Our Blog

It’s been exactly one week since the AB 1825 sexual harassment training regs became effective. Any training done after August 17, 2007, must align with strict and detailed requirements.

I know many of you are taking a careful look at your sexual harassment training programs and asking tough questions about compliance.

Last week, I blogged about the 2 hour timing rule. This week, I want to help readers tackle one of the required forms of interactivity for online sexual harassment training programs – that supervisors be able to submit questions during e-learning, and have those questions responded to within 48 business hours.

In three short days, AB 1825’s sexual harassment training regulations are effective. That means any training done after August 17, whether live or online, must comply not only with the text of AB 1825, but also it’s detailed and demanding regulations.

The regulations place a particularly high onus on e-learning. The most hotly debated requirement? That employers be able to demonstrate their sexual harassment training programs take supervisors “no less than two hours to complete.”

In other words, you need to police the time.

We all gripe about the cost of airline travel – even though few consumers recognize the razor-thin profit margins that most carriers have to contend with.

But there’s nothing like a price fixing scandal to really fuel the fires of consumer outrage.

And that brings us to this week’s ethics scandal – the dark and dirty relationship between British Airways (BA) and Virgin. These two giants are the target of an investigation into price fixing and collusion by the British Office of Fair Trade (OFT) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The allegations claim that BA and Virgin (along with some additional carriers) colluded to fix fuel surcharge prices for passenger and air cargo fares on long-haul flights to and from the U.K. British Air increased this surcharge seven times in two years, and the money it collected from fuel surcharges surpassed after-tax profit the past year. (See Timesonline.com article: British Airways investigated over price fixing cartel ’ Foxnews.com article: Airlines Face Probes Over Price-Fixing).

Just yesterday, the OFT announced that it had obtained an admission of collusion from BA. The outcome? Some very hefty fines. BA will pay £121.5 million, or $246.5 million US - the largest penalty ever imposed by the British competition regulator. BA was also was fined $300 million by the U.S. DOJ after parallel trans-Atlantic investigations. Needless to say, BA has been hit very hard in terms of financial punishment.