New EEOC Chair Presides Over First Meeting, Focusing on Ending Workplace Harassment

By
The EEOC's new Chair, Jenny R. Yang, presided over her first commission meeting on January 14, 2015.  Ms. Yang was confirmed as a member of the EEOC in 2013 and served as Vice Chair.  She was appointed as the new Chair of the EEOC by President Obama last fall.  Ms. Yang has a distinguished professional history, and is the first Asian-American Chair of the EEOC.

The EEOC's first meeting of 2015 focused on exploring effective ways to eliminate workplace harassment.  Panelists bringing multiple perspectives to the issue discussed ways to achieve that goal, with a number emphasizing the importance of awareness and workforce training. 

Ms. Yang noted that the EEOC was committed to developing communication and outreach strategies to educate and inform, while also focusing on increased enforcement efforts directed to workplace harassment.   Ms. Yang stated that "[b]y identifying underlying problems in workplaces and industries where we see recurring patterns of harassment, we are developing strategies that focus on targeted outreach and education as well as systemic enforcement to promote broader voluntary compliance."

The EEOC report of the meeting can be found here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

OSHA’s New Rule on Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Is Back in Force (For Now)

By
  In the ongoing legal battle over the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s emergency temporary standard on COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing (the “ETS”), a federal appeals court has given OSHA authority—for now—to move forward with enforcement.  The core of the ETS is the requirement that employers with more than 100 employees must implement and enforce a policy that mandates that employees be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by January 4, 2022 or to submit to weekly COVID-19 testing and wear a mask.   However, in light of the numerous legal challenges and the uncertainties caused by the conflicting decisions in federal court, OSHA has stated that it will exercise its “enforcement discretion” to give employers some additional time to comply with deadlines published in the original ETS.  OSHA states that it will not issue any citations for non-compliance with ETS requirements before January 10, 2022, and will not issue citations before February 9, 2022 for failing to enforce
Read more

Governement Agency Scruntizes Confidentiality Agreements

By
The Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") recently announced that it had opened an enforcement action against a company based on a confidentiality agreement that the SEC claimed interfered with the rights of would-be whistleblowers.  According to the SEC, the confidentiality agreement was presented to employees during workplace investigations, and prohibited the employees from speaking about the investigation with anyone unless the company granted permission.  The SEC claimed that such a provision violated the whistleblower protections of Rule 21F-17 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which prohibits actions that impede whistleblowers from reporting possible securities law violations to the SEC.  Our colleague Morgan Curry has offered a solid analysis of the SEC's action here .  As a result, businesses are well advised to take a look at their confidentiality provisions, especially those in employment and severance agreements, to consider whether an update of t
Read more

Supreme Court Decision in Groff v. DeJoy Increases Burden on Employers Under Title VII for Denying Religious Accommodations

By
Employers will now have to show a higher degree of hardship to deny employee requests for religious accommodation. Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 29 C.F.R. § 1605.2(b)(1), employers are required to grant employee requests for religious accommodation “unless the employer demonstrates that [the requested] accommodation would result in undue hardship on the conduct of its business.” On July 29, 2023,  the United States Supreme Court unanimously clarified  in  Groff v. DeJoy  that a religious accommodation only results in “undue hardship” when “the burden of granting [the] accommodation would result in  substantial  increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business.”  The “substantial increased cost” standard is a departure from the lower “more than a  de minimis  cost” standard that has prevailed since 1975. For the last 48 years, employers could deny religious accommodations for causing “undue hardship” if the accommodation would impose “more than
Read more