Tag: Title VII

High Court Backs Religion

The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc. marks a significant expansion of protections for religious practices in the workplace. This decision clarifies that employers may be liable for discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if they fail to accommodate religious practices through otherwise neutral employment policies, even if the applicant does not explicitly request an accommodation.

Key Points of the Ruling

  • Implicit Need for Accommodation: The Court's decision emphasizes that an employer's obligation to accommodate does not strictly depend on an explicit request from the job applicant or employee. In this case, the mere knowledge or assumption that a practice might be religiously motivated is sufficient to trigger the employer's duty to accommodate.

  • Neutral Policies and Religious Accommodation: Even if a policy is neutral and applies to all employees uniformly (such as a dress code banning all headwear), it must be flexible enough to accommodate religious practices unless doing so would cause undue hardship to the employer's business.

  • Protection for Religious Minorities: This ruling is particularly significant for religious minorities, affirming their right to equal treatment in employment settings and protecting against subtle forms of discrimination that might arise from seemingly neutral policies.

Implications for Employers

Employers must carefully review their employment policies and practices to ensure they do not inadvertently discriminate against employees based on religion. This includes being proactive in identifying potential conflicts between job requirements and employees' religious practices and being prepared to offer reasonable accommodations.

How Latenode Can Assist

For businesses looking to navigate these legal waters effectively, Latenode can be an essential tool. Here are a few ways how:

  • Automated Compliance Checks: Latenode can help automate the process of reviewing and updating company policies to ensure they comply with new legal standards. This includes alerts for policy reviews whenever relevant legal rulings or changes occur.

  • Training and Education: Latenode can be used to develop and deploy training modules for HR and management teams on religious accommodations and other Title VII requirements. This training can help prevent misunderstandings and ensure that management is aware of both legal obligations and best practices for accommodating religious practices.

  • Documentation and Reporting: Keeping detailed records of employment decisions, especially those involving potential accommodations, is crucial. Latenode can automate this documentation process, ensuring that all interactions regarding accommodations are recorded and easily accessible for review if necessary.

This Supreme Court decision reinforces the importance of understanding and respecting religious practices in the workplace, and tools like Latenode can help businesses adapt to these requirements while maintaining compliance and supporting a diverse workforce.

The Court said job applicants do not have to specifically ask for a religious accommodation or prove that an employer had actual knowledge of the applicant’s need for a religious accommodation. 

The Court said plaintiffs need only show that their need for an accommodation was a “motivating factor in the employer’s decision” not to hire them.

The decision represents a defeat for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which supported Abercrombie in the litigation, but it is not believed to be much of a departure for the Court, which has made religious freedom a priority. The Court last year ruled 5-4 that the government could not require the owners of private companies like Hobby Lobby to provide female workers with contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act when it violated their religious beliefs.

Continue reading “High Court Backs Religion”

Shift Expected on Pregnancy Accommodation

Should employers treat pregnant employees who suffer temporary disabilities the same way they treat other employees with temporary disabilities?

Yes, says the U.S. Office of the Solicitor General.

However, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr,  says most federal appellate courts who have addressed the issue have decided it incorrectly by holding that employers do not have to accommodate pregnant workers who suffer temporary pregnancy-related disabilities.

Verrilli nevertheless recently recommended that the U.S. Supreme Court decline to review a case in which Peggy Young, a  United Parcel Service driver, was denied “light duty” work when she was pregnant, despite a  doctor’s note stating she should not lift more than 20 pounds during the first half of her pregnancy and not more than 10 pounds for the second half.

Verrilli said two developments may prompt courts to re-assess the issue of pregnancy accommodation. He said the  U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is “currently considering the adoption of new enforcement guidance on pregnancy discrimination.”  He also said 2008 amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act  cover a broader scope of impairments.  Pregnant workers who can’t get protection under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA) may have better luck with the ADA, he said . Continue reading “Shift Expected on Pregnancy Accommodation”

Appeals Ct Says OK for Supervisor to Throw Things

shoeA federal appeals court panel  has ruled that a supervisor did not violate the rights of a subordinate when he allegedly yelled at her in front of coworkers and violently threw a heavy notebook at her.

A panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the above conduct may be  “unprofessional, uncivil and somewhat boorish” but it does not rise to the level of malevolence necessary to constitute a “hostile work environment” under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act o f 1964.

Instead, the appellate panel compared the behavior to the “ordinary tribulations of the workplace,” which include petty insults, vindictive behavior and angry recriminations.

The  decision, written by Justice Janet Rogers Brown, comes in a case that is also unusual because it involves the Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent agency charged with addressing the grievances of federal workers who challenge discriminatory employment practices.

Patricia A. Brooks, who is an African-American, filed a race discrimination complaint alleging that she was a victim of a “hostile workplace environment” at the Office of Information Resources Management of the MSPB.

Brooks, who had worked at the MSPB since 1998, said her supervisor in 2005 insulted and demeaned her in front of coworkers when he yelled at her and threw a heavy notebook in her direction.  The supervisor admitted slamming the book with his hand. Brooks said she was subsequently given poor performance ratings and became subject to selective enforcement of workplace rules.

After filing several equal employment opportunity complaints, Brooks filed a lawsuit alleging  race discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII.  A federal judge dismissed Brooks’ complaint on a pre-trial motion for summary judgment, which means the judge ruled that no reasonable jury could find that the supervisor’s “conduct was so severe and pervasive as to alter the conditions of Brooks employment.”  The three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit court upheld the dismissal of  Brooks’ complaint.

Justice Brown writes in an April 15 decision that Brooks failed to show that she was subjected to “discriminatory intimidation, ridicule and insult” that was “sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of [her] employment.”  Justice Brown said the panel evaluated the “totality of the circumstances, including the frequently of the discriminatory conduct, its severity, its offensiveness and whether it interferes with an employee’s work performance.”

Even if the supervisor did violently throw a book at Brooks, the appellate panel said, the incident involved “unprofessional conduct” but was isolated and not sufficiently malevolent to constitute actionable abuse.

A retaliation complaint and other other claims were rejected on technical grounds.

See Patricia Brooks v. Susan Tsui Grundmann, chairman, Merit Systems Protection Board, No. 12-5171.

 

EEOC to Examine National Origin Discrimination

EEOCAn aspect of discrimination law that is gaining increasing attention is, not surprisingly, national origin discrimination.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)will meet on Nov. 13 in Washington, DC, to examine issues and hear testimony related to the problem of national origin discrimination.

The backdrop of the EEOC’s meeting is impending immigration reform and the rise in the percentage of foreign-born workers in the U.S. workforce.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported in May that there are 25 million foreign-born persons in the U.S. labor force, making up 16.1 percent of the total workforce. Hispanics accounted for 48.3 percent of the foreign-born labor force in 2012 and Asians accounted for 23.7 percent. The BLS reports that  the proportion of the foreign-born labor force made up of 25 – 54 year olds (75.6 percent) is now higher than for the native-born labor force (63.4 percent).

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964  and EEOC rules “national origin” discrimination includes the denial of equal employment opportunity because of an individual’s place of origin, their ancestor’s place of origin,  or because of the physical, cultural or linguistic characteristics of a national origin group.

Counsel for employers, in written testimony submitted to the EEOC, describe the enormous challenges faced by employers in tackling discrimination issues involving foreign-born workers.

Douglas J. Farmer, of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, writes that  many foreign-born workers have little or no understanding of basic legal prohibitions on discrimination or harassment, have never seen an anti-harassment policy, and have never participated in anti-harassment training.  In one workplace, he states, an employer was confronted with a workforce in which workers spoke 60 different languages and dialects.

“Several of our employer clients have expressed concern that employer cost and lack of technical expertise present significant obstacles to the translation and effective implementation of policies and training programs,” Farmer writes.

He urged the EEOC to make anti-discrimination and harassment policies and educational programs available in multiple languages  to help employers convey these concepts to foreign-born employees in a cost-effective manner.

Rebecca  Smith, Deputy Director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), urges the EEOC to address  “second-generation discrimination” practices that involve cultural attributes (language, accent) as well as stereotypes associated with a particular national origin or ethnic group. She said this form of discrimination can be seen in discriminatory recruitment practices and occupational segregation by ethnicity or national origin   For example, a restaurant may employ an Hispanic worker as a dishwasher but not as a server because of his or her accent.

Smith also said some unscrupulous American employers are using labor recruiters from the source country that are notorious for discrimination to handle the hiring of foreign-born workers, while arguing that they are not responsible for labor violations committed by their recruiters. In this way, Smith writes, the employer can shift labor costs and liabilities to the smaller entity, which is often an undercapitalized firm that cannot satisfy potential judgments against it

Smith also writes that harassment and threats of deportation are “almost standard operating procedure” in some guestworker-dominated work sites

NELP estimates that eight million undocumented workers form 5.2 percent of the U.S. labor force.

Perhaps it is a sign of the times but no union representative is slated to testify before the EEOC at the hearing.

Lactation is Pregnancy-Related After-All!

Judge Lynn D. HughesA federal appeals court panel has unanimously ruled that firing a woman because she is lactating or expressing milk is unlawful sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

 The decision by the  U.S.  Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit  in Houston, TX,  overturns a somewhat notorious ruling last year by U.S.  District Judge Lynn N. Hughes, also of Houston.

 Judge Hughes ruled that federal law did not prevent Houston Funding II, L.L.C., from firing a new mother because she asked for permission to pump breast milk in a back office after she returned to the job. He concluded that “lactation is not pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition”. and thus  “firing someone because of lactation or breast-pumping is not sex discrimination.”

Houston Funding had argued Title VII does not cover “breast pump discrimination” and filed a motion for summary judgment, which was granted by Judge Hughes. 

The  dismissal was appealed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which had filed the lawsuit  on behalf of the employee, Donnicia Venters, who gave birth to a baby girl in 2008.

 The Fifth Circuit ruled that Title VII (as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978) protects working women against discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition.  The appeals court ruled:

“Lactation is the physiological process of secreting milk from mammary glands and is directly caused by hormonal changes associated with pregnancy and childbirth … It is undisputed in this appeal that lactation is a physiological result of being pregnant and bearing a child.”

The court reasoned that firing a woman because she is lactating or expressing milk is unlawful sex discrimination, since men as a matter of biology could not be fired for such a reason.

The case was remanded back to the lower court for a trial on the merits.

 David Lopez, General Counsel of the EEOC, said, “We are gratified that the Fifth Circuit gave plain meaning to the words of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and ruled in our favor that discrimination on the basis of lactation is discrimination on the basis of sex.”

The EEOC looks forward to trying  the case, according to Jim Sacher, regional attorney in the EEOC’s Houston District Office, which brought the initial litigation. “We hope this litigation sends a message to other women that discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth and related conditions is against the law and that the EEOC is here to help,” he said.

One of the six national priorities identified by the Commission’s Strategic Enforcement Plan is to address emerging and developing issues in equal employment law, including issues involving pregnancy-related limitations.

According to the website www.houstonfunding.com, Houston Funding “is a company which purchases charged-off debt portfolios nationwide from most large institutions.”

Employer gets Immunity from Class Action

boardroom

Workers this week suffered another  potentially devastating blow when an influential appellate court ruled in Parisi v. Goldman Sachs & Co, that a former managing director could not file a class action lawsuit against  Goldman Sachs for sex discrimination because she had signed a contract agreement to arbitrate employment disputes.

The decision by the  Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York creates a scenario that  allows a savvy employer to class-action proof itself.

The appellate court ruled that Lisa Parisi, a former managing director of Goldman Sachs, could not sue the company in a class action because she agreed to submit all employment disputes to binding arbitration when she signed a “managing director” agreement in 2003.  Since the “managing director” agreement is  silent as to class actions,  Parisi must proceed to arbitration  on an individual basis. Bottom line: Parisi can’t sue in class action and she can’t arbitrate in class action.

 Parisi, who was fired in 2008,  alleged Goldman Sachs conducted a “pattern and practice” of sex discrimination against top female employees in violation of Title VII of  the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq. (“Title VII”) and the New York City Human Rights Law.  She said she could not proceed in arbitration with a class action claim without Goldman Sachs permission and thus was effectively being denied her right to sue the company for systemic sex discrimination.. In other words, she said the arbitration clause in her  agreement must be invalidated because arbitration would preclude her from vindicating a statutory  right to file a “pattern and practice” class action lawsuit.

The appellate court agreed with Goldman Sachs that no substantive statutory right exists for employees to pursue a class action “pattern-or-practice” claim.

The court’s decision reversed two earlier decisions by a federal magistrate and a  district court judge who both denied Goldman Sach’s motion to compel arbitration in the case.

 The ruling  is a  boon to employers who are prescient enough to force new hires or employees who are being promoted to sign over-reaching binding arbitration clauses;  it  effectively negates the possibility that the employee will participate in a costly class action lawsuit down the road.   

Goldman Sachs took the position that it could not be sued by Parisi in federal court because of the arbitration clause, and it could not be compelled to defend a class action suit in arbitration because the arbitration clause in the agreement Parisi signed  was silent as to the arbitration of class claims.

Goldman Sachs is not entirely of the woods. Parisi filed the class action lawsuit along with two other Goldman Sachs employees,  Shanna Orlich, an associate, and H. Christina Chen-Oster, a vice president, who reportedly did not sign binding arbitration agreements with Goldman Sachs and presumably could proceed without Parisi.

Parisi’s employment agreement  contained an  arbitration clause in which she agreed  to arbitrate any dispute, controversy or claim arising out of or based upon or relating to “Employment Related Matters.”  The agreement defined  “employment related matters” are defined as “matters arising out of or relating to  or concerning this Agreement, your hire by or employment with the Firm or the termination thereof,  or otherwise concerning any rights, obligations or other aspects of your employment relationship in respect of the Firm.”

 The appellate court reasoned that  the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the Federal Arbitration Act as establishing a “federal policy favoring arbitration agreements.”  It also cited an earlier ruling in which the appeals court  concluded that in Title VII jurisprudence “pattern-or-practice” simply refers to a method of proof and does not constitute a “freestanding cause of action.”  Chin v. Port Authority of New York, 685 F.3d 135, 148 (2d Cir. 2012).

The arbitration clause in question states the Plaintiffs claims will be “finally settled by arbitration in New York City before, and in accordance with the rules . . . of, the New York Stock Exchange, Inc. (“NYSE”) or . . . the  National Association of Securities Dealers (“NASD”). If both the NYSE and NASD decline  to arbitrate the matter, the matter will be arbitrated before the American Arbitration Association  (“AAA”) in accordance with the commercial arbitration rules of the AAA. You agree that any  arbitration decision and/or award will be final and binding.”

Goldman’s appeal was supported by briefs from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Parisi had support from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the National Women’s Law Center.

The case is Parisi v. Goldman Sachs & Co, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 11-5229.

Crime & Sexual Harassment

_41030565_mugging_203_bbcWhy isn’t sexual harassment a crime in the United States?

 It is in France.

 France’s General Assembly enacted a new sexual harassment law on July 31, 2012 that includes criminal penalties of up to three years in prison and a fine of approximately $56,000 for serious cases.

 The new French law defines harassment as imposing on someone, in a repeated way, words or actions that have a sexual nature and either undermine the person’s dignity because of their degrading or humiliating nature or create an intimidating, hostile or offensive situation.

 In the United States, sexual harassment is prohibited by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The remedy is civil, which means it is up to the victim to sue and the damages are monetary and/or  injunctive relief.  In criminal cases, a prosecutor sues on behalf of the state and may seek  fines and imprisonment.

It can be very difficult to win a sexual harassment case in the United States. The  U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that U.S. law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious.  This leaves a lot of room for interpretation by judges, especially with respect to whether sexually harassing conduct  is frequent enough  and severe enough to be actionable.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently announced that WirelessComm, a Northern California distributor for the Metro PCS cell phone service provider, had agreed to pay $97,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the agency.

 According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, the store manager of WirelessComm in Watsonville, CA,    subjected then-19-year-old Deisy Mora to abuse throughout her seven months of employment at the store

He frequently commented about her physical  appearance, texted her photos of himself and the words “Te quiero” (‘I love  you’ in Spanish), and referred to women in general with slurs and epithets.

In addition, the EEOC said, the store owner  contributed  to the harassmen by inviting Ms. Mora to travel with him, asking her and others if  they were pregnant and, on one occasion, asking her to text photos of herself  and other female staff members.

The EEOC says Ms. Mora’s complaints were not addressed and she eventually quit her job  when she could no longer endure the harassment.

 What happened to the store manager and the store owner?

Under the consent decree, WirelessComm agreed to train the store owner and staff regarding anti-discrimination laws.  But there is no indication the WirelssComm store owner and store manager didn’t understand anti-discrimination laws in the first place, only that they didn’t place any importance on these laws and didn’t follow them.

The EEOC said  WirelessComm also  agreed to hire an equal employment opportunity consultant and a human resources consultant to revise its EEO policies; monitor the workplace; respond to any allegations of harassment arising during the three-year  pendency of the decree; and report harassment complaints to the EEOC.

In other words, WirelessComm will start following the law.

In  the final analysis, it seems like a small price  to pay for a campaign of a harassment waged by two adult men in positions of authority against a  vulnerable teenager.  If the store owner and store manager had mugged Ms. Dora while she was walking down a street, they’d probably spend at least some time in jail.  Here  they stole  her peace of mind and robbed her of  financial security in a time of high un employment.

 The United States recognizes two types of sexual harassment: (1) quid pro quo and (2) hostile environment.

 Quid pro quo is Latin for “this for that.” This type of harassment occurs when a  boss or supervisor asks for a sexual favor in return for a job benefit.

 Hostile environment sexual harassment occurs when the harassment is so severe or pervasive that it creates a sexually intimidating or abusive work environment. Hostile environment sexual harassment must be:

  • based on sex (sexual conduct, sexual comments, or nonsexual conduct that is based on your gender);
  • unwelcome (you must show that you do not enjoy the harasser’s attention and that you are not encouraging it); and either
  • severe (one or more serious incidents that affect your job) or pervasive (a pattern or series of smaller incidents that are so widespread that you have trouble doing your job as a result).

Great Policy; No Follow-Through

The best policy in the world won’t protect you without follow-through.

That’s the lesson of a decision by the Seventh Circuit  Court of Appeals  in a Wisconsin sexual harassment case, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Management Hospitality of Racine, Inc., et al., No. 10-3247 (Jan. 9, 2012,).

The defendant, a company owned by Salauddin Janmohammed  which operates 21 International House of Pancakes restaurants, had a “zero-tolerance”  anti-harassment policy in place, anti-harassment training, and a policy of investigations of complaints.

What it didn’t have was follow-through. Or, in the words of the Court, “the policy and complaint mechanism were not reasonably effective in practice.”

According to the Court:  “the presence of a sexual harassment policy is encouraged by Title VII [but] the mere creation of a sexual harassment policy will not shield a company from its responsibility to actively prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.”

The Court upheld an award of $105,000 to two teenage servers at an IHOP operated by the defendant in Racine.  Katrina Shisler and Michelle Powell said they were sexually harassed in 2004 and 2005 by an IHOP assistant manager in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq.

Normally, an employer can advance the so-called Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense in a Title VII case sexual harassment claim involving a hostile work environment. This allows the employer to escape liability for damages if:

 (a) it “exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior,” and

 (b) “the plaintiff employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any protective or corrective opportunities provided by the employer or to avoid harm otherwise.”

The Court said the  Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense was not available to the Management Hospitality because both teens had complained to managers about sexual harassment  and the managers did nothing.  The company did not begin investigating until a private investigator hired by an attorney for one of the teenager began asking questions.

The Court said a rational jury could have found that the sexual harassment occurred “every shift,”  was “highly offensive,” and included “physical touching.”

The Court said a rational jury also could conclude that the employer failed to follow its own policies by discouraging  employees from reporting complaints, providing inadequate anti-harassment training to supervisors, and failing to “promptly” investigate the complaints.

The EEOC filed suit on behalf of the two teenaged servers. A jury awarded one of the servers $1,000 in compensatory damages and the other $4,000 in compensatory damages and $100,000 in punitive damages.

Judge says “lactation discrimination” is legal

U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes, of Houston, TX, has ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prevent an employer from firing a new mother because she asks for permission  to pump breast milk in a back office for her newborn.

In other words, Judge Hughes said, Title VII, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of  1978, does not prevent employers from engaging in “lactation discrimination.”

In a finding that may come as a surprise to mothers everywhere, Judge Hughes states in his Feb. 2, 2012 decision in EEOC v. Houston Funding II, Ltd, et al,  (Civil Action No. 4:11-cv-02442) that “lactation is not pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition.”

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) had sued the debt collection firm —  Houston Funding II, Ltd., and Houston Funding Corporation — for firing a worker who had taken less than a three-month maternity leave in 2009. She had experienced complications from a C-section. Although Houston Funding had been holding her job open for her, the EEOC said the company changed its mind after she asked upper management if she could express milk in a back office upon her return.

Judge Hughes said the dismissal did not violate not violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,  which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees and job applicants because of their sex (including pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions).

After plaintiff gave birth, Judge Hughes said, “she was no longer pregnant and her pregnancy-related conditions ended.”

FYI – Judge Hughes, who was appointed by the late President Ronald Reagan in 1985, says discrimination because of pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical may include cramping, dizziness, and nausea while pregnant.

Donnicia Venters, who had worked for the company since 2006,  gave birth to a daughter on Dec. 11, 2008.  Venters informed the company that her doctor said she could not return to work  until an infection resulting from a C-Section healed. Shortly before her expected return, she asked upper management if she could express milk in a back office upon her return.

Houston Funding maintained that it fired Venters because of “job abandonment.”

According to the website www.houstonfunding.com, Houston Funding “is a company which purchases charged-off debt portfolios nationwide from most large institutions.”

Other Approaches to Workplace Bullying?

So far, efforts to combat bullying in the American workplace largely have centered on a campaign spurred by the Workplace Bully Institute to pass anti-bullying legislation on a state-by-state basis.  To date, the effort has yet to yield a single success (defined as a state that has adopted such legislation).

What would happen if workplace anti-bully advocates took a different approach?

One idea might be federal legislation to amend Title VII, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to  permit any worker to sue if subjected to a hostile workplace environment.

Another idea is to approach the problem as an important public  health issue  –  which it is – and adopt health and safety regulations to protect employees on that basis. Finally, one might think local – push cities and towns to adopt legislation to protect employees from workplace abuse.

Advocates for anti-obesity measures took the local approach, with some initial success.  However, industry groups are now finding a way to halt local initiatives, using stealth tactics to erect statewide road blocks.

Public health advocates persuaded some progressive cities and counties around the nation to pass anti-obesity measures, such as requiring restaurants to list fat and calorie content on their menus or to prepare food without unhealthy trans-fats.  The New York Times reported June 30, 2011 that  industry groups are acting pro-actively to quash these anti-obesity efforts. and they are using stealth tactics.

The Times notes that Ohio’s 5,000-page state budget contained sweeping limitations on local government control over restaurants.  Florida  adopted similar limits, tucked into a bill that largely concerned amendments to state regulations on vacation rentals. Other states with limits include Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Utah. Earlier this year, Arizona prohibited local governments from forbidding the marketing of fast food using “consumer incentives” like toys.

Not surprisingly, state restaurant groups are leading the charge for the preemptive state legislation.   State legislators who sponsored preemptive legislation in Florida and Alabama say they were contacted by their state’s restaurant associations, which expressed concern that California’s latest food rules would be adopted by their own local governments.

The Los Angeles City Council has banned fast food restaurants in South Los Angeles, where rates of poverty and obesity are high. In April, the Santa Clara County supervisors adopted a policy that forbids fast food restaurants from selling meals with toys, like those connected with movie promotions.

The Ohio law gives the state’s director of agriculture “sole and exclusive” authority to regulate the use of consumer incentives in food marketing and prohibits localities from requiring menu labeling and using incentives and laws to address “food-based health disparities.”  The statute may nullify a law passed by the Cleveland council in April that banned restaurants and food makers from using “industrially produced” trans fats in products.

One of the fundamental concepts of the U.S. Constitution involves the importance of state’s rights – the idea  is that real change and progress comes from experimentation among the states and not through a federal bureaucracy. It doesn’t take a PhD. to see that this concept also is relevant to states, which tend to  adopt progressive statewide legislation in response to local initiatives.   I’d rather be guided by the framers of our U.S. Constitution than self-interested industry groups. Wouldn’t you?

The state-by-state campaign to adopt workplace anti-bully legislation began in 2003 in California and has encountered steady opposition from business groups, who apparently are largely ignorant about the enormous toll bullying exacts on the employer’s bottom line.   This, despite the fact that the Workplace Bullying Institute is pushing a proposed Healthy Workplace Bill that is considerably weaker than legislation adopted in other industrialized countries around the world. American workers deserve strong protection from bullying in the workplace, which causes health problems and destroys lives and families.

* The new state laws limiting public health measures will have no effect on a federal law that requires menu labeling by chains with 20 or more restaurants by 2013. But more than half of the nation’s restaurants will not be required to meet the federal rules for listing calories and fat content.