC allegations it called pregnant bartender a ‘liability'
This story was originally published on HR Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily HR Dive newsletter. An Austin, Texas, bar will pay $42,000 to settle claims brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that the business reduced an employee's work hours after she became visibly pregnant and fired her after she was hospitalized with a virus, EEOC announced Tuesday. EEOC filed a complaint against Corner Bar in 2023. The agency claimed the plaintiff was removed from a profitable closing shift and was eventually told she was fired in part because Corner Bar believed she would be 'too much of a liability.' EEOC alleged pregnancy discrimination, in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas approved a three-year consent decree between the two parties, under which Corner Bar agreed to adopt and implement a written anti-discrimination policy, train all employees and post a notice affirming its anti-discrimination obligations under federal laws. Per the terms of the agreement, Corner Bar denied any wrongdoing or legal violation. In enforcement guidance on pregnancy discrimination, EEOC has said that adverse treatment of pregnant workers 'often arises from stereotypes and assumptions' about those workers' job capabilities and commitment. Examples cited by EEOC include those in which an employer assumes that a pregnant employee will have attendance issues or leave their job following childbirth. The agency alleged that the plaintiff's manager informed her that Corner Bar was 'genuinely scared something bad [was] going to happen' to the plaintiff, specifically citing a fight that nearly broke out between bar patrons. EEOC further claimed that the manager then removed the plaintiff from the bar's work schedule and replaced her with other employees for all future shifts. 'EEOC is pleased with the resolution of this case, which includes compensation for the former employee who was working to provide for her growing family,' Philip Moss, an EEOC trial attorney, said in an agency press release. 'Unilaterally reducing an employee's hours because of pregnancy is unlawful.' Employers have faced numerous allegations regarding adverse employment decisions made on the basis of pregnancy in recent years. For example, food producer Perdue settled in January a worker's claim that the company placed her on involuntary leave, even though she requested access to water and a bathroom so that she could return to work. Similarly, EEOC sued an Arizona-based call center it alleged had fired at least two pregnant women a week into their training because the company assumed the workers would not be able to comply with its attendance policy. The employer in that case signed a consent decree with EEOC in 2021 that included a $120,000 settlement. Recommended Reading Christian nonprofit freed from complying with abortion elements of PWFA final rule Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
SBS Australia
15-05-2025
- Business
- SBS Australia
Cash-in-hand, underpaid: Fair Work Ombudsman explains migrant work rights in Australia
All workers in Australia—regardless of visa status—have equal rights to wages, entitlements, and workplace protections, according to the Fair Work Ombudsman. 'Cash-in-hand' jobs are only legal if proper pay and documentation are provided; they are unlawful if used to avoid tax or minimum conditions. Complaints about underpayment, bullying, or unfair dismissal can be lodged with the Fair Work Ombudsman—this service is free and confidential. SBS Filipino 15/05/2025 08:52 📢 Where to Catch SBS Filipino
