HR Law

150 words minimum on each response. Book for reference is Walsh, D. J. (2013). Employment law for human resource practice (4th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western. APA format. No plagiarizing. Will use Turnitin and safeassign,

1. Review “Clippings” on pages 607-608 of your textbook about the McDonald’s strip search incident. Imagine a scenario that is not quite as egregious as the one referenced. Instead, imagine that a female assistant manager performed the same cavity search of the 18-year-old female employee because she thought the employee had stolen some money from the register. The assistant manager was alerted by a co-worker that the female employee in question had just walked from the front of the store (where the registers are located) immediately to the employee bathroom with some paper-like object balled up in her hands. The female employee was humiliated by the search and felt sexually assaulted by the assault and helpless because she was held there for three hours despite her objections. In this changed scenario, do you believe McDonald’s would have faced a similar judgment from the courts ($6 million award and guilty of negligence, sexual harassment, and false imprisonment)? Why, or why not? What defense(s) would the employer likely raise in order to try and justify the actions taken? Do you think these defenses would be persuasive? Why, or why not?

 

2. Should an employee have an expectation of privacy relative to electronic communications when sending personal emails from the company computer? What if the employee used the company computer to access his/her own Yahoo email account; should the employee have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding personal emails sent through his/her personal email? To take it a step further, should the employee have an expectation of privacy as it relates to text messages sent from a company issued Blackberry? Defend your response with references to at least two sources from the following: the textbook, court case(s), articles from reliable/authoritative authors.

 

3. Performance evaluations are important tools for managing performance. However, they can also easily be mismanaged by supervisors and employees alike. The situation becomes more combustible when employees first do a self-evaluation followed by a formal evaluation from the supervisor.

Co. Sigma Inc. gives employees annual evaluations. The manager can rate each employee as Exceeds Expectations (EE), Meets Expectations (ME), Partially Meets Expectations (PE), or Horrible Employee (HE). Employee Bill turns in his self-evaluation and has himself as an EE in all ten performance categories. Supervisor Mary reviews the self-evaluation and is troubled. She believes he is an EE in two categories, but is an ME in six categories, a PE in one category, and an HE in one category. She wonders how such a disconnect could exist between how he views himself and reality.

·         What do you think could have caused this disconnect?

·         How should she go about remedying this situation?

·         If she just goes ahead and gives him all EEs even though he does not deserve them, what problem(s) might this create?

 

4. Should an employer be allowed to automatically deduct a meal break period from an employee as a standard payroll deduction, or should the employee first actually take the break before such a deduction occurs?

 

Did the 6th circuit court in Frye v. Baptist Memorial Hospital get it wrong? Explain your response. To find the case, you can Google it, or visit the following link: http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/12a0926n-06.pdf