Atlantic Capes Fisheries agreed to pay $675,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the EEOC alleging sexual harassment and retaliation.
The allegations that lead to the settlement, and this nomination as the worst employer of 2019?
A male supervisor, Fidel Santos, asked a new female employee, Esdeyra Rosales, about her personal life, stood close behind her while she was working, touching her back, hips, and buttocks. When she objected, he told her there was no work for her. When Rosales asked, and was granted, reassignment to another line, Santos’s harassment did not stop. He continued to make rude comments about her body and solicit her for sex. On one occasion, Santos approached Rosales from behind and asked her to touch his penis. When she refused, he pressed up against her, rubbing his penis against her buttock. Rosales complained to management, but they told her either to ignore it, or that they would “look into it.” The harassment, however, continued.
The harassment was not isolated to Rosales. Santos also allegedly harassed Margarita Fuentes, Mirna Pacaja, and others.
On Fuentes’s first day of work, Santos grabbed her buttocks. When she objected, Santos told her, “Here, anything goes.” Fuentes immediately complained to a manager, who told her that Santos was “crazy” and that she should just ignore him. The very next day, Santos came up behind Fuentes, grabbed her hand, pulled it behind her back, and placed it on his penis. When she resisted, Santos called her a “stupid old lady,” and that she was expected to do what she was told. Fuentes again complained to management, who again told her just to ignore it. The alleged harassment even after Fuentes ultimately secured a transfer away from Santos. He would find her, and call her “stupid” and “good for nothing,” question why she would not submit to him sexually, and hypothesize about her sex life.
Pacaja had worked for the fishery for 4 years before being transferred to Santos’s line. He allegedly similarly harassed her, almost from the start. He would grab her waist and hips, comment on her genitalia and buttocks, complain that she would not submit to him sexually, ask her to touch his penis, rub his hands on her breasts, and rub his erect penis up against her.
When Pacaja and Rosales ultimately complained to the HR manager, and then filed discrimination charges with the EEOC, they started receiving written warnings concerning alleged interpersonal issues with their co-workers. Within weeks they were both fired.
According to EEOC Senior Trial Attorney Sara Smolik, “The brave women who filed discrimination charges with the EEOC in this case alerted the agency to widespread sex harassment that was adversely affecting them and many of their female co-workers in the facility. Because they had the courage to step forward, the EEOC was able to investigate and bring this lawsuit to improve the working conditions for everyone.”
It also might lead to this employer being named the worst employer of 2019.
When Tesla added a pair of independent directors to its board late last year, the bulk of the attention went to the more famous of the two — Larry Ellison, Oracle’s billionaire founder and a recent Tesla investor.
More noteworthy for the people management industry is the controversial car maker’s appointment of Kathleen Wilson-Thompson, executive vice president and global chief human resources officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.
Wilson-Thompson, 61, is the latest C-level HR professional picked for a board seat at a U.S. public company, part of a nearly three-fold increase over the past decade in CHROs and other top HR executives with positions on U.S. corporate boards.
It’s a trend that industry leaders, analysts, academics and former CHROs believe will continue.
Boards historically shied away from adding members without operating experience, but more have warmed to the idea of including HR experts to better grapple with risk and compliance issues related to everything from the #MeToo movement and diversity to rising employee activism. A tight labor market that’s made companies appreciate the value of a strong corporate culture and a positive employer brand also is contributing to HR executives’ attractiveness as board members.
“Boards typically haven’t had great insights into what’s happening in the organization,” said Donald “DJ” Schepker, research director at the University of South Carolina Center for Executive Succession, which studies board issues. “Having directors with HR expertise allows them to ask more pointed questions about the culture, and in today’s environment, that’s probably the top issue that boards are focused on.”
Wilson-Thompson has been Walgreens’ CHRO since 2010, four years before the company acquired Boots Alliance to create a global retail and wholesale pharmaceutical giant that today has approximately 418,000 employees and annual revenue of $117 billion. Before joining Walgreens, Wilson-Thompson spent 17 years at Kellogg Co., in various corporate HR and legal roles.
As a woman and African American, Thompson adds to the diversity of Tesla’s board, which previously had two women and two people of color out of nine board members. As a former employment lawyer with a decade of board duty, she also brings experience that the board could use as Tesla deals with management and people issues on multiple fronts.
Tesla added the independent directors to settle a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint that alleged CEO Elon Musk lied in an August Twitter post about securing funding to take the company private. As part of the settlement, Musk stepped down as chairman, and he and the company paid separate $20 million fines.
After boosting its workforce by 30 percent in 2018 to meet demand for lower-cost Model S sedans, Tesla in mid-January announced a 7 percent layoff. The reduction will help cut operating expenses in advance of shrinking U.S. tax credits for electric cars that will effectively boost Tesla vehicles’ sticker prices, according to a Jan. 18 email Musk sent to employees.
Wilson-Thompson did not respond to several requests for comment. A Telsa spokesperson declined to comment beyond a Dec. 28 statement announcing the board appointments. In it, the company praised her for bringing “a passion for building and promoting great workplaces.”
Gaining a Seat at the Table
Securing more board seats could be the outcome of the much-discussed, long-hyped goal of getting HR a seat at the table. From 2005 to 2017, the number of HR executives on U.S. public company boards almost tripled, from 84 to a record high of 243, according to Equilar, the executive compensation and corporate governance data analysis firm. Equilar compiled the data by reviewing board seats held by HR executives at companies in the Russell 3000 index, which represents approximately 98 percent of all U.S. public companies.
Even so, the portion of C-level HR executives with board positions is minuscule. Only 3.7 percent of U.S. HR pros who are named corporate officers at the companies they work for also sit on one or more corporate boards. That represents an increase from about 2.4 percent in 2005, but a drop from a high of 5 percent in 2014, according to Equilar.
Wilson-Thompson’s appointment also highlights the increase in the number of women on corporate boards. In 2018, women comprised 18 percent of U.S. corporate directors, up slightly from 16.5 percent in 2017, according to Equilar.
Last year, California became the first state to mandate that by the end of 2019 public companies have at least one female director, a number that by 2021 will rise to two for boards with five members, and three for boards with six members or more. In December, a bill was introduced in the New Jersey state legislature that if passed would impose the same requirements on companies based there.
Despite the bigger role that HR executives play on some boards, others still will not consider CHRO candidates because many of those individuals lack operating experience. CHROs also must combat a misperception that HR professionals aren’t good with numbers, an outdated notion given today’s widespread use of analytics in HR departments but one that nevertheless persists.
“If I have a half hour with a CEO, they’ll walk away convinced they need an HR person on their board,” said Robert Lambert, a former CHRO at Macy’s, Patagonia and REI who now works as an executive search consultant for Allegis Partners. “But the big search firms have thousands of people who look fabulous on paper. Why would they go to the extra effort to pitch an HR person? They don’t, it’s not worth their time. Even for the most accomplished female or diverse candidates, it’s virtually impossible.”
Waiting in the Wings
To get around that kind of thinking, organizations that support HR leaders or women in management run programs to ensure that when the call comes, their members and clients are ready.
According to Women Corporate Directors, a New York organization that supports women on private and public boards, about 18 percent of its 2,400 members sit on Fortune 500 boards. The organization is piloting programs in New York and Los Angeles that groom C-level women executives looking for their first board appointments. The timing is right, said Susan Keating, the organization’s CEO. “Whether it’s #MeToo or the California legislation around women in boardrooms, there’s a heightened awareness of the need for more diversity, and more gender diversity.”
Catalyst Inc., the women’s leadership consulting and advisory firm, created a program in 2013 to coach CHROs and other women with at least 10 years of C-level experience to fill board vacancies. Members of Catalyst Women on Board meet eight times over two years to set goals, strategize and get feedback from mentors. “Having a diverse board with women and people of color enhances problem solving,” said Meesha Rosa, Catalyst’s senior director, corporate board services. “It sets the company up to win in the market of the future.”
Employees, shareholders and other investors are holding boards responsible for corporate-level decisions made under their watch. A recent example of that is the lawsuit that shareholders of Google parent company Alphabet filed in January over a former Google senior executive who was accused of sexual harassment but still awarded a $90 million exit package when he left the company.
“Boards are going to have to be more accountable,” said Johnny Taylor, CEO at the Society for Human Resource Management. “We’re in this knowledge-based economy, so you can’t just dismiss it. You can’t just replace talent. It could be your superstars that don’t want to work here. That’s changed the game.”
One of the questions that clients ask me most often is, “________ is out on a medical/pregnancy leave (or just returned); can we fire him/her?”
My response, always: “Why?”
There are several reasons why you might need to fire an employee who is absent from work on, or just returned from, an otherwise FMLA or ADA protected leave.
While picking up the absent employee’s work, you discover he or she was not doing his or her job.
You uncover misconduct committed by the employee (fraud, theft, etc.).
You need to reduce headcount or eliminate the employee’s position.
Thus, my answer is always the same — “Would you have fired or RIFed the employee absent the otherwise protected leave of absence?” If so, then you can go ahead with the termination, understanding that a large amount of legal risk does exist. It does not mean that the employee is bulletproof, but it does mean that you need to tread carefully, make sure everything is well documented, confirm consistent treatment, and understand you will need to pay severance in exchange for a release or face the prospect of a lawsuit.
Nieves worked as a gate agent for an affiliate of American Airlines for 19 years. His employer permits employees to fly for free, but prohibits employees from sharing their free travel benefits with anyone other than spouses or children. In April 2015, the employer randomly selected Nieves for an audit of its free travel program. In the middle of the audit, Nieves went out on an FMLA leave of absence. Upon his return to work, the audit continued, ultimately uncovering that Nieves had shared his travel benefit with ineligible individuals (his mother’s boyfriend, and non-children). Accordingly, the employer fired Nieves, just as it did with anyone it determined violate the free travel program.
Nieves sued, claiming that his termination, less than six weeks after he returned from FMLA leave, was in retaliation for the FMLA leave. The court disagreed:
Nieves argues that his travel log was given heightened scrutiny and that this raises an inference of a causal connection. However, nothing in the record supports that he was subject to increased scrutiny beyond the ordinary inquiry that follows a travel audit within the company. Envoy maintains that Nieves was flagged for an audit due to the number of entries on his travel log. According to American and its Matrix, an employee’s abuse of travel privileges is a terminable offense, regardless of whether the ineligible individual is currently listed or was in the past.
If you are going to fire someone during, or on the heels of, an FMLA or ADA leave of absence, you need a good reason, consistency, and the support of solid documentation. And even in that case, you face the choice of likely litigation, or a separation agreement with a payment of severance in exchange for a release. In all but the most egregious of terminations, I recommend the latter because the risk of the former is so great.
Recruiting technology continues to be a hot investment space, with venture capitalists and global enterprise solution providers investing millions in developing and acquiring innovative new point solutions. By the end of the third quarter of 2018, investment volume in HR technology had nearly tripled what was invested in 2017.
“There is a lot of money going into all aspects of recruiting and talent acquisition,” said David Mallon, vice president and chief analyst with Bersin, Deloitte Consulting. “It’s generating a lot of innovation, but also a lot of noise.”
Trends around social recruiting, mobile apps and video interviewing are now the norm, noted Barbara Marder, senior partner and global innovation leader at Mercer. “We are still seeing improvements in these areas but they are now entrenched in the talent acquisition process.”
Newer trends focus on implementing artificial intelligence, machine learning, gamification, and chat bots into the recruiting platforms. “These are all still leading edge and we expect to see a lot more adoption in the coming years.”
Diversity Drives Innovation
How these tools will be applied varies based on the challenges clients face. One area gaining a lot of attention is diversity in recruiting. Diversity ranked as the top hiring priority in LinkedIn’s 2018 “Global Recruiting Trends” report, with 78 percent of companies citing diversity as important to their strategy. However, the majority of these companies also report that finding diverse candidates to interview is their biggest obstacle, said Monica Lewis, product manager for LinkedIn. “They are not getting enough diverse candidates in their funnel, and they are looking for ways to reach a broader audience,” she said.
This challenge has won the interest and innovation of aspiring HR tech start-ups, who have been launching a variety of potential solutions. Vendors like Hired and Gapjumpers offer platforms that hide candidates’ names, universities and other defining features that can lead to bias in hiring. Other vendors forgo résumés all together, forcing companies to choose candidates based on their performance in coding challenges or assessment results rather than college pedigree.
More recently, vendors have begun adding virtual job fairs and analytics tools to help clients expand their talent pool and to be more holistic in honing their short list of top talent. “If companies want more diverse candidates they have to scout in more places,” said Marder. Virtual technologies allow them to canvas on more campuses and to connect with more candidates. “Once they are able to flood the pipeline, they can use machine learning algorithms to screen the data and find the best people.”
These algorithms can track any combination of individual and industry trend data to figure out who will be the best fit for a position, and they get more targeted with every search, she said. “It levels the playing field for diverse talent.” Companies need to be certain their algorithms aren’t also biased. Amazon recently discovered its recruiting algorithm was biased against women, because it was based on the traits of past high performers, who were predominantly male.
Chatbots Add a Human Touch
Vendors are also continuing to develop tools that improve the recruiting experience — for candidates and clients, said Mallon. That includes using chatbots to provide “human” interactions to keep candidates up to date on their applications, or to answer questions about the process. He noted that chatbot technology has gotten a lot more advanced in recent years, making these interactions more engaging than just waiting for an email. “It provides a lot of value while reducing the number of actual humans in the process.”
As these small vendors continue to demonstrate the value of their solutions it will surely lead to another flurry of acquisitions in this space.
“The recruiting industry is currently at ‘peak boutique’ with a lot of little players showing a lot of innovation,” Mallon said. That is often the point where enterprise providers start acquiring all the innovative point solutions to expand their own talent acquisition suite.
For companies wondering whether to implement these new technologies today or wait until they mature, Marder urges them to think about their recruiting pain points, and whether a best-in-class solution is the answer. “If one of these tools solves your recruiting problem and creates daylight between you and your competition — that can give you an edge at least for a while,” she said. That can make the investment in a startup solution worth the risk.
Where are we at with <insert random request for information>?”
If you hear this type of question from a new boss as an HR leader, be alert. This question is not an invitation to list what’s been done. It’s a test.
Put on a helmet, kids, because I’m about to give you some tough love.
In the future, all of you reading this will get a new boss. Most of you will have five to 10 new bosses across the rest of your career, which is reflective of how chaotic work is for our generation and the general pace of change.
Some of those new bosses are going to have manageable expectations. But it’s important to note that many of them are going to expect new things out of you, and they generally won’t be that concerned with your feelings.
Many of the new bosses are going to expect you to be great in the way you do HR. The problem with that? Their definition of great is going to be different than yours, and their definition is the only one that counts.
Here’s how your interactions with a new boss who expects you to be great are going to go:
1. The new boss comes in and things appear fine. This is called the honeymoon period. All parties are getting to know each other, and your new boss is forming opinions of what he’s got related to talent on the team. There are lunches, light meetings and even some jokes!
2. You’re presented with a challenge, and you do what you do, and what you have always done. Let’s assume the challenge is about recruiting, and the boss asks you what you’re doing to recruit developers. You reply with what you’ve always done, which is to post far and wide and pray those postings are effective. Note that you didn’t do more than what you did in the past in this area. It was out of your comfort zone, and what you had always done had always been enough.
3. The new boss expresses on some level that you’ll need to think differently to meet expectations. How your new boss frames this request depends on the challenge, but it generally follows a “What else you got?”
4. The new boss doesn’t tell you what more looks like, but will tell you if they are impressed by what you’re doing. That’s why they’re the boss. If they have to tell you what to do, they’re not sure why they need you on the team. They won’t tell you what to do, but they will compliment you if you’re on the right track and if you keep them updated on progress.
5. Silence is dangerous. Long stretches of silence are generally accompanied by you being fired or someone else being hired above you.The most dangerous thing you can do with a new boss is not engage. If you accept silence and refuse to get in front of the relationship, that’s you doing what you’ve always done. Organizational change usually follows long periods of silence.
I know. Things were fine before the new boss came along. You’re not sure why you have to change, and it generally seems unfair.
I’m not here to argue with how you feel. I’m just here to tell you that most of us will have at least one new boss who acts like this. Your cadence with that new boss is going to feel almost exactly how I outlined above — if you look closely.
The danger is that you don’t make a move to get in front of it. When the new boss comes in and immediately wonders if you suck at HR, it’s not an automatic death sentence. You can adjust to the new expectation and perhaps even learn along the way.
To react to the new boss who has higher expectations, you’ll have to be assertive in changing your day-to-day routine. While that’s hard enough, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Reinventing how you are doing HR also comes with confrontation of others — vendors, the people you manage on your HR team and the managers and employees in the client groups you support.
You’re on the clock with any new boss both as an HR leader and a line HR pro. Whether you report to a CEO as an HR leader or a new VP of HR as a line HR pro, you’re likely to be tested.
You have to play offense. Don’t be fooled by long periods of silence, because low engagement from your new boss can represent an extended severance period, the kind where everyone knew but you.
Workforce‘s January issue focuses on human resources challenges within the public sector, from appealing to younger talent as older employers retire, to brokering labor deals, to finally embracing HR technology. With that in mind, Editorial Director Rick Bell compiled a list of statistics to gauge the state of the public sector and its employees.
A federal jury rendered a verdict … awarding $850,000 in compensatory and punitive damages to a female farmworker at Favorite Farms in Dover, Fla., who was raped by her supervisor and reported it to police and management that same day.…
The evidence at trial showed that management at Favorite Farms, which primarily grows strawberries, failed to properly investigate the complaint, and instead sent the victim home from work without pay the next work day. Favorite Farms took no action against the harasser, leaving him to supervise women in the fields, despite evidence that this was not the first complaint of sexual harassment. Instead, Favorite Farms continued retaliating against the victim and forced her to take a leave of absence.
If you permit a rapist to keep supervising your employees after an employee complains to you and the police that he raped her, and you further punish the complaining employee by suspending her without pay, you might be the worst employer of 2019.
Company leadership, including the C-suite and HR managers, may first think of the bottom line when it comes to health insurance and employee benefits. But they could be missing the bigger picture.
The broader view includes the value of investment in benefits and people, and the impact on metrics such as workforce attraction, employee retention, productivity and company culture. High-value options and technologies are increasingly defining and shaping holistic employee benefit programs.
Central to these all-encompassing programs are intelligently constructed plans that consider and connect all aspects of care, including both mind and body, and that are reinforced by big data, artificial intelligence and sophisticated metrics.
In today’s health care environment, holistic programs are especially vital. Behaviorally linked health issues and conditions affect almost 1 in 3 adults 18 years of age or older, but the costs are underreported in claims. Some of that cost revolves around the opioid dependency and the addiction crisis, which has cost the U.S. economy $1 trillion since 2001. Other contributors include smoking-related illnesses and complications, which still levy a toll of up to $300 billion each year, and obesity-related diseases that continue to have a tremendous economic impact.
Research has shown that people who are healthy, both mentally and physically, are more productive. For those struggling with health issues, the right support structures can make all the difference, both in quality of life and in long-term health and wellness outcomes. As an employer, an approach to health care benefits that aligns with company goals and fits the company’s culture can help keep costs in check, reduce turnover and sick leave, and even make your company more attractive to potential teammates.
For example, at Brown & Brown, we have designed a framework called the Intelligent Health Plan that encompasses an array of customizable data-driven strategies. These include plan design, clinical programs and solutions (e.g. telemedicine), and well-being and network strategies (e.g. weight reduction programs and onsite clinics, respectively).
Navigation, advocacy and education can be wrapped around these strategies to create a plan that is integrated, coordinated, and ensures members get the right care at the right time by the right provider in the right setting. A digital hub at the center can help to pull the pieces of the strategy together and enable targeted communications. Key to all of this and any employer’s strategy is the development of relevant metrics and monitoring of outcomes.
This approach to employee benefits emphasizes risk reduction and health management. Depending on the workforce and the prevalent conditions and issues found, this could mean investing in drug rehabilitation, smoking cessation, stress reduction, healthy eating, exercise and “let’s move” programs. There are also many options to leverage technology, on both the employee and delivery side, for earlier intervention.
Technology can play a significant role in an intelligent health plan, both in delivery of new services and in increased employee engagement in risk-reduction and health management programs. Research shows that while people will often pay little attention to generic messaging, buy-in is much greater when a message is customized to their individual circumstances.
Messages can be customized through wearable technology, digital platforms and coaching and clinical programs. Components of these programs may be personalized through advances in artificial intelligence and algorithmic learning. Through more sophisticated analysis of past claims and other health data, the methods and options that offer assistance when the time is right are expanding.
This can lead to both lower health care costs and better outcomes. For example, if research indicates noninvasive methods to treat lower back pain produce results as good as surgery, an employee scheduling an MRI might receive messaging about that research and assistance in obtaining appropriate care.
Prevention as part of risk reduction cannot be overstated, but there must be a deliberate approach. Immunizations, such as flu vaccinations, are crucial, but prevention also includes promoting health screening for conditions such as cancers and catching complications early if chronic diseases do arise.
While these elements may seem focused on individuals, they have a wider impact. People with similar health behaviors, such as exercising, tend to cluster together. Therefore, when one person makes healthy changes there is a trickle-down effect with friends and family that eventually impacts a community.
One size does not fit all when developing health benefit programs. Each company and its employees will have different needs. However, expanding holistic options means programs can be tailored, considering both costs and the value they can return.
A federal court jury in Miami has awarded a hotel dishwasher $21.5 million after concluding that her employer failed to honor her religious beliefs by repeatedly scheduling her on Sundays, and then firing her.The hotel argued that it had no idea that she was a missionary or had requested Sunday off. Her lawyer, however, disagreed. “There were letters in [her personnel] file and her pastor went down there.”
According to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Marie Jean Pierre is a member of the Soldiers of Christ Church, a Catholic missionary group that helps the poor. She claimed that she hold her employer that she needed Sundays off for her missionary work. The hotel accommodate her for the first three years of her employment, but then began scheduling her on Sundays. After she advised that she would have to quit, the company again accommodated her scheduling request for another six years. Then, however, the hotel again changed her schedule to include Sundays. Pierre then provided a letter from her pastor explaining her religious need for the time off. The hotel, however, refused and ultimately fired her for unexcused absences.
Title VII requires an employer to reasonably accommodate an employee whose sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance conflicts with a work requirement, unless doing so would pose an undue hardship. An accommodation would pose an undue hardship if it would cause more than de minimis cost on the operation of the employer’s business. Factors relevant to undue hardship may include the type of workplace, the nature of the employee’s duties, the identifiable cost of the accommodation in relation to the size and operating costs of the employer, and the number of employees who will in fact need a particular accommodation.
Scheduling changes, voluntary substitutions, and shift swaps are all common accommodations for employees who need time off from work for a religious practice. It is typically considered an undue hardship to impose these changes on other employees involuntarily. However, the reasonable accommodation requirement can often be satisfied without undue hardship where a volunteer with substantially similar qualifications is available to cover.
In other words, permitting Pierre to take every Sunday off may have imposed an undue hardship, depending on the nature of her work performed and her job duties. Other employees could have agreed to move shifts around to cover for her, but employers cannot force such scheduling changes. In Pierre’s case, however, the fact that the hotel appears to have accommodated her for eight years would weigh heavily in favor of the reasonableness of the accommodation.
In plain English, there might be a way around granting time off for an employee to observe a religious practice, but do you want to risk the inevitable (and expensive) lawsuit?
Legalities aside, this issue asks a larger question. What kind of employer do you want to be? Do you want to be a company that promotes tolerance or fosters exclusion? The former will help create the type of environment that not only mitigates against religious discrimination, but spills over into the type of behavior that helps prevent unlawful harassment and other liability issues. If you can grant the accommodation, why not do so? And if you have granted it, why take it away?
2019 is officially the year that my Worst Employer contest went international.
How do you motivate your employees to hit their sales goals? If you’re the Runfa Hair Salon in Wuxi, China, you abuse the hell out of ’em.
According to the Daily Mail, employees who failed to sell 3,000 to 4,000 yuan ($436 to $582) worth of hair products each day suffered harsh physical punishment.
How harsh?
Employees were forced, in meetings in front of co-workers, to slap themselves in the face 100 times. If their face wasn’t sufficiently reddened, they’d face a monetary fine of 500 yuan ($73).
Others were force-fed raw chili peppers, onions, and vinegar. And some were forced to complete 10-km run.
Anyone who complained was summarily fired.
All of a sudden your quota at work doesn’t seem so bad, does it?
Atlantic Capes Fisheries agreed to pay $675,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by the EEOC alleging sexual harassment and retaliation.
One of the questions that clients ask me most often is, “________ is out on a medical/pregnancy leave (or just returned); can we fire him/her?”
A federal court jury in Miami has awarded a hotel dishwasher $21.5 million after concluding that her employer failed to honor her religious beliefs by repeatedly scheduling her on Sundays, and then firing her.The hotel argued that it had no idea that she was a missionary or had requested Sunday off. Her lawyer, however, disagreed. “There were letters in [her personnel] file and her pastor went down there.”