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When Employment Law Interferes With Business Security Concerns

November 3rd, 2011

By Lance Winslow

There are many things that you’re not allowed to ask an employee who comes to work for you during the hiring process. In fact the laws and the case law which is follows is enough to fill up rooms full of actual incidents, and lawsuits. This means a human resource professional’s job is never done, and it also means the employment lawyers can always find a precise case justifying their court filings. That is unfortunate in this day and age where we find ourselves in an unemployment predicament, and our country definitely desperately needs the jobs.

There are other issues which concern me, and I’d like to tell you a story. I believe that often our employment laws are so politically correct that they interfere with business security concerns. For instance you are not allowed to deny someone employment or use it in your decision-making process the fact that they may come from a certain religion. And religion is a very wide term, and it could mean anything from the major religions, to various sects, and even to pseudo-religions, witchcraft, and cults.

Obviously, you probably don’t wish to hire a religious person who will constantly preach their religion to your other employees, or cause a negative conflict with employee who may be an atheist, or with a religion which has historically been at war with the other. These types of conflicts can lead to physical harm between employees, and even cause security concerns. And then there are national security issues as well if your employees are working around aircraft, important infrastructure, food processing, or other serious jobs important to the flow of our civilization and society.

Still, it matters not as our politically correct employment laws trump all other concerns. And a business may be forced to hire an employee that it doesn’t want to, or might believe the future employee could be a problem due to their religion, or associations with various groups. Worse, any company that has employees of this type could be put on a government watch list, and be inspected by regulators more often. This puts the businessman, business owner, and/or the corporation in the crosshairs. » Read more: When Employment Law Interferes With Business Security Concerns

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Posted in Employment Law

Tags: human resource professional national security issues religion Security

When Employment Law and Employment Regulations Interfere with Workplace Safety

November 3rd, 2011

By Lance Winslow

Federal and state employment laws dictate that you cannot deny someone employment due to their religion, race, age, or medical conditions. And yet, we all know that people who are older may not do so well in various types strenuous physical activity, in this case work. They can get easily hurt, or perhaps even cause injury to another employee. Some employers have complained that the political correctness involved in federal and state employment law is causing more harm than good, and their opinions go something like this;

If I hire an employee that has ADHD, and they are driving the forklift, they may take risks that other employees wouldn’t. Therefore I should be able to ask someone on the employment application, if they are taking ADHD drugs, or if they have this condition. However, as you may realize you are not allowed to ask anything of this nature to employees this during the hiring process. And if you use the answers to these questions, or in some cases if you ask the question at all, and you fail to hire the individual, or even if you ask the question and hire the individual anyway, you could be opening your company up to a lawsuit.

Further, whether or not a business person’s opinion in this matter is valid, or whether it is actually relevant is beside the point, as we have employment laws to protect employees from prejudicial hiring practices. Now then, there are issues of physical endurance and physical strength which do come into play. And someone who is in their 50s perhaps would have a tough time collecting the garbage in the event that the machinery they were operating stopped working, such as the garbage truck did not have an automatic system which picked up the trashcan to load it into the garbage truck.

They might easily become injured trying to pick up trashcans, and therefore they can cause a physical injury to themselves. They might blow out a knee, hurt a disk in their back, or once they are fatigued they may not follow proper ergonomic procedures in lifting. This is a common problem in warehouses as well. Obviously corporations and small businesses want to prevent such workplace safety incidents from ever happening. And a prudent person might take that into consideration during the hiring process. However that prudent individual using what they believe to be common sense, whether it is or not, could be breaking employment laws. » Read more: When Employment Law and Employment Regulations Interfere with Workplace Safety