Womble Employment Law Blog

A federal court in North Carolina has ruled that a jury trial will be held in a case brought by the EEOC challenging a hospital's mandatory flu shot policy.  The case was filed in 2016 by the EEOC for a group of terminated employees who failed to request a religious exemption by a certain deadline and did not get the required flu shot.  On August 7, 2017, the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina ruled that it could not dismiss the case at summary judgment without a trial, concluding that a jury would be needed to decide whether workers who did not request a religious exemption to the policy were treated more favorably. The mandatory flu shot policy required that workers obtain a flu shot by December 1.  However, to accommodate sincere religious beliefs, the policy also allowed workers who had objections to receiving a flu shot on religious grounds to request an exemption under the policy.  The po...

A new North Carolina law provides an additional avenue for employers to seek redress from employees who have taken company information for personal use.   N.C.G.S. § 99A-2, which became effective January 1, 2016, provides that “Any person who intentionally gains access to the nonpublic areas of another’s premises and engages in an act that exceeds the person’s authority to enter those areas is liable to the owner or operator of the premises for any damages sustained.”  N.C.G.S. § 99A-2(a).  The statute lists several examples of acts that exceed a person’s authority, and first among those examples is an employee who takes company information for use beyond the scope of his or her employment: An employee who enters the nonpublic areas of an employer's premises for a reason other than a bona fide intent of seeking or holding employment or doing business with the employer and thereafter without authorization captures or removes the employer's data, paper, recor...

Keep an eye on your email inboxes and spam folders.  The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently announced that it has begun a pilot program to send electronic notices of discrimination charges.  The program is called "ACT Digital" and is intended to make responding to charges more efficient and cost effective. The pilot program is beginning in 11 EEOC offices, centered in North Carolina and the Southeast, and moving to larger offices in Midwestern and Western states.  They are the following: Charlotte; Greensboro; Greenville; Norfolk; Raleigh; Richmond; Detroit, Indianapolis; Phoenix; Denver; and San Francisco.  The EEOC states that the system is secure, and that documents and information will be accessible only by password.  Using the system, employers will be able to download charges, submit a position statement, and communicate with the EEOC.  The Commission has published a Q&A document for ACT Digital, which can be found...

The EEOC announced that it has settled a religious accommodation lawsuit against a beer distributor which insisted that a prospective employee cut his hair if wanted a job.  The prospective employee asserted that he was a practicing Rastafarian, and in accordance with his beliefs, was forbidden to cut his hair.  After being denied the job with the North Carolina company, he filed an EEOC charge, which ultimately resulted in the EEOC filing a lawsuit. In January, the EEOC announced that the parties had reached a settlement.  According to the EEOC, the company agreed to pay $50,000 and change its policies.  The EEOC announcement can be found here . 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics ("BLS") released its annual summary of labor union membership for 2014 on January 23, 2015.  Overall union membership in the U.S. continues to decline.  Some interesting highlights from the BLS information: The total labor union membership rate (public and private sector) was 11.1%, down slightly from 2013.  The BLS reports that about 14.6 million workers were union members in 2014. The union membership rate in the private sector decreased to 6.2%.  The rate for the public sector was much higher, at 35.7%, but was also down from 2013. North Carolina had the lowest union membership rate in the U.S., at just 1.9% (down from 3% in 2013).  South Carolina was the second lowest at 2.2%. New York had the highest membership rate, at 24.6%, followed by Alaska (22.8%) and Hawaii (21.8%). Younger workers have lower union membership rates.  For workers ages 25-34, the rate is 9.5%, as compared to ...