Employment Relations
What are the family-related occurrences that qualify for benefits under the FMLA?
Consolidated Bargains, Inc. has a corporate policy of not allowing employees to use company email for private use. Joe Bennett is a Consolidated employee who used email to communicate with his attorney asking whether Joe's wife filed for divorce. Joe knows that the company policy is that employee emails are randomly monitored to enforce this policy. Joe's employer read his email and also read the attorney's response telling Joe that his wife indeed had filed for divorce. Discuss whether you think the employer's action is lawful or unlawful and why. If unlawful, do you think Consolidated should receive a penalty?
Brownlee, Inc. manufactures and sells sports clothing and shoes in the United States. Brownlee employs over 100 fourteen- and fifteen-year-old teenagers paying them an hourly wage of $4 per hour and allows them to work over 40 hours per week. Discuss any legal issues you see in this situation.
4. Jack worked as a window cleaner for Tower Cleaning, Inc., which specialized in cleaning windows in high-rise apartments and skyscrapers. Tower cleaning has procedures in place located in the company employment manual that all employees must follow. Among those procedures are safety checklists including wearing protective gear, harnessing while being lifted up high, communicating with the lift, making logs of malfunctioning equipment, etc. Jack was scheduled to clean the windows of a skyscraper all the way up to the 20th floor when he was injured because he dangled from side to side while being lifted. An investigation revealed that Jack was careless and did not follow the company procedure manual for properly harnessing before being lifted up high to clean windows. Jack has filed a claim under the state's Workers' Compensation. Tower Cleaning denies any liability because Jack was careless and disobeyed company policy. Discuss any legal implications.
5. Which of the following medical conditions do not qualify under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990? Please briefly explain your answer for each item.
a. An individual born blind seeks employment as a telephone operator.
b. A factory worker lost two fingers in a workplace accident and the employer terminated his employment.
c. An employee has pneumonia and cannot work in an air conditioned work environment during the summer months.
d. A diabetic employee must take frequent breaks to test his sugar level and eat snacks.