Fortune Magazine recently ran an article that explored a trend in the tech industry of job postings that say the companies prefer applicants who are “digital natives.” Education consultant Marc Prensky coined the term “digital native” in an article that he published in 2001 called Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. What…
Earlier this month, a 64-year-old tech worker, Robert Heath, filed an age discrimination lawsuit against Google. In the lawsuit, filed in California, Heath claims that Google refused to hire him because of his age. The attorneys who filed the lawsuit seek to represent a class of older workers as well.…
The legislatures in Connecticut and Vermont are considering bills that would further expand the availability of paid sick leave for workers. As we’ve reported before, paid sick leave laws are beginning to pop up in various parts of the country. However, Maine, unlike some of its neighboring New England states,…
Today is Equal Pay Day. Equal Pay Day highlights the wage gap in the United States between men and women. On average, women earn about 78% of what men earn. Equal Pay Day is today because the average woman would have to add all of the wages she’s earned between…
A Connecticut appeals court recently ruled that an ambulance company could legally discriminate against a volunteer on the basis of her race. The volunteer who brought the case, an African American woman named Sarah Puryear, alleged that her ambulance company discriminated against her because of her race. Ms. Puryear alleged,…
Yesterday the Washington Post ran a story about a hotel maid who a reporter had interviewed for an article on the minimum wage. The reporter spoke to the maid at the suggestion of the maid’s boss. The maid had told the reporter that she looked forward to receiving a $0.25/hour…
This month in New York, a class action lawsuit was filed against Novartis, a large pharmaceutical company. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege a pattern or practice of sex discrimination against women who worked for the Alcon division of the company. They claim that women in the Alcon division received…
Earlier this year, a federal appeals court in the Midwest issued a decision that allowed an employer to potentially escape liability for illegally depriving its employees of wages. The case involved a chain of restaurants called Gusano’s Pizza that allegedly used an illegal tip pooling scheme to deprive employees of…
Last month, a sex discrimination trial began in which Ellen Pao, a former junior partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, has alleged that Kleiner Perkins refused to promote her and forced her out because of her sex. The trial will include evidence of lurid sexism but,…
The United States is one of the few countries in the world that does not require employers to provide paid maternity leave to employees. A U.N. study of 185 countries found that the United States, Papua New Guinea, and Oman are the only countries that do not provide paid maternity…