Here is the latest issue of “This & That” Tuesday. I hope you find it to be informative and useful.

 

Announcements

You can always check out my website for upcoming speaking engagements that are guaranteed to be of value to business owners or for a list of topics that I can speak on at Chambers, Clubs, Business Associations, etc. More details about the events, topics and Human Resources 4U, in general, can be found on my website.

 

November 19, “Human Resources Issues for Business Owners” hosted by Simjee Periodontics and Cool Smiles Orthodontics.

 

 Full Day Workshop on January 16: Start the new year on the right “employment law” foot! Click on HR4U 101 Workshop for more details.

 

BASF Corporation to Pay $500,000 to Settle EEOC Retaliation Lawsuit against Cognis

BASF Corporation will pay $500,000 to settle a retaliation lawsuit filed by the EEOC against Cognis Corporation.  BASF acquired Cognis in 2010.

 

The EEOC charged that Cognis retaliated against a longtime employee at its Kankakee, Ill., facility.  Cognis had required that the employee, as a condition of his continued employment, to sign a "last-chance agreement."  That agreement prohibited the employee from filing charges of discrimination with the EEOC, even for events that had yet to occur.  When the employee informed Cognis that he did not want to be bound by the agreement out of concern about its effect on his civil rights, Cognis fired him. The EEOC brought suit after first attempting to resolve the case through its conciliation process.

 

The U.S. District Judge held that the employee's termination constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of Title VII.  With that issue decided, the only question left for trial was the extent of the employee's damages.

 

The EEOC's lawsuit also alleged that Cognis retaliated against five additional employees by forcing those employees to make a similarly illegal choice.  Those employees chose to sign a last chance agreement that stripped them of their right to file charges and seek relief for future discriminatory conduct – rather than be terminated.  By settling the lawsuit, BASF has opted not to continue defending against those allegations.

 

The Judge entered a consent decree resolving the lawsuit. The decree provides monetary relief to the victims and requires BASF to report all employee retaliation complaints under Title VII at the Kankakee facility to the EEOC for the next two years.  BASF must also train a specified group of its employees on prohibited retaliation under the federal employment nondiscrimination laws and adopt a new policy informing employees of their right to oppose unlawful discrimination without fear of retaliation.  Furthermore, BASF agreed that it would not require the recipients of monetary relief to keep confidential the allegations and facts underlying the charge, to waive their rights to file a charge with any government agency, or to refrain from reapplying for work with the company.

 

The EEOC stated that Cognis presented the victims in this case with a terrible, illegal choice: lose your job or lose your civil rights.  Under the law, no worker has to make that kind of choice.  Employers would be better served by working to ensure that their employees are free from discrimination, rather than threatening their workers with termination in an effort to make sure that employees don't complain.

 

Doctor gets $7 Million in Gender Bias Suit

In a striking settlement of a high-profile case, a Harvard doctor who said she endured years of sexist treatment at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center will collect $7 million — and will have the hospital’s pain clinic named in her ­honor.

 

Employment lawyers said the hospital’s settlement with Dr. Carol Warfield, its former chief of anesthesia, appears to be one of the largest for a gender discrimination case in Massachusetts. The agreement — in which the hospital and other defendants did not admit doing anything wrong — closes an embar­rassing stretch in the ­Harvard teaching hospital’s ­illustrious history.

Warfield, who became chief of anesthesia in 2000, said Dr. Josef Fischer, former surgery chief, discriminated against her because she is a woman, openly ignoring her in meetings and lobbying for her ­removal from her job. When she complained to Paul Levy, then chief executive, she ­alleged, both men retaliated against her and forced her out.

 

Warfield, 61, who still sees patients part time in the pain clinic she helped start, spoke in an interview with the Globe about the difficulties she faced as a woman climbing to the top reaches of academic medicine, and said she always felt an “obligation to keep the door open for other women.”

 

Warfield sued the hospital, Fischer, Levy, and the hospital’s physician group in 2008. The parties filed a notice in Suffolk Superior Court that they had resolved the case, and released a joint statement to the hospital community. As part of the settlement, the hospital agreed to “reaffirm and clarify its policies and procedures’’ for employees reporting discrimination and retaliation.

 

The hospital also agreed to sponsor an annual lecture series on women’s health and the academic contributions of women in surgery. And Warfield will retain her endowed professorship.

If a plaintiff can prove her complaints went all the way to the top of an institution — in this case to Levy — that also can increase the potential settlement. Attorneys said it is also likely that Beth Israel Deaconess wanted to avoid a trial that could have publicly opened old wounds given Levy’s difficult departure from the hospital in 2011.

 

Warfield joined the medical staff at Beth Israel Deaconess in 1980. Over the next 20 years, she wrote two books, one of which is a best-selling anesthesia textbook, expanded the hospital’s small pain clinic into an internationally-known program, and was promoted to full professor by Harvard Medical School — and became the first women to head an anesthesia department at a Harvard teaching hospital.

 

Soon after she was appointed to revive the anesthesia department in 2000, Fischer was appointed chief of surgery in fall 2001. A nationally known surgeon, he was considered a key player in turning around the financially struggling hospital — someone who could use his influence to attract young surgeons who would in turn bring in patients.

 

Surgeons and anesthesiologists normally work together closely. But Warfield said that soon after he arrived, Fischer was abusive and demeaning toward her, letting the door shut on her when she was following him into a room and replying to one of her male colleagues when she spoke to him.

 

Her lawsuit includes e-mails between Beth Israel Deaconess leaders, internal hospital memos, and testimony from other doctors and nurses saying that Fischer was not only uncomfortable working with Warfield but with women generally. He once told a group of Beth Israel Deaconess nurses that he preferred to hire residents, or doctors in training, who are "tall, light skinned Western-taught men," according to an e-mail from a nurse that was filed as part of the lawsuit.

When Warfield complained to Levy, who became chief executive in January 2002, he did nothing, the lawsuit contends. He accused her of "playing the victim" and indicated he viewed the situation as a problem between Warfield and Fischer. At one point, he told her she had created a "culture of whining,” the suit says. On another occasion, he told her, “Joe can’t help himself.’’

 

While she was on sabbatical in 2007, Warfield said in the suit, Fischer campaigned to have her fired for incompetence. Shortly before she was to return to the hospital, Levy told her by e-mail that he was demoting her as department chairwoman.

Warfield said she will continue to see patients part-time and to do research at Harvard Medical School and serve on committees, including one on the status of women at the school. She also is working to improve medical care in Ethiopia, where operations often are performed without advanced anesthesia, she said.

 

Her attorney stated that even when plaintiffs win at trial they often find themselves pushed out of careers they love. She said the result in this case avoids that fate. “It is gratifying that we have here a resolution that celebrates the importance of the hospital’s mission and Dr. Warfield’s contributions to that work.”

 

Factoids

• Only 5% of employers allow employees to “buy” more vacation
• Only 7% allow employees to “donate” vacation to other employees
• 61% of workers say they have performed work while on vacation
• Workers who were allowed to set their own goals outperformed workers who had their goals set for them by 37% (BI Worldwide)
• 35% of hiring managers say they have positions open for at least 12 weeks
• Only 15% of male execs have ever taken paternity leave

 

Quotes

“What happens if you get scared half to death twice?”

~Author Unknown~