Continuing the increased enforcement promised by the Obama Administration, OSHA is proposing more than $3 million in fines for 42 “alleged willful violations” at an Oregon, Ohio refinery.

The refinery “often ignored or severely delayed fixing known hazards,” according to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. “There is no excuse for taking chances with people’s lives.”

OSHA began inspecting the refinery in September 2009 as part of its National Emphasis Program. For more on the process and the specific allegations, click here. Under OSHA regulations, the company has 15 business days to comply, request an “information conference” with OSHA or contest the findings with the OSHA Review Commission.

The Lesson? The message from the government is loud and clear: it fully intends to follow through on its promise to enforce employment laws much more aggressively. It has invested millions of dollars and created dozens of new enforcement-focused positions to do exactly that.

Now is not the time to be lax in complying with the law — particularly in the area of employee health and safety.

The President has signed an extension of the COBRA subsidy to March 31. Given that the prior extension expired on Sunday, the new extension is retroactive to include employees involuntarily terminated yesterday and Monday.

Click here for more.

The COBRA subsidy extension expired Sunday. That means that employees involuntarily terminated this week are no longer eligible for the subsidy, absent action by Congress.

It looks like that action may be coming soon. Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) introduced legislation that would extend the 65% subsidy to employees who are involuntarily terminated from March 1 through the end of the year. Debate is expected to start today.

Stay tuned. For more, click here.

An Iowa judge has ordered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to pay more than $4 million in fees and costs incurred by a defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit that was dismissed by the court.

In 2007, the EEOC filed a lawsuit alleging that CRST Van Expedited had subjected more than 200 female drivers to sexual harassment and had failed to take steps to remedy the alleged harassment.

Last year, Chief Judge Linda Reade of the Northern District of Iowa dismissed all of the EEOC’s claims. “The EEOC has presented the court with anecdotal evidence to show that some members of CRST’s management occasionally violated CRST’s anti-sexual harassment policy by failing to respond appropriately to sexual harassment in the workplace,” Judge Reade wrote. “However, the EEOC has not compiled the failings of CRST’s managers in any meaningful way to show that CRST has a pattern or practice of tolerating sexual harassment in its workplace.”

The EEOC’s argument, said Reade, “boils down to little more than bald assertions.” According to the judge, the EEOC’s litigation approach “was untenable: CRST faced a continuously moving target of allegedly aggrieved persons, the risk of never-ending discovery and indefinite continuance of trial.”

The law firms that represented the defendants reported that they billed more than 20,000 hours on the case and originally sought more than $7 million in fees and expenses.

“The EEOC believes the court’s decisions in the case were wrongfully decided and the agency will be appealing,” said EEOC Deputy General Counsel James Lee.

Click here for more.

There were lots of valuable employment law, leadership and HR lessons that could be gleaned from last night’s Super Bowl. Here are just a few:

Beware Casual Day

As the CareerBuilder ad last night so aptly (or inaptly, depending on your perspective) pointed out, companies should set clear guidelines for what is — and isn’t — acceptable on casual day. The result if you don’t: anarchy (and, quite possibly, harassment lawsuits).

Don’t Get Fooled By Age

Reviews of The Who’s halftime performance were decidedly mixed, with most of the negative comments focusing on their advanced age. I for one am glad that CBS gave the 60-ish rockers the chance for one last hurrah. There’s a valuable lesson there for employers: engage in age-ism and you might miss out on some great performances.

On the other hand, CBS did catch some flak for the oddly high number of ads that featured older folks (Betty White, Abe Vigoda and even Tim Tebow’s mom) getting viciously tackled by people years their junior. OK, so it was only two ads, but still . . .

Oprah, Dave and Jay

One of the most positively reviewed ads was a spot in which Oprah played peacemaker by inviting bitter late-night rivals David Letterman and Jay Leno to the same Super Bowl party. While there was some sniping by Dave, the fact that the two of them agreed to even sit on the same couch created more buzz than most of the rest of the ads combined.

The lesson? Blessed are the peacemakers.

The Best Team Usually Wins

Peyton Manning is indisputably one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the game. But, as last night’s game-turning fourth-quarter interception demonstrated, even the best leaders can falter sometimes. If the rest of the team doesn’t step up in those critical moments, you’re cooked.

Want to win? You need BOTH (1) the best talent and (2) the best team.

Communicate Carefully

According to a survey of those who watched last year’s Super Bowl, 67% recalled their favorite commercial while only 39% remembered who actually won the game. Other studies show that lots of companies who spent millions advertising during the game actually alienated the audience rather than creating positive feelings about their brand.

The lesson? When it comes to workplace communication, people (1) can be easily distracted, (2) may fixate on something other than your primary message, (3) may react negatively to messages that you thought would be 100% positive and/or (4) ignore you completely.

What’s the antidote? Plan your communications carefully — think before you speak (or hit “send”). Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and try to assess potential impacts from all possible angles. Try out important messages on others before you go “live.” And, if you mess things up, be humble enough to apologize and re-communicate (hopefully with a better message).

In case you missed any of the ads, you can view them here. If you come up with any valuable lessons that I missed, please leave a comment below.

Previously here on the Blawg, we discussed a massive class action age discrimination lawsuit filed by TV writers against various talent agencies, networks and production studios. In the latest news, lawyers for both sides announced a $70 million settlement with all but one of the defendants.

History

The lawsuits were filed in 2000 against several media giants including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Columbia, DreamWorks, Universal and Warner Brothers, as well as several talent agencies including International Creative Management (ICM), Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and William Morris. The writers alleged that the agencies refused to represent older writers and aided and abetted the networks’ and studios’ systematic failures to hire them.

ICM settled in 2008 for approximately $4.5 million plus an agreement to implement institutional changes to promote hiring of older writers. The lawsuit continued against the rest of the defendants.

Latest Settlement

The settlement calls for payment of $67.5 million to 165 TV writers. Another $2.5 million will be used to establish a fund to supplement the writers’ pensions and to provide grants and loans to help further their writing careers.

“The importance of the settlement cannot be overestimated, given the fact that television shows — even in this era of multiple entertainment platforms — remain crucial in shaping our culture,” said AARP Foundation attorneys. The AARP Foundation indicated that it would continue pursuing the case against the lone holdout from the settlement — talent agency CAA.

The settlement must be approved by a California state court before it becomes final.

The Lessons

As discussed previously here on the Blawg, age discrimination cases typically rank #1 in terms of verdict size. Those numbers will most likely continue to grow as the so-called “graying” of the U.S. workforce continues.

Court dockets are packed with cases in which older workers allege that they feel left behind by companies trying to update their image and move faster to stay in step with the new economy. The focal point of many of those cases is the use of subjective “ageist” terms such as “slow” or ”outdated” when referring to older employees. Those cases usually don’t work out too well for employers.

Obviously, employers should avoid any hint of bias against older workers as well as any facially neutral policies or procedures that could have a disparate impact. Older employees can be a valuable resource and often have tremendous skills and experience. Help your managers see the value of inclusiveness and diversity and the dangers of making potentially discriminatory remarks and decisions.

The election of Scott  Brown to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s vacated seat has sent the employment law universe into a tizzy.

What does it all mean?

In a nutshell, Democrats no longer have the 60-seat filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate. That means getting Democrat-backed (but Republican-despised) legislation passed just got a whole lot harder.

The impact of Brown’s election on health care reform has been talked to death. But what about the rest of the Administration’s legislative agenda?

Prior to Brown’s victory, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and other union-backed measures seemed pretty likely to pass in some form. Some projected that EFCA’s “quickie” election process and mandatory arbitration provision would become law prior to the 2010 mid-term elections.

Now, Democrats are left wondering whether they have the juice to sustain attacks by pro-business groups in a time of 10% unemployment. Other Administration-backed measures like immigration reform, paid sick leave and expanded discrimination laws suddenly look far less likely to ever come to fruition.

Those are just my initial thoughts. Obviously, the dust is still settling. Stay tuned to see how this all plays out.

Way back in 2007, Dan Rather filed a lawsuit against his former employer, CBS, seeking $70 million for wrongful termination. Yesterday, New York’s top court dismissed the case.

The Facts

Rather alleged that he was wronged in the aftermath of the scandal surrounding CBS’ investigation of President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service. Among other things, Rather claimed that CBS unfairly made him a “scapegoat” to curry favor with the White House and: (1) breached his employment agreement by not giving him the airtime to which he was entitled; (2) committed fraud by conducting a biased investigation into Rather’s role in the scandal; and (3) tortiously damaged his reputation.

The Dismissal

Rather didn’t fare too well in court on his claims. The case was previously dismissed in September by a Manhattan appeals court. That court unanimously ruled that CBS had no duty to use Rather’s services as long as it paid him his $6 million annual salary owed under the contract (which it did). The court also found that Rather failed to prove that he missed out on any business opportunities when CBS refused to release him to seek other employment.

Rather appealed. Yesterday, the New York State Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision, which should end the matter.

CBS spokesperson Shannon Jacobs said that the network is pleased with the ruling. Rather had a rather different reaction, calling the decision a “grave miscarriage of justice.’

The Blawg Jury

Back when the case was first filed, we asked you, our loyal Blawg visitors, to play jury and to predict the outcome of Rather’s suit.

I’m pleased to report that a whopping 66% of you predicted that Rather’s suit would fail. Congratulations on your judgment and discernment.

Of the 34% that said “yes,” two people took us up on our offer to send in personal checks in the amount of $10 made out to the “Save Dan Rather From Abject Poverty Foundation,” just in case he didn’t prevail. Strangely, those checks never arrived. Now that the case is officially over, I hereby beseech those two individuals to forward their checks to me and I’ll make sure they get into Mr. Rather’s hands as soon as possible.

As always, thanks for your participation. For more on this from Reuters, click here.

One employment law area that continues to generate lots of activity and questions is reductions in force (RIFs).

Obviously, some professions were hit harder by RIFs than others. Ever wonder which jobs took the biggest hit? The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently issued statistics on the jobs that suffered the biggest losses in ‘09. Here are the results, some of which might surprise you.

2009’s BIGGEST JOB LOSSES

1. Architects. Approximately 40,000 architect jobs were lost in the past year, a 17.8% drop. The good news? The BLS projects that architecture jobs will grow by 10% in the next decade.
2. Carpenters. 17% of carpenter jobs — almost 270,000 — disappeared in ‘09. But there’s good news here, too: the carpentry trade is projected to grow by about 13% in the next decade.
3. Production/Assembly. Production supervisor and assembly worker jobs dropped almost 16% from their already almost-unprecedentedly-low numbers. And the bad news is expected to continue: losses in this sector are expected to continue.
4. Pilots. Pilot employment dropped more than 30% in the most recent quarter for which there is data (Q3) alone. If the economy improves, air travel should jump, which is good news for pilots.
5. Software Engineers. Perhaps the most surprising entry on the list, U.S.-based software engineers were hit hard by offshoring, experiencing a 10% decline. However, the BLS projects that this sector will grow twice as fast as the average in the next decade.
6. Mechanical Engineers. 53,000 mechanical engineer jobs were lost, but the BLS projects 6% growth in the next decade.
7. Construction.  The housing decline resulted in the loss of about a quarter of a million construction jobs. The outlook? Federal programs and tax breaks designed to increase energy-efficient upgrades are anticipated to propel 20% job growth in the next decade.
8. Tellers. Tellers faced a 12% drop from already-low numbers brought on by online banking and ATMs. The BLS projects a 6% increase in the next decade.
9. Accounting. 185,000 accounting clerk jobs were lost the past year. Increased regulation is expected to result in close to 300,000 new jobs over the next decade, more than making up for the loss.

Tomorrow, we’ll give you our patented tips for managing RIFs and other not-so-fun downturn-related activities.

One of the best ways to stay out of court is to (1) keep tabs on what the EEOC is suing employers for and then (2) don’t do those things.

Over the holidays, the EEOC announced a settlement with a national restaurant chain that requires it to pay $19 million and to provide significant remedial relief.

According to the EEOC, the company discriminated against “thousands of women at hundreds of its corporately-owned restaurants nationwide.” The EEOC alleged that female employees hit a glass ceiling that prevented them from getting promoted to higher-level management positions. Among other things, the EEOC contended that women were denied favorable job assignments that were required for employees to be considered for promotions.

In addition to paying $19 million, the company agreed to a four-year consent decree requiring it to:

• create a new “Vice President of People” position;
• implement an online application system for employees interested in management positions;
• retain a consultant for two years to analyze hiring data to determine whether potential discrimination is occurring; and
• report to the EEOC every six months on progress under the decree.

“There are still too many glass ceilings left to shatter in workplaces throughout corporate America,” said EEOC’s Acting Chair, Stuart Ishimaru. “The EEOC will continue to bring lawsuits like this one against employers who engage in gender discrimination on a systemic scale. Hopefully this major settlement will remind employers about the perils of perpetuating promotion practices that keep women from advancing at work.”

Click here for more.