If you missed the Golden Globes, and you can’t wait for the Oscars or the Razzies, you always have the Employment Law Blog Carnival for January! As your fearless emcee, let me first thank the #ELBC family for letting me host this month. You have no idea what you have done are kind, and I am honored to introduce blogdom to the best of what we have been writing this past month. Let’s get started!
Best Visual Effects
Our first ELBC award goes to a blog post that gave readers everywhere Whiplash looking at the rapid growth of lawsuits under the FLSA. The award even comes with a little controversy. Can the emcee really give himself an award? Yes, yes he can.
Wage and Hour Insights: FLSA Minimum Wage, Overtime Lawsuits Smash Records in 2014
Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay
Sometimes, The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance isn’t enough when “Mr. Turner” gives notice he is quitting. The winner in our next category shows us the true meaning of “reasonable” notice, adapted from an original post he prepared for another blog.
Stuart Rudner (Rudner MacDonald): Notice of Resignation – Too Much or Too Little?
Best Short Film – Animated
It really is another legal world out in California, or as our next winner puts it “the most complicated and least employer-friendly state in the country.” It certainly gets employers animated. Fortunately, our next winner is always here to give us The Bigger Picture:
Ari Rosenstein (CPEhr Small Biz HR Blog): New 2015 California Labor Laws
Best Film Editing
Our next award recipient reminds us again that even when editing your (legal) art, you can’t miss deadlines; waiting even Two Days, One Night could be too long in a constructive discharge case.
Robert B. Fitzpatrick (Fitzpatrick on Employment Law): Statute of Limitations Starts Running Before Constructive Discharge
Best Music – Original Song
My colleague Jeff channels his Boyhood with employment law songs he writes, so this award could go to no one else. Mixed among the songs, though, is some helpful advice on leave matters, including an employer paying the price for the Inherent Vice of an ADA violation.
Jeff Nowak (FMLA Insights): Employer Fails to Provide Leave of Absence to Probationary Employee, Pays the Price
Best Costume Design
SCOTUS was busy this past week in Mach Mining v. EEOC, where our winner says the EEOC did its best to avoid President Obama’s call for transparency and to end what seems like an Unbroken string of setbacks in the courts. Transparent costumes wouldn’t work in film (at least not the kind of films suitable for this blog), but transparent federal agencies would be a real win-win for employers.
Lorene F. Schaefer (Win-Win HR): EEOC’s Arguments to Supreme Court Antithesis of Transparency and Open Government
Best Short Film
Some award winners are a complete surprise, just like SCOTUS opinions on denials of certiorari. Our next recipient takes an award for explaining in short why Justice Alito was living A Single Life last week.
Philip K. Miles (Lawffice Space): Surprise! Justice Alito issues one-man employment law opinion
Best Documentary Feature
As the release of Selma and this week’s MLK holiday reminded us, Coretta Scott King saw LGBTQ issues as the civil rights issue of our time. That point is poignantly made by our next winner.
Heather Bussing (HR Examiner): Transgender: The Ultimate Form of Gender Discrimination
Best Directing
She assures me she is not Still Alice, and never was, but that when it comes to new years and new beginnings, The Imitation Game is the last thing we want to play. Our next winner encourages employers to use 2015 to work on managing their relationships with employees.
Allison B. Williams (Employment Essentials): Start Off the Year With Both Reflection and Resolution
Best Actor – In a Supporting Role
Best Actress – In a Supporting Role
The best artists in the legal field seem to have figured out The Theory of Everything. Our winners for Best Supporting Actor and Actress are no different, particularly when it comes to determining when you will need a Big Hero to help you:
Daniel Schwartz (CT Employment Law Blog): Three Times When You Should Call an Employment Lawyer
Suzanne Lucas (Evil HR Lady): How to Hire An Employment Lawyer
Best Actor – In a Leading Role
President Obama has been everywhere this week, pushing the proposed Healthy Families Act announcing six weeks of paid sick leave for federal employees after childbirth, and more. No, you won’t be able to use your sick leave to convalesce at The Grand Budapest Hotel or any other exotic foreign destination, but our next winner will lead you to what these changes will mean for American businesses.
Eric B. Meyer (The Employer Handbook): President Obama to push for paid sick leave for American workers
Best Actress – In a Leading Role
What would awards season be without prognostication? Our next winner is fearless in making her annual predictions about employment law. Unlike most pundits, though, it isn’t just song and dance: her posts lead you through useful ideas you can use to avoid ending up in Wild Tales of your own!
Donna Ballman (Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home): How I Did On My Employment Predictions For 2014
Best Picture
Could there be any other winner? Turns out, it wasn’t an American Sniper or anything Wild, just some not-so-menacing dirt drawings on a 747 tail that transformed United flight attendants into Gone Girls:
John Holmquist (MI Employment Law Connection): Safety and today’s workplace: Lessons from the friendly skies
Thanks for joining us for the Employment Law Blog Carnival: Awards Season Edition. Remember to stay tuned here at Wage & Hour Insights for more great employment law coverage and tune in this February for the next ELBC, currently being drafted at an undisclosed location by the one Cabinet member who couldn’t attend the State of the Union and a super-secret ELBC blogger.