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Retaliation is now the most commonly filed claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). In general, retaliation claims are likely to be successful in trial and recover significant damages. Since most managers have no idea what retaliation is and how they can significantly contribute to retaliation claims, these new statistics have employers on edge.

On January 6, 2010, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released its charge filing statistics for the 2009 Fiscal Year. 

We’ll discuss the highlights and what you need to know.

As 2009 winds down, it’s a great time to review the key workplace developments of the year, and talk about their implications for the future. A lot happened in 2009; events that put us on edge, and that will have a lasting impact on how employers manage risk and compliance.

I know many of you are knee-deep in planning for next year, and facing very tough time and budget constraints. You’re trying to really focus your compliance efforts. To assist you with that challenge, here are my top workplace compliance stories of 2009.

These are the trends and developments driving the greatest areas of risk, and where your organization needs to find innovative and effective solutions in 2010.

With 2009 coming to a close, many employers are scrambling to make sure they comply with California’s strict harassment training law, AB 1825.

The past two weeks have been wrought with shocking violence, from the brutal rape and beating of a California teenager, to the dual shooting rampages at Fort Hood and an Orlando-based engineering firm.

While the media rehashes every detail of these tragic stories, business leaders need to recognize that we are in an environment of escalating violence and focus on prevention.

Long before the Facebook revolution, the general advice for employers was that managers could be friendly with employees, but they really shouldn’t be friends with them.

But from sexting, to blogging, to Twittering and social networking, the line between work and personal communications is becoming increasingly blurred - which has the potential to create major legal risk for employers.

In today’s blog post, I wanted to outline the seven biggest legal risks that can arise when employees and managers become virtual “friends”.

Media coverage of EFCA is swinging from one extreme to the other, with the headlines announcing EFCA’s assured passage, or its certain death. With all this back and forth, the real issue is being missed - our new Administration’s clear support for unions and the DOL’s resilient determination to make union organizing easier.

Obama has made it clear that he sees unions as part of the solution to our current recession, and our new Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis, has pronounced that unions are today, ‘more important than ever.’

Employers are taking note of these strong sentiments.

As predicted, organized labor, the White House, and members of Congress used the symbolism of Labor Day to re-energize discussions about the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The momentum behind EFCA increased significantly this past week, when President Obama and other high-profile policy makers spoke at the AFL-CIO’s convention in Pittsburgh.

I don’t know about you, but every time I read about a politician getting caught up in another sex scandal - former New York Governor Eliott Spitzer; former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick; South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (the list could go on and on) - my jaw drops. But it’s dropped so many times, it’s almost cliché. I wonder if these guys will ever “get it” and learn to keep their pants on, and recognize that there’s no such thing as a secret when you’re a high profile politician or business leader.

But these sex scandals have a way of sticking around and recycling like a bad smell - and nobody ever seems to learn.

As American workers celebrated Labor Day on September 7th, both President Obama and the AFL-CIO took the opportunity to share their respective workplace agendas.

Obama spoke at an AFL-CIO picnic in Cincinnati, Ohio, and, as expected, touted the pro-worker accomplishments of his Administration, including passage of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and the appointment of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. Obama also used the occasion to reiterate his long-standing support of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) currently pending in Congress.