On April 11, a federal judge denied summary judgment in an ADA case brought on by the EEOC involving the termination of a Walgreens employee for eating a $1.39 bag of chips before paying for them. Walgreens has an "anti-grazing" rule that is applied uniformly to all employees, meaning that all employees are required to pay for any item before consuming. The employee has diabetes and claimed that she was beginning to have a hypoglycemic attack while stocking the shelves with chips, so she opened a bag to eat. She claims she tried to pay for them, but no one was at that counter. Walgreens had filed for summary judgment based on the EEOC's legal guidance that "an employer never has to tolerate or excuse violence, threats of violence, stealing, or destruction of property." The judge discounted that argument saying ""[W]hether Walgreens should have been required to 'accommodate' [the employee's] stealing as a 'reasonable' accommodation is for the jury to determine." This decision is another example of the ever-expanding rights of employees with medical impairments that may be perceived as "disabilities".   

Fifth Circuit Holds that Confidentiality Agreement Prohibiting Disclosure of Personnel Information Violates NLRA  

On March 24, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed the National Labor Relations Board's decision that nonunion employer FlexFrac Logistics LLC violated the NLRA by maintaining a confidentiality policy that barred workers from discussing "personnel information" with anyone outside the organization.

The Fifth Circuit held that the NLRB was not unreasonable when it found that employees could construe the policy as prohibiting them from discussing their wages in violation of Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act.

To read the full article, by partner Jay Stovall, visit here.  

Bullying has become a hot topic in the press, mainly in schools. However, as the problem becomes more well-known, and as employees learn to put a name to the conduct, bullying is becoming more of an issue in the workplace. Workplace bullying is usually seen as repeated instances of mistreatment of co-workers by verbal abuse, work interference, threatening, humiliating or intimidating conduct. Some examples include threats of violence, blackmail, excluding an employee from activities, purposefully ignoring his or her work or contributions and spreading rumors about a co-worker. To read the full article, by partner Jay Stovall, visit here. 

• Time Period Shortened. The proposed rule shortens the time period from when the union's petition is filed until the election to 10-11 days.
• Statement of Position Changes. The proposal requires employers to disclose their entire case in the statement and keeps employers from presenting evidence on any issue not included in the statement.  
• Mandated Disclosure of Employee Information. Under the rule, employers are required to turn over private employee information, including employee telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.