Welcoming a new contributor to this blawg

Regular readers of this blawg may have noticed my occasional regretful references to my inability to keep up with posting everything I’d like to cover here. Keeping up could be a full-time job, but unfortunately it does not pay the bills.

I am now pleased to announce that I am being joined by a new contributor, Michael Harris, who will add his own unique perspective and hopefully help make this an even more authoritative and comprehensive source of interesting employment law and HR information.

Michael is not a lawyer (good thing), lives about a mile from me (irrelevant in the Internet age, except that we can have coffee together), and is a professor at the University of Missouri with a PhD in Industrial & Organizational Psychology (I’m impressed and believe this will add a very interesting perspective).

(Michael is NOT the Michael Harris who is my law firm partner.)

He teaches Human Resource Management courses including: “Personnel/Human Resource Management”; “Managing the Global Workforce”; “Organizational Training”; and “Selected Topics in Human Resource Management.” Michael also consults for EASIconsult, (Expert Advocates in Selection International, LLC), which describes itself as having “expertise . . . in providing accurate information about people through professional assessment.” Michael’s main responsibility here is for litigation support services, which provides services in connection with discrimination lawsuits and related issues.

Here is Michael’s University resume-format page, and here is a bio with some additional information about him.

Astute readers may have noticed that it was Michael, not I, who wrote yesterday’s Wal-Mart post. He has special interest in this case, having recently co-written an article entitled “Class-Action Lawsuits in the Employment Discrimination Context: What I-O Psychologists Should Know.”

This article is good reading for lawyers and HR folks as well as psychologists.

It discusses a number of cases, and concludes with a series of practical recommendations, including: “Be aware that developing and implementing centralized hiring, promotion, and pay practices could be viewed by the courts as evidence of commonality and typicality.” In the final paragraph, regarding the Wal-Mart case, it says: “the outcome of this case is likely to affect future class-certification cases for years to come.”

There is a dilemma regarding the point Michael raises about centralization.

Yes, it will be used against employers, to establish class status.

But it also hopefully will be useful to employers, in establishing and monitoring the type of well-thought-out and rational employment practices that will prevent claims from being raised, and will provide a defense to those which are raised.

I think Wal-Mart may demonstrate the failure of decentralization — it hasn’t bought them freedom from the class action menace, but has perhaps left them vulnerable to claims of widespread discrimination.

I have thus far been unsuccessful in downloading the Wal-Mart case opinion from the law firm site, but understand Michael has. Once he has digested it, I’d like to hear a few of his thoughts on it.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Copyright Employmentblawg Designed by Weblogian