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With all the recent news out of Washington focused first on health care reform, then financial reform, you may be wondering what has happened to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which was proposed by Congress last year. The short answer is that while EFCA was certainly pushed aside by the health care and financial reform efforts, it is by no means dead.

As BP continues its efforts to cap the devastating oil spill in the gulf, government officials are directing their investigations to accountability and prevention. It is becoming glaringly obvious that holes in BPs workplace policies, culture, and ethics are serious culprits in our nation’s largest environmental disaster on record.

Though sexual harassment is one of the most common forms of workplace discrimination, the trends employers are seeing in harassment claims are anything but typical.

To stay ahead of the curve, employers need to keep themselves up-to-date on the four latest workplace trends impacting harassment claims:

In early May of 2010, a Federal Court in Western New York dismissed a potential wage & hour class action lawsuit brought against Black & Decker. In Kuebel v. Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc., an hourly employee claimed that he was discouraged from reporting all of his hours and overtime. The court found the employee’s testimony unreliable, and completely dismissed the employee’s individual claims, and all the potential class’s claims as well.

As the BP Corporation struggles to cap-off its unprecedented oil spill, government officials and investigative reporters have already begun digging to uncover how a disaster of this magnitude could happen. With Obama promising to tighten federal oversight of the fuel companies, liability for this tragedy will likely spread as wide as the oil slick.

You have just been tasked with drafting or revising your organization’s Code of Conduct. You start thinking about outside resources that can assist your team. While some training vendors and consultants offer Code of Conduct services using internal consultants, your best move often is to work with outside counsel.

Many people believe that all unethical behavior is illegal. But while unethical behavior may be inappropriate, often times it isn’t actually illegal.

Consider the following:

• A potential employer asks your age.
• A co-worker openly uses a racial slur in your presence.
• Executives exercise greed and manipulation in their business practices.
• A married politician has an affair with someone on his staff.

Though the above situations are certainly unethical, they are not necessarily illegal.

Our turbulent economy has forced employers to trim budgets, cut staff and get more done with less. But when it comes to ethics training, the majority of employers are maintaining their budgets, and in some cases, increasing them.

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.