My Employment Blogger

The Office on NBC last night showed Michael, the boss, callously outing Oscar as gay. Corporate launched an investigation for insensitivity. Michael called a meeting to prove he was okay with gay. An incredibly tense meeting ends with Michael kissing Oscar on the mouth. The show ends with Oscar counting the money corporate paid him not to sue.

The show merits mention here because:

Entertainment imitates life.

Michael's response to being caught as a homophobe was absurdly realistic. Once caught and left to their own devices, discriminators do absurd things. A real life example, Senator Allen's decison to hold "Ethnic Rallies " when caught mocking Macaca, comes to mind.

Corporate paid Oscar too much.

Employers have no obligation to provide employees with a workplace free from sexual preference harassment. Gays are fair game. While Michael's kiss might amount to a battery (unwelcomed and offensive physical contact) and he may have committed a false imprisonment when he blocked the door to keep Oscar from leaving the meeting, the episode was written with Oscar (sort of) consenting to the kiss and deciding to stay in the meeting.

The concern about being insensitive to gays was, however, ironically refreshing.

In real life bad boss behavior does not play out with such comedy. Here is a question and answer about office harassment and defamation. There, a boss took a new female employee to lunch, returned hours later with them both drunk and later threatened to fire the employee who leaked word of it. In Arizona it seems the employee will have little legal recourse if fired.

I like entertainment better.

The age old question about an employee's right to her final pay is answered here for Florida employees.

When it rains it pours. Today Workplace Fairness flagged an AP story reporting on an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission settlement of a class action discrimination suit against an aerospace manufacturer. The suit alleged that the employer, Woodward Gov., discriminated against minorities and females in hiring, promotions and other terms of employment. Woodward agreed to settle for $5 million, agreed to put in place programs that would eliminate discrimination and agreed to an outside monitor for the next three years.

A tip of the hat to my colleague and friend Chris Thorman and his firm for the fine work they did for their client Tommy Morgan. Last week a federal jury returned a $16 million verdict against New York Life Insurance Company for age discrimination. The "Company You Keep" decided to part company with Mr. Morgan, then 52, and replace him with a younger manager.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Mr. Morgan was a managing partner at New York Life Insurance Co.'s Northern Ohio.

Morgan was a 20-year employee of New York Life, Thorman said. His career there included a promotion, high marks for job performance and a good reputation among colleagues. One witness described Morgan as the best managing partner he had seen in 40 years, Thorman said.

In September of 2005 New York Life announced a "new generation of managers." Three weeks later New York Life fired Mr. Morgan. Bad timing. The jury returned the largest age discrimination verdict in Ohio history.

So why did the jury award such a large verdict? Federal courts in Northern Ohio are notoriously conservative, so a runaway jury is not the reason. The answer is that Mr. Morgan earned about $500,000 a year when New York Life fired him. He will therefore lose about $5.5 million over the rest of his career, which is what the jury awarded. The jury added another $500,000 for emotional pain and suffering, plus $10 million in punitive damages.

While the jury's verdict undoubtably made Mr. Morgan feel better, he should not plan on spending the money anytime soon. New York Life intends to appeal. An appeal to the Sixth Circuit takes 18 months to 2 years and the Court could reduce or overturn the verdict. If I had to bet, however, I would bet that Mr. Morgan and his legal team will protect this verdict on appeal.

My take: corporate America should stop discriminating. It's bad for business.