HR/Employment Blogosphere Update for September 13, 2005

This Blawg is speeding down the road to our exciting makeover.

(Yes, I once drove a classic Mustang — a Rangoon Red ‘65 fastback with red interior and 289 4-barrel, and hope to one day drive it again. That’s why I like this photo.)

Meanwhile, I’m feeling like I abandoned my regular update readers by skipping two Mondays.

So here, better late than never, is a quick update from around the blogosphere (no table of contents or headings today, just running through blogs in alphabetical order, as far as I get before bedtime):

Donald at All Deliberate Speed reports on an Eighth Circuit case restating one reason it’s tough to prove discrimination: the proper inquiry is not whether the employer was factually correct in its assessment of the plaintiff’s misconduct or poor job performance, but whether it honestly believed the facts were as stated.

Janell at BenefitsBlog has a sobering look at the conditions of the courts and lawyers in Louisiana in the wake of Katrina. Surely there are more unfortunate people than most of the lawyers, but the justice system implications described are very problematic.

Speaking of sobering Katrina posts, with which the blogosphere is of course loaded, Confined Space has: “To Be A New Orleans Police Officer.”

And The Employment Law Bulletin has a good “rant” on federal response to Katrina (one of millions, no doubt, but this one even ends with a (sick) joke!) (mostly quoting Keith Olbermann).

Chuck Krugel continues his series of family photos of people at work, interesting to me because of my love for both photography and labor history. Now we see his “great grandmother, Minnie Levinson, at her and her husband Abraham Levinson’s grocery store . . . under the L tracks” in Chicago, and his pharmacist Dad in a drugstore circa 1960.

Chuck also provides an update on post-AFL-CIO split union organizing strategies. See my (slightly unrealistic and smartass) comment there.

Drama, Conflict, Despair & Victory at Work writes on a Ninth Circuit case on non-sexual sex-based harassment (offensive conduct may be unlawful “if there is sufficient circumstantial evidence of qualitative and quantitative differences in the harassment suffered by female and male employees,” even if the conduct is not facially sex-specific).

Not new law, but maybe news to some.

Ross’ Employment Blog also discusses this case, and lays the applicable law out crystal clear.

The flip side is also true, but cases on this point are hard to find: conduct may be sexual in nature (e.g., dirty jokes, discussions of sexual exploits), but if not singling out one gender, race, etc., it is not unlawful.

Jottings by an Employer’s Lawyer covers President Bush’s emergency suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act for certain counties in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida, the somewhat misguided and misinformed backlash thereto, and a bit of explanation about this Act.

(It is ironic that the word Bacon is part of the name of this union-suckup-porkbarrel act that wastes billions of taxpayer dollars paying “prevailing wages” that are anything but).

Labor & Employment Law Blog has a crucial, if non-sexy, tidbit: “In response to the recent increases in the cost of gasoline, on September 9, 2005, the Internal Revenue Service (”IRS”) increased the optional standard mileage rates . . . for the last four months of 2005 to 48.5 cents per mile.”

Thoughts from a Management Lawyer links to an article on providing the desired flexibility older workers are looking for.