In the past few years, the Great Recession has kept many employees locked into their current jobs out of concern about the tough job market. As the unemployment rate gradually improves and there are fewer applicants for each new job opening, however, people are beginning to look around for more interesting prospects.
Smaller sex discrimination class action refiled against Wal-Mart
After the U.S. Supreme Court turned away a class action involving 1.5 million nationwide Wal-Mart workers in 2011, many people may have assumed that was the end of the story. The high court's ruling in Dukes v. Wal-Mart held that the size of the proposed class was too large, that the situations of the women involved were too different, and that the claims lacked enough specificity to justify the certification of the case as a class action.
Judge: Supervalu/Jewel violated disability discrimination order
In Jan. 2011, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission won a lawsuit against Supervalu/Jewel Foods after the company terminated 110 people with disabilities after they ran out of leave time, and refused to provide reasonable accommodation for those who tried to return after a disability-related leave of absence. This was a clear violation of employees' rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA.
Workers can't sue under FLSA if contract requires arbitration
In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case called AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion that the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 supersedes state laws that had prohibited employment contracts forbidding class-action arbitration. The ruling allowed employers nationwide to force workers to sign contracts in which, not only did all disputes have to be settled through arbitration, but they couldn't bring those disputes forward as a class.
