Workforce Bulletin

A recent blog post by Susan Fowler, a former software engineer at Uber, and the author of two books regarding software engineering, has once again drawn national attention to the issue of the underrepresentation of women in the technology industry. Her story has received extensive media coverage, and Uber has retained former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate Ms. Fowler’s allegations. Further, the allegations appear to have reinvigorated the #DeleteUber social media campaign.

Ms. Fowler’s account describes a plethora of employment law issues, in particular ...

Employers in the technology industry should take note of last week’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in EEOC v. New Breed Logistics (PDF).  The court declined to reconsider a panel holding that, in the context of a retaliation claim, “a demand that a supervisor cease his/her harassing conduct constitutes protected activity under Title VII.”

Three former employees of New Breed Logistics, a supply-chain logistics company, asserted that they had engaged in protected activity by telling their supervisor to stop making advances and sexual comments.  The ...

With the ever-increasing amount of information available on social media, employers should remember to exercise caution when utilizing social media as a part of their Human Resources/ Recruitment related activities.  As we have discussed in a prior blog post, “Should Employers and Facebook Be Friends?” we live in a digital-age, and how people choose to define themselves is often readily showcased on social networking sites.  Whether – and how – employers choose to interact with the online presence of their workforce will continue to develop as the relevant legal standards ...

We were recently interviewed in Corporate Counsel, in “Employment Law Risks Abound for Startup Companies,” by Rebekah Mintzer. (Read the full version — subscription required.)

Following is an excerpt:

“We think they should be focused on it from day one,” Ian Carleton Schaefer, a member in Epstein Becker & Green’s labor and employment practice and co-leader of the firm’s technology, media and telecommunications strategic industry group, told CorpCounsel.com. “Oftentimes it takes a triggering event, whether it’s a lawsuit or a government audit to get ...