Attorney Tod J. Thompson: Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo, Ohio Employment Attorney, Tod J. Thompson

START CARRYING YOUR PAPERS, CITIZEN

7/23/2019

START CARRYING YOUR PAPERS, CITIZEN
Via Toledo Immigration Attorney Mechelle Zarou
"YESTERDAY the Trump administration announced a new rule that ICE has the authority to stop anyone, at any time, AT ANY PLACE, not just within 100 miles of a border, and demand proof of valid status or proof the individual has been physically present in the U.S. for 2 years, and if that proof is not satisfactory to the individual officer, ANYONE can be subjected to expedited removal. This means they can be immediately deported with no legal proceedings, no judicial review, no due process whatsoever. You may think you are safe if you are a U.S. citizen, but many, many, U.S. citizens have been subjected to expedited removal or detention because the individual officer does not believe they are really a citizen. The U.S. government has routinely been detaining and deporting U.S. citizens.
If you are brown skinned, if you have an accent, if you speak a foreign language, if you wear a head scarf, if you look at all different, heck, even if you just engage in political speech the officer does not like, the ICE officer has the legal authority to demand proof of your status and immediately deport you from the U.S. if you do not have it on you or you cannot prove you have been here two years to the officer's satisfaction. Due process does not exist, for any of us.
You may think this does not apply to you, or the ICE officers will apply this egregious amount of unchecked power fairly, but didn't our very own President lead chants of "Send her back" about a U.S. citizen whose political speech he did not like? Did he not tweet that 4 U.S. citizens whose political speech he did not like should go back to the countries where they came from? Well, it is no surprise that less than a week later after these "random" tweets, his administration announced this rule, which gives him and ICE officers (who answer to no one) this very (unchecked) authority, solely on the basis of protected free speech, or the color of one's skin, or speaking a foreign language, or speaking with an accent, or for any reason they damn well please.
This is Trump's America. I would say we are on our way to a totalitarian dictatorship, but we were on our way 2 years ago. Now we are there. Carry your papers everyone, no matter who you are. We are all targets now." Michelle Zarou,

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From Mad Magazine 1968

7/11/2019

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WHITE SUPREMACISTS: IF THEY ARE IN OUR COMMUNITIES ARE THEY NOT IN OUR WORKPLACES TOO?

12/7/2016

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Before the presidential race I deposed a Caucasian human resources professional from one of Toledo, Ohio’s major employers in a race discrimination case. The facility where the discriminatory treatment occurred is in Toledo’s “Eastside.” I grew up around Toledo. Like most in our country, the city is geographically segregated based on skin color. The Eastside is predominately populated by a large number of Toledo’s white working poor. From West Toledo to East – just 1,100 feet across the Martin Luther King Memorial Bridge – people of color plummet in population. It has been that way since I can remember. People of color have had good reason to feel unwelcome and unsafe there.

During the deposition, I asked this human resources professional whether she was aware of the racism and segregation dividing the communities surrounding her company’s facility, from where her company hires many of its employees. Prepared by the company’s counsel, she denied any awareness of the racism endemic there – the kind of testimony that provokes raised eyebrows or poker faces, depending on the side you are on.

When I followed by asking her to identify the methods by which her company satisfies its legal obligation to insulate its workplace from any such discrimination, she could – perhaps not surprisingly – state none. She would only attest to maintaining hope, however implausible, that her company’s workplace nonetheless remained discrimination free. Any racial animus in the communities from where her employees came to work somehow never made it past the company’s gate.

We have learned from this year’s presidential election of a shameful surge of neo-Nazism and white supremacy in our communities, self-sanitized by the moniker “alt-right.” We watched the presumptive electoral victor ride an invigorated white supremacist movement to his apparent win. And we now watch him fill cabinet positions with individuals brazenly supportive of white supremacist values.

I wonder how that Human Resources Manager would respond to my line of questions today. I wonder if the old, white, male judge would find her testimony less credible today, or if he would at least defer to a jury of people from some of the neighborhoods at issue. And I am left still to wonder how a jury would find her testimony – then or now.

Employers and employees comprise some of our best defenses against this resurgence of white supremacy in America. Because our communities and schools remain so grossly segregated, our workplaces are often the only spaces where persons of different colors, nationalities, religions and abilities find themselves within sight or earshot of one another, for any significant purpose or amount of time.

Surely today no human resources professional could plausibly deny awareness of racism, segregation or bigotry pervading the communities surrounding a workplace. And surely employers are putting in place or bolstering safeguards to ensure that their workplaces are secure from animus harbored in the individuals they hire from those communities. Surely our judges can no longer summarily reject the truth potential of allegations of workplace discrimination, or at least now have sufficient humility to leave such determinations to American jurors, who know better the cultural conditions of their communities.

If not, they surely should – if only because the law requires as much.

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Employers: Think Twice Before Hiring Trump Supporters (Liability Could Extend to You)

11/15/2016

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I generally don’t offer advice to employers. I only represent people – real people, not corporations. I represent those people against employers that engage in any variety of unlawful conduct, wage theft, union busting, discrimination, retaliation etc.

This election year a minority of Americans elected a president whose only cognizable platform was bigotry and racism – precisely the kind of bigotry and racism that lands employers in court. In the workplace, employers are legally liable for their employees’ discriminatory, bigoted behavior. And their employees’ affiliations, activities, group memberships, political affinities etc. are all material to the legal question of discriminatory intent.

Whether the supervisor accused of harassing African-American employees has a confederate flag on his back truck window is material to the question of employer liability, as is whether that supervisor is sympathetic to white supremacists, the KKK, or David Duke.

So too is whether that supervisor’s bumper has a Trump/Pence sticker on it.

And it wouldn’t take a particularly able employment lawyer to find out.

Employers remain responsible for maintaining discrimination-free work environments. And to that end employers are required by law to avoid hiring individuals who harbor discriminatory attitudes about any number of protected classes – race, sex, religion, disability – all of the protected classes that the Trump/Pence campaign has targeted and promised to discriminate against.

If you are an employer, before you hire someone who you suspect to have supported the Trump/Pence ticket, you should imagine what it would be like to watch the deposition of one of your supervisors, accused of discriminating against Muslim employees, women employees, African-American employees, or disabled employees. How will that supervisor answer the question: “Who did you support in the last election?”

Could your business survive the answer: “Trump/Pence?”

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NOTICE! * Corporatists Are Shutting The Doors of The Federal Courts To America's Workers and Employees! * NOTICE!

10/12/2015

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American citizens and workers should be alarmed! Our federal courts are under siege by corporatists who are shutting the doors of the courts to individuals, workers and employees, with claims against the government, corporations and employers.

Courts are summarily dismissing complaints filed against bad government and corporate actors at the earliest stage in litigation, circumventing our system of justice, and depriving American citizens with legitimate disputes against these entities of any process, hearing or remedy.

How will Americans obtain justice against corporations who unlawfully exploit their labor and destroy their communities?

How will they obtain justice when their civil rights are violated?

Last week, employment attorney Tod J. Thompson, argued in front of the Sixth Circuit Federal Appeals Court, imploring the judges on his panel to push the doors of the federal courts back open. You can hear that argument in the video above.

America became great in part because we maintained a democratic civil dispute resolution process that, despite inherent inefficiencies, held the trust of ordinary citizens. Our dispute resolution system has been essential to our democracy. Without it, citizens, corporations and the government would resort to alternative, potentially uncivil, ways of resolving their disputes.

Will our disputes against corporations and the government be resolved by juries?

Or by drones and private security forces?

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TOD J. THOMPSON OBTAINS UNANIMOUS FEDERAL JURY VERDICT AND MAJOR WIN FOR OHIO EMPLOYEES!!

10/8/2014

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On Thursday, October 2, 2014 a unanimous federal jury of 12 returned a verdict in favor of my client against her former employer concluding that the company violated her Family and Medical Leave Act rights when it terminated her by telephone while she was on physician-ordered, emergency maternity bed rest.

The litigation was contentious. I along with co-counsel Joe Albrechta and John Coble and paralegal Kristy Witte are proud to have obtained justice for our client. The jury’s decision is of great significance to all Ohio employees. The jury vindicated an employee’s right to take emergency medical leave without suffering termination.

Our client is an accomplished nurse. She was an exceptional employee by the company's own standards, until forced to take emergency bed rest to protect her pregnancy. From her sickbed, our client continued to provide assistance to subordinate employees who were trying to get along without her – answering calls on her company cellphone from third-shift nurses into the early hours of morning – until the company's CEO called her sickbed to fire her on trumped-up allegations of poor performance.

Rather than accepting the company’s unlawful conduct, our client retained employment lawyers to fight for her rights. No employee should ever suffer termination for having to take medical leave due to illness. And any employee who is terminated under similar circumstances should contact an employment lawyer.

Learn more about workplace matters here .

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AN UPDATE FROM THE FRONT: If You Work, You Deserve Better. NOW!

9/12/2014

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The battle for employee and worker rights has accumulated significant momentum over the last several months. We have seen national escalation in organized action for better pay and workplace conditions. Last week fast food workers in more than 150 cities across the country walked off their jobs to protest unlivable, starvation wages.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit terminating employees for their sexual orientation or gender, passed the Senate in November 2013. (It was first introduced in 1994.) And while 33 states still allow terminating employees because of their gender or sexual orientation, John Boehner refuses to bring it up for a vote in the House. But a vast majority of Americans now support the measure. The act would empower employment lawyers to seek remedy for their clients who have suffered such discrimination.

The Workplace Bullying Institute has proposed the Healthy Workplace Bill. The legislation would prohibit workplace bullying of all employees, regardless of their identity. So far versions of the bill have been sponsored by more than 300 individuals, republican and democrat. Employment lawyers who represent employees have long called for this kind of legislation. You may learn more about the bill or lend your support for it here.

In courts across the country, employment lawyers continue to fight for individual employee rights. 2013 saw a total of 93,727 EEOC charges filed. And employment lawyers have filed thousands of lawsuits for employees who have been treated unlawfully in state and federal courts across the country.

On all of these fronts, legislative, workplace and courtroom, the battle could not have greater stakes for workers and employees. We need to reverse the decline in union membership and collective bargaining, ensure that individual workers and employees have rights protecting them from abuse and discrimination, and provide individuals with redress in our courts when their rights are violated. And we all need to participate.

Start thinking about the conditions you would like to see change in your workplace. Talk with your coworkers about what you can do collectively to make those changes. Learn about and advocate for legislative efforts like ENDA and the Healthy Workplace Bill. Tell your representatives that you expect them to support these initiatives.

And stand up for yourself if you have to! Too often employees who suffer unfair treatment from their employers are overwhelmed by feelings of powerlessness and fear. Do not be. Seek every available remedy. Learn about your rights. Call an employment lawyer for help.

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How U.S. Workers Are Getting #%@*ed (The Short List)

8/17/2014

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It’s probably not news to you that workers in the United States are the most overworked and underpaid among developed nations. Nor is it likely news that most U.S. households can no longer subsist on a single income.

But it might surprise you to know that U.S. workers are working way more for much less despite record-setting productivity. Since 1950 U.S. worker productivity has increased by 400%, and is the highest in the world. But the benefits of increased worker productivity have distributed mostly upwards:

·      Most U.S. workers work more than 40 hours per week, and far more hours than workers in other developed nations. Unlike 134 other countries, the U.S. has no laws limiting the hours in a workweek.

·      Of all of the developed countries in the world, the U.S. is the only country that    provides no paid parental leave.

·      The U.S. does not mandate paid sick leave.

·      Unlike every other industrialized country, the U.S. does not require employers to    provide paid vacation or annual leave.

Workers in the U.S. could wait interminably for laws improving their conditions of work. And they should not expect employers to adopt significant reform by their own impetus. As employers most typically act to increase profits, treating labor as an expense, better conditions of work require organized employee effort.

Workers can form affinity groups around conditions in need of change. Workers might form work-life balance, healthy-living, or parenting affinity groups to persuade their employers to adopt sound policies and practices. But change will not come of its own accord.

Learn more about workplace matters here.

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Bow Down Before The One You Serve: The Master/Servant Relationship at Work.

7/2/2014

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Sir William Blackstone identified three types of private economic relationships existing at English Common Law: Guardian/Ward, Husband/Wife and Master/Servant. The Master/Servant relationship functioned for employers as a substitute for slavery, “whereby an absolute and unlimited power is given to the master over the life and fortune of the slave.”

According to Blackstone, there were four kinds of servants, menial servants (domestics), apprentices, laborers, and ministerial servants. But a profound power differential defined all of them: “A Master may by law correct his apprentice or servant for negligence or other misbehavior, so it be done with moderation: though, if the master’s wife beats him, it is good cause of departure. But if any servant, workman, or laborer assaults his master or dame, he shall suffer one year’s imprisonment, and other open corporal punishment, not extending to life or limb.”

Modern American employees are often astonished to learn that the law governing their employment relationship today redeploys the Master/Servant relationship – along with constituent and derivative legal asymmetries. But the history of American employment law can be understood to great degree as the struggle of a master class of employers intent on maintaining irreducible power over its employee-servants.

Modern employers exhaust tremendous resources trying to maintain a status quo in the workplace akin to pre-enlightenment, feudal societies. Employment “at will,” “right to work,” “flexible workforce,” low wages and severely truncated employee rights all derive from a legal doctrine predating notions of individual liberty, equality and human rights. And your boss wants to keep it that way.

No reasonable person would suggest that laws governing the guardianship of minor children should mirror medieval values. Nor would any reasonable person assert the same in relation to marriage. So why should we tolerate such laws in our modern workplaces?

American workers should strongly resist submission to the master/servant relationship by supporting progressive efforts to make laws governing our workplaces consistent with modern values and human rights, whether those efforts come by way of union organization or legislation.

Learn more about workplace matters here.

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The Poverty Wage II: That Fry Cook Is A Genuine, Bona Fide Executive.

6/9/2014

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You probably don’t realize how often you breathe the same flame-broiled air as those in the executive class. The cook rushing to finish the mopping before she has to salt and bag your fries? Her name tag ascribes her an “assistant manager.” So according to Burger King she is a bona fide executive.

That weary lady scrambling to finish the cigarette count before you get annoyed trying to pay for your sports drink? According to Marathon, Speedway and SuperAmerica she is also a bona fide executive.

The store clerk bustling between cleaning bathrooms, stocking shelves, and hiring hourly workers with no labor budget? Her name tag says “store manager.” And so according to Dollar General she is a bona fide, genuine executive.

But these "executives" do not enjoy earnings 400 times greater than the average workers in their companies, nor outrageous, costly perks like corporate jet service, exotic company paid vacations, huge expense accounts, security details, personal assistants, golden severance parachutes, or even the key to an executive washroom.

Rather bona fide executives like these get $455/week salaries, unlimited work hours, laborious job responsibilities, inflexible schedules – and exemption from Fair Labor Standard Act overtime pay requirements. More often than not working 60-to-70-hour weeks, these executives wind up earning less than minimum wage. So what gives?

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established a federal minimum wage for some employees, eliminated some forms of child labor, and required the payment of overtime wages equal to one and one-half times the regular rate of pay for hours worked in excess of a standard workweek (currently 40 hours). The Act has always exempted certain types of employees from the overtime wage requirement, including “bona fide executives.”

And while few would argue that Clarence Cazalot (Marathon CEO, $31.5 mil/year), Bernardo Hees (BK CEO, $6.5 mil/year), Richard W. Dreiling (Dollar General CEO, $7.6 mil/year), or any of the world’s other grossly compensated executives deserve overtime pay, does it follow that nor does an assistant manager on mop and fryer detail at the Burger King down the street?

According to the law it does. Definitions promulgated under the act fail to reflect the disparity between executive and non-executive pay. And companies like Burger King, Marathon, Speedway, SuperAmerica, Dollar General and others, invest lots of money to keep it that way -- preserving a highly lucrative absurdity.

On March 13, 2014, President Obama issued an order to the Secretary of Labor, directing revision of the regulations that exempt “bona fide executives” from the FLSA’s overtime wage requirements. Big law firms representing corporations that exploit workers under the exemption immediately characterized his action as an “attack,” without any knowledge as to what those revisions might actually entail. No doubt there is much at stake.

You can help to close this corporate loophole by contacting your senators and representatives and letting them know that you support efforts to dramatically narrow the FLSA's bona fide executive exemption.

And do not believe that Donna behind the counter is a genuine, bona fide executive until she is paid a heck of a lot more to do a heck of a lot less.

Learn more about workplace matters here.

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START CARRYING YOUR PAPERS, CITIZEN

From Mad Magazine 1968

WHITE SUPREMACISTS: IF THEY ARE IN OUR COMMUNITIES ARE THEY NOT IN OUR WORKPLACES TOO?

Employers: Think Twice Before Hiring Trump Supporters (Liability Could Extend to You)

NOTICE! * Corporatists Are Shutting The Doors of The Federal Courts To America's Workers and Employees! * NOTICE!

TOD J. THOMPSON OBTAINS UNANIMOUS FEDERAL JURY VERDICT AND MAJOR WIN FOR OHIO EMPLOYEES!!

AN UPDATE FROM THE FRONT: If You Work, You Deserve Better. NOW!

How U.S. Workers Are Getting #%@*ed (The Short List)

Bow Down Before The One You Serve: The Master/Servant Relationship at Work.

The Poverty Wage II: That Fry Cook Is A Genuine, Bona Fide Executive.

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