my new boss is an elder in a sexist church by Alison Green on July 29, 2020 A reader writes: My new boss is an elder in his church which has very old-fashioned beliefs about women. They believe that the role of women is to obey their husbands unquestioningly and more or less only speak when spoken to, at least when there is a man present. I don’t have a problem with […] Read the full article →
my boss is discriminating against my pregnant employee by Alison Green on July 15, 2020 A reader writes: We have a colleague who has just left to spend a year working remotely (well, we’re all working remotely now!) so he and his wife can live near her family for a year. We needed to split his role into two anyway, so we hired someone, “Jane,” to take over his day-to-day […] Read the full article →
we’re supposed to forfeit all our vacation days if we’ve worked from home by Alison Green on June 16, 2020 A reader writes: As an HR person for a small employer, I take to heart a lot of your advice and work hard to push the management here to do better. They had plenty of issues before all this, but I truly believed they were trying to change. But with COVID-19, things went downhill fast […] Read the full article →
it’s now illegal to fire someone for being gay or trans by Alison Green on June 15, 2020 As of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this morning, it’s now illegal in the U.S. to fire someone for being gay or trans. Until today, some states protected gay and trans people from being fired simply for being gay or trans, but the majority of states did not. That protection now extends to the entire country. […] Read the full article →
my employer doesn’t pay us for time spent waiting for assignments by Alison Green on June 1, 2020 A reader writes: I am an hourly employee who is thankfully still employed during the pandemic. Since we’ve been working from home, we’ve been told that we are to enter into our timesheets only the amount of time we work on tasks. Basically, if a task takes us two hours, we track that and that’s […] Read the full article →
if you have a disability, do employers have to let you keep working from home after they re-open? by Alison Green on May 26, 2020 A reader writes: My friend’s office is reopening and bringing everyone back to work. They’re refusing (or at the very least being VERY hesitant) to provide accommodations, even though she’s immunocompromised and has a doctor’s note verifying this. She’s asking to be allowed to continue working from home (which everyone in her organization has been […] Read the full article →
our employer wants to cut our pay — retroactively by Alison Green on April 14, 2020 A reader writes: I work for a national nonprofit based in the U.S. with offices across the country. On Friday, our CEO sent out the dreaded “due to COVID-19, layoffs are coming” email. In it, we were told that on the following Monday they would be laying off 25% of the staff nationwide, and those […] Read the full article →
your employer can take your temperature, and other changes by Alison Green on April 7, 2020 The EEOC has issued new guidance about coronavirus in the workplace — and has clarified that some practices that wouldn’t normally be allowed are permissible during the outbreak. Here’s what you need to know. • Your employer can ask if you’ve had symptoms associated with coronavirus (fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat), if […] Read the full article →
can my employer lay me off and ask me to volunteer? by Alison Green on March 30, 2020 A reader writes: My employer, a medium-sized nonprofit, is experiencing a lot of understandable fundraising and budget anxiety during COVID-19. While I know everyone’s doing the best they can to prevent cuts to staff or layoffs, I heard through a coworker this week that one idea our CEO has been kicking around has been to […] Read the full article →
exactly where to report employers for violating shelter-in-place orders, by state by Alison Green on March 27, 2020 When I wrote on Wednesday about what to do if your employer is violating shelter-in-place orders, commenters were a wealth of information for individual states. Here’s crowd-sourced info on where to report non-compliant employers, by state. I will verify and add additional info here as I get it. • In California, if your county declared […] Read the full article →