Category: Legal

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NLRB Judge Clips Wings of Hooters’ Workplace Policies

In Hooters of Ontario Mills [pdf], an National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge found that a California franchisee of Hooters unlawfully fired a waitress for complaining about a bikini contest that she perceived as fixed. In the same decision, the ALJ also concluded that the restaurant maintained numerous illegal polices in its employee handbook.

Alexis Hanson, a Hooter Girl in an Ontario, California, outpost of the beer-and-wings establishment, complained to management that she believed that bar’s annual bikini contest was rigged. After the contest, she was terminated for “cursing at” the winner and the store’s Marketing Director. When she protested that she hadn’t cursed at anyone, the manager changed her tune and told Hanson, “Okay. Well, then you are being terminated for your negative social media posts.”

The ALJ concluded that Hanson’s discharge was unlawfully motivated by her protected concerted activity (i.e., her complaints to the manager about the bikini contest). The ALJ was persuaded by the fact that the employer had failed to conduct an investigation before firing Hanson, and also by its shifting reasons for her termination. 

The ALJ also concluded that a variety of policies in the restaurant’s employee handbook were overly broad violations of employees’ rights to engage in protected concerted activity:
  • NEVER discuss tips with other employees or guests. Employees who do so are subject to discipline up to and including termination.
  • Insubordination to a manager or lack of respect and cooperation with fellow employees or guests may result in discipline up to and including termination.
  • Disrespect to our guests including discussing tips, profanity or negative comments or actions may result in discipline up to and including termination.
  • The unauthorized dispersal of sensitive Company operating materials or information to any unauthorized person or party may result in discipline up to and including termination. This includes, but is not limited to, recipes, policies, procedures, financial information, manuals or any other information in part or in whole as contained in any Company records.
  • Be respectful to the Company, other employees, customers, partners, and competitors. Refrain from posting offensive language or pictures that can be viewed by coworkers and clients. Refrain from posting negative comments about Hooters or coworkers. In all cases, NEVER publish any information regarding a coworker or customer.
  • Any other action or activity that the Company reasonably believes represents a threat to the smooth operation, goodwill or profitability of its business may result in discipline up to and including termination.
What are the takeaways from this case?
  1. These employees were non-union. This case serves as a reminder that the NLRA’s protected-concerted-activity rules apply to union and non-union shops.
  2. It’s debatable whether complaints about a workplace bikini contest constitute protected concerted activity. In this case, however, the ALJ appeared to be more persuaded by what the manager did not do in response to the complaints, as opposed to what the employee complained about. The manager did not investigate, and did not maintain a consistent reason for the termination. In other words, the reasons given for the terminated seemed to be a pretext to cover up something else — retaliation for Hanson’s protected concerted activity. The moral of this story? No matter the situation, thorough investigations and maintaining a consistent story will save your bacon in many workplace lawsuits.
  3. As often happens in theses cases, the termination served as an entre for the NLRB to review (and overturn) workplace policies as overly broad. If you don’t want the NLRB to see your policies, don’t fire employees for protected concerted activity. Most of these cases get to the Board because someone was fired, not because someone just decided, out of the blue, to challenge a handbook.
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EEOC Continues Fight Against Severance Agreements and Employers Fight Back


Earlier this year, I reported on a groundbreaking lawsuit the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed against CVS challenging as retaliatory some garden-variety provisions in employee separation agreements (here and here). 

Earlier this week, the EEOC reported that it has filed a similar lawsuit in Colorado, against CollegeAmerica. From the EEOC’s news release:

Debbi D. Potts, the campus director of CollegeAmerica's Cheyenne, Wyo., campus, resigned in July 2012 and signed a separation agreement in September 2012 that conditioned the receipt of separation benefits on, among other things, her promise not to file any complaint or grievance with any government agency or to disparage CollegeAmerica. These provisions would prevent Potts from reporting any alleged employment discrimination to the EEOC or filing a discrimination charge.…

The EEOC also claims that provisions which similarly chill employees’ rights to file charges and cooperate with the EEOC exist in CollegeAmerica’s form separation and release agreements, routinely used with its employees.…

“Rights granted to employees under federal law, like the right to file charges of discrimination and participate in EEOC investigations into alleged discrimination in the workplace, cannot be given up in agreements between private parties,” said Mary Jo O’Neill, Regional Attorney for the EEOC’s Phoenix District Office…. “Otherwise, employers could easily do an end run around the law, employees would not be free to complain about discrimination, and the EEOC would never learn about violations of the law or have an opportunity to enforce it.”

Meanwhile, CVS is fighting back against the EEOC in its lawsuit. CVS has asked the district court to dismiss the complaint in its entirety, cap arguing that the mere inclusion of terms in a severance agreement does not violate Title VII. Business groups are also weighing in, the court has granted permission to the Retail Litigation Center to file a brief in support of CVS’s motion to dismiss. 

I continue to believe that this issue is the most important issue to employers that the EEOC is currently litigating. 

It is becoming clear that the CVS lawsuit was not an anomaly, and that challenging these types of provisions in severance agreements is high on the EEOC’s radar. For now, however, I think employers should take a wait-and-see approach. This issue is too important for employers to knee-jerk pull these key clauses from their agreements.

For now, what I wrote in February (which includes a draft carve-out) still holds true:

Don’t shred your settlement and severance agreements just yet.… Modify your agreements to bolster and clarify the protected-activity carve-out.… Given the EEOC’s position, prudence dictates the breadth of this carve-out, which is more expansive than what I traditionally use. The alternative, however, is to omit these provisions all together, and draft agreements that looks like a Swiss-cheese of risk.

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When an Employee Can’t Return to Work After an FMLA Leave

The plaintiff in Demyanovich v. Cadon Plating & Coatings (6th Cir. Mar. 28, 2014) suffered from congestive heart failure. He returned from his latest Family and Medical Leave Act leave in 2009 with a no-overtime medical restriction. The employer, however, ignored the restriction, kept assigning overtime hours, and denied an early-2010 FMLA request. Demyanovich’s doctor advised him to quit his job and apply for social security benefits. Shortly thereafter, the company terminated him for excessive absenteeism.

In the subsequent FMLA lawsuit, the employer claimed that Demyanovich could not prove his FMLA claim because he could not have returned to his job at the end of the 2010 FMLA leave, had it been granted. The court, however, disagreed:

Although there is ample evidence that Demyanovich might have had difficulty returning to work within twelve weeks of his February 23 request for FMLA leave, it is not indisputable that he would have been unable to do so. Dr. Mussani, Demyanovich’s primary physician, “advised [Demyanovich] to quit work” and seek Social Security benefits, but he did not draft any documentation stating that Demyanovich was categorically unable to continue working. We may not draw the inference, adverse to Demyanovich, that because Dr. Mussani had always cleared Demyanovich to return to work after past examinations, his advice to quit on this occasion demonstrates that Demyanovich was no longer capable of working.

According to the FMLA, employees who, at the end of the 12-week leave period, remain “unable to perform an essential function of the position because of a physical or mental condition … [have] no right to restoration to another position under the FMLA.” Thus, if Demyanovich truly could not have returned to work at the end of the FMLA leave, then he would have a claim. In this case, the court concluded that the employer could not measure that inability prospectively, since Demyanovich presented no medical paperwork to that end.

What are the takeaway from this case?

  1. When dealing with medical issues under the FMLA, get it in writing. In this case, it appears that the employer was attempting to justify its decision based on information in learned after the fact — that Demyanovich’s doctor recommend that he quit and seek social security benefits based on a total inability to work. Had the company learned this information at the time of the termination from medical information provided by Demyanovich at that time, this case likely would have turned out differently.
  2. Don’t forget about the Americans with Disabilities Act. Just because an employee cannot return to work at the end of an exhausted FMLA leave does not mean you can always terminate the employee. Instead, you have an obligation under the ADA to explore, through the interactive process, reasonable accommodations such as temporary light duty or an unpaid leave of absence. Even if you are on solid legal ground to terminate under the FMLA, ignoring your obligations under the ADA will still buy you a lawsuit.
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Please, Please, Please Be Careful What you Email

Darren Wyss claims that his former employer, Compact Industries, demoted him on the basis of his gender and replaced him with a female. Wyss’s immediate supervisor was Tracey Brown, one of the company’s owners, and the sister of Michael Brown, another owner. After Wyss’s demotion, Michael emailed his sister, “You demoted Darren without telling me? … Darren is a good worker, too bad he’s male.”

 
Based on that email, the court — in Wyss v. Compact Indus. (S.D. Ohio 3/12/14) — had little trouble denying the company’s motion to dismiss the sex discrimination lawsuit.

It is reasonable to infer that Michael Brown knew of his sister’s motive for demoting Wyss and was referring to that motive in this email. This plausibly suggests that the decision to demote Wyss, who was otherwise a “good worker,” was motivated by Tracey’s intent to discriminate against men. 

Nothing good comes from putting statements like “too bad he’s male” in emails, or text messages, or voice mails, or any other form of communication. Those words should never leave your lips, let alone flow forth from your fingers in anything typed. Michael Brown may have a logical, non-discriminatory explanation for his statement … or at least he better before he gives his deposition. Even with an explanation, however, his misstep makes his company’s case that much more difficult. Do your damndest to avoid the same miscue.
 
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EEOC Issues New Guidance on Religious Dress and Grooming in the Workplace

Dress and grooming policies have been on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s radar for several years. For example:

  • In April 2013, the EEOC won a long battle against clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch, in which the agency had argued that the company had failed to accommodate a job applicant’s Muslim faith by refusing an exception to its “Look Policy” for her religious head scarf.
  • In September 2010, the EEOC sued a Virginia moving company that refused to hire a Rastafarian because of his dreadlocks.

Other examples of religious garb or grooming that could conflict with workplace policies include a Sikh turban, a Pentecostal Christian or Orthodox Jewish woman’s practice of not wearing pants or short skirts, or hair length observances such as Sikh uncut hair and beard, or Jewish peyes.

These examples ask an important question, which, last week, the EEOC attempted to answer. When must an employer grant an exception to its facially neutral dress or grooming policy as an accommodation of an employee’s religion?

Before we delve into this question, however, you need to understand the legal framework in which this question exists.

“Religion” is among the classes that Title VII protects from workplace discrimination. Religion, however, is unique under Title VII. Title VII requires an employer, once on notice, to reasonably accommodate an employee whose sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance conflicts with a work requirement, unless providing the accommodation would create an undue hardship. In this context, undue hardship is a low standard — the proposed accommodation need only pose more than a de minimis cost or burden.

Because of the uniqueness of this issue, and its growing importance in our multicultural workplaces, last week the EEOC published a question-and-answer guide, entitled “Religious Garb and Grooming in the Workplace: Rights and Responsibilities.” This guide addresses how Title VII applies to religious dress and grooming practices, and what steps employers should take to meet their legal responsibilities in this area.

According to the EEOC, Title VII prohibits an employer from doing any of the following:

1. Holding garb and grooming worn for religious reasons to the same standards as that worn for non-religious reasons.According to the EEOC, “Title VII applies to any practice that is motivated by a religious belief, even if other people may engage in the same practice for secular reasons.” To qualify for protection, however, the belief must be grounded in religious beliefs, and not just personal preference. Thus, an employee who wears dreadlocks for a religious purpose (e.g., a Rastafarian) is protected, while one wearing the same hairstyle for a fashion statement is not.

2. Excluding someone from a position because of discriminatory customer preference. Customer preference is not a defense to a claim of discrimination. In illustrating this point, the EEOC uses the example of a Sikh, who wears a turban for a religious purpose, denied a job at a coffee shop because the customers would mistake him for a Muslim, which drives away business. That failure-to-accommodate, according to the EEOC, is illegal.

3. Assigning an employee to a non-customer contact position because of customer preference, or in support of a corporate “image” or marketing strategy.  Just like an employer can’t refuse to hire someone because of customer preference, it also can’t hide the employee in a back room for the same reason. It violates Title VII for an employer to segregate an employee out of fear that customers will have a biased response to religious garb or grooming.

4. Automatically refusing to accommodate an applicant’s or employee’s religious garb or grooming practice if it would violate the employer’s policy or preference regarding how employees should look. A policy that automatically refuses an accommodation ignores an employer’s obligation under Title VII to provide the accommodation unless it imposes an undue hardship.

5. Retaliating against someone because he or she requested a religious accommodation.

What can an employer do, according to the EEOC?

1. Accommodate an employee’s religious dress or grooming practice by offering to have the employee cover the religious attire or item while at work, provided that such covering does not violate the employee’s religious beliefs.

2. Bar an employee’s religious dress or grooming practice based on workplace safety, security, or health concerns, provided that the practice actually poses an undue hardship on the operation of the business.

To synthesize these Q&As into one cohesive takeaway, employers should train managers and employees that the law may require making a religious exception to an employer’s otherwise uniformly applied, and facially neutral, dress or grooming rules, practices, or preferences. This training should include the reasonable accommodation process, and the importance of avoiding stereotypes based on dress or grooming.

This post originally appeared on Law.com.

Jon Hyman is a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.  For more information, contact Hyman at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com. Follow Hyman on Twitter at @jonhyman.

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When are Preliminary and Postliminary Compensable? Supremes to let us Know (Maybe).

Yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Busk v. Integrity Staffing Solutions, to answer the following question (via SCOTUSblog):

"Whether time spent in security screenings is compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act, as amended by the Portal-to-Portal Act."

“What does this mean,” you ask? In Busk, the plaintiffs claimed their employer illegally failed to compensate them for the time they spent passing through a required security check at the end of each shift. According to the plaintiffs, employees waited up to 25 minutes to be searched; removed their wallets, keys, and belts; and passed through metal detectors. They claimed that the checks were “necessary to the employer’s task of minimizing ‘shrinkage’ or loss of product from warehouse theft.”

The FLSA, as amended by the Portal-to-Portal Act, generally, precludes compensation for activities that are preliminary or postliminary to the employees’ principal activities. Preliminary and postliminary activities—those that are “integral and indispensable” to an employee’s principal activities—are compensable. To be “integral and indispensable,” an activity both must be (1) necessary to the principal work performed and (2) done for the benefit of the employer.

In Busk, the court concluded that the plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that the security clearances were necessary to their primary work as warehouse employees and done for their employer’s benefit. Therefore, the district court erred in dismissing the wage-and-hour claim.

This case is the second in as many years that the Supreme Court will hear on this issue. Earlier this year, in Sandifer v. U.S. Steel, the Court concluded that the time employees spent donning (putting on) and doffing (taking off) their protective gear was not compensable under their collective bargaining agreement.

There are lots of other examples of preliminary of postliminary activities that could be occurring in your workplaces besides putting on and taking off protective gear, or security screenings. For example, your employees might spend time logging on to their computers before their work days officially begin. Or they might spend time at the end of their shifts transitioning to the next shift. I am hopeful that Busk will provide employers needed guidance on the compensability of these activities.

Jon Hyman is a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.  For more information, contact Hyman at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com. Follow Hyman on Twitter at @jonhyman.

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Mind Your Internal Emails to Avoid Discrimination Issues

Shazor v. Professional Transit Mgmt., Inc. (6th Cir. 2/19/14), interests me for two reasons. First, it discusses and applies a “sex-plus” theory of discrimination to save a plaintiff’s race discrimination and sex discrimination claims from the summary-judgment scrap heap. “Sex-plus” recognizes that race and sex are not mutually exclusive, and protects African-American woman as a class of their own. I recommend Shazor to your reading list for its interesting narrative on this issue.

I want to discuss, however, the other interesting aspect of Shazor — the evidence the plaintiff used to avoid summary judgment. She submitted various emails between two corporate executives, in which they unflatteringly referred to her as a “prima donna,” “disloyal, disrespectful,” and a “hellava bitch.” Shazor successfully argued that these emails were code for “angry black woman” or “uppity black woman.” The court used these emails as prima-facie evidence of discrimination in support of her “sex-plus” claim.

Email is a powerful communication tool. It’s also very permanent. I’ve been saying this about social media for years, but perhaps it’s time to remind employers that communication is communication, no matter how it’s transmitted. If you don’t want something to appear on the front page of the newspaper, or to be read in front of a judge or jury, don’t put it in writing. Don’t email it, don’t text it, don’t Facebook it, and don’t tweet it.

“I have a solution,” you say. “What about apps like Confide, which erases a text message as soon as the recipient reads it.”

While these apps seem like a perfect way to communicate under the radar, their use for business purposes gives me great pause. The intent of this class of apps is to delete communications. I could very easily see a court, confronted with evidence that people have this app on their iPhones and use it for business communications have willfully destroyed evidence. Spoliation and evidence destruction discovery sanctions would result. For this reason, I believe that company mobile-device policies should police the use of apps like Confide, Snapchat, and their message erasing ilk. And, while your reviewing your policies, mix in some training for your employees about the responsible use of electronic communications.

Jon Hyman is a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.  For more information, contact Hyman at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com. Follow Hyman on Twitter at @jonhyman.

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NLRB: No Such Thing as an Online Picket Line

When is a picket line not a picket line? Apparently when the protests take place online, at least according to the National Labor Relations Board’s opinion in Amalgamated Transit Union, Local Union No. 1433 (NLRB 2/12/14) [pdf].

In the case, certain employees took to their union’s Facebook page to post threatening comments to co-workers who refused to participate in the union’s strike against their employer.

  • Prior to the strike starting, one of the posts threatened, “THINKING of crossing the line. THINK AGAIN!” Sixteen people commented on that post, included one that wrote, “If u cross … you will lose your eyesight … from the 2 black eyes.”
  • On the second day of the strike, another employee posted on the union’s Facebook page: “We found them!! We found out where they are housing the scabs.  We will be setting up lines at the hotel tomorrow.” Thirteen people comments on that post, including one that asked, “Can we bring the Molotov Cocktails this time?”

The employees argued that the union violated the National Labor Relations Act by not deleting or otherwise disavowing the statements posted on its Facebook page. The NLRB, however, disagreed:

Respondent’s Facebook page is in no way “an electronic extension” of its picket line…. A picket line serves a purpose quite distinct from that of the Facebook page. A picket line proclaims to the public, in a highly visible way, that the striking union has a dispute with the employer, and thus seeks to enlist the public in its effort to place economic pressure on the employer….

In contrast, Respondent’s Facebook page does not serve to communicate a message to the public. To the contrary, it is private….

Unlike a website in cyberspace, an actual picket line confronts employees reporting for work with a stark and unavoidable choice: To cross or not to cross. Should someone acting as a union’s agent make a threat while on the picket line, the coercive effect is immediate and unattenuated because it falls on the ears of an employee who, at that very moment, must make a decision concerning the exercise of his Section 7 rights…. 

This decision displays a fundamental misunderstanding about social media. Nothing about social media is private. It is public, interactive, and immediate. Even if the page on which the employees were posting was a “private” page or group, nothing stops employees from sharing the content via prints or screen caps. I am concerned that the agency that has taken such an active public stance regulating social media in the workplace appears to have such a fundamental misunderstanding about how this media operates.

Jon Hyman is a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.  For more information, contact Hyman at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com. Follow Hyman on Twitter at @jonhyman.

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Can You Have a One-Person Reduction-in-Force?

Yesterday’s New York Daily News ran the following headline: “Long Island man, 76, sues company for age discrimination after ‘workforce reduction’ of one man.” The article suggests that there is something nefarious or underhanded about a layoff of one.

In reality, provided the layoff is bona fide, the number of people included is irrelevant. What is a bona fide layoff? According to one Ohio court:

In determining whether a valid work force reduction occurred, the key inquiry is whether or not the employer replaced the plaintiff. If an employer did not replace the plaintiff, but rather consolidated jobs in order to eliminate excess worker capacity, then a work force reduction took place.

In other words, it’s not a question of quantity, but one of quality. It does not make a difference if the layoff includes one employee or 100 employees, provided that those eliminated are not replaced.

This distinction is not one without a difference. Whether a job loss qualifies as a reduction-in-force matters. Workforce reductions require plaintiffs to come forward with additional evidence (direct, circumstantial, or statistical) to support an inference of age discrimination. Otherwise, the employer’s legitimate non-discriminatory reason (the economic necessity for the layoffs) will carry the day.

So, New York Daily News, I take issue with your headline. Yes, it is perfectly legal to have a one-person layoff, provided it is bona fide, and not a subterfuge to hire younger.

Jon Hyman is a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.  For more information, contact Hyman at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com. Follow Hyman on Twitter at @jonhyman.

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A Proposed Solution for the EEOC’s Position on Retaliation in Severance Agreements

Yesterday I reported on a lawsuit the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed, claiming that some fairly generic terms in an employee severance agreement constitute illegal retaliation. In EEOC v. CVS, the agency claims an agreement that attempts to limit an employee’s communication with the EEOC unlawfully attempts to buy employee silence about potential violations of the law.

I try to shy away from hyperbole, but OH MY GOD, THIS CASE COULD BE RUINOUS!!!

When you compare the inoffensiveness of the provisions challenged in CVS to the hard-line position put forth by the EEOC, you begin to understand why this case has the potential to be most significant piece of litigation the EEOC has filed in recent memory.

Employers settle lawsuits and pay employees severance in exchange for certainty. Employers don’t write checks to litigants (or potential litigants) out of the goodness of their hearts. They do so because they want to get rid of claims and potential claims. The provisions with which the EEOC has taken issue — a general release, a covenant not to sue, cooperation, confidentiality, non-disparagement, and the payment of attorneys’ fees upon a breach — are crucial for employers. You’d be hard pressed to find an agreement that does not contain some combination of most, if not all, of these provisions.

Yes, the anti-retaliation provisions of the employment discrimination laws prohibit employers from requiring that employees give up their statutory rights to file discrimination charges, cooperate in investigations, or provide information to the EEOC. But, the CVS agreement that the EEOC is challenging did not contain those requirements.

Instead, the challenged agreement expressly protected the employees’ statutory rights:

Moreover, nothing is intended to or shall interfere with Employee’s right to participate in a proceeding with any appropriate federal, state, or local government agency enforcing discrimination laws, nor shall this Agreement prohibit Employee from cooperating with any such agency in its investigation. Employee shall not, however, be entitled to any relief, recovery, or monies in connection with any Released Claim brought against any of the Released Parties, regardless of who filed or initiated any such complaint, charge, or proceeding.

In re-reading the EEOC’s complaint, the agency seems to take issue with two key facets of the challenged agreement:

  1. The carve-out existed as a “single, qualifying sentence” in the “Covenant Not to Sue” section of the Agreement.
  2. The carve-out did not expressly touch all of the challenged provisions in the Agreement.

Don’t shred your settlement and severance agreements just yet. As a I promised yesterday, I have a potential solution. Modify your agreements to bolster and clarify the protected-activity carve-out. In a provision separate and distinct from the release, waiver, or covenant not to sue, consider something like the following (modeled on the provisions in CVS):

Nothing in this Agreement is intended to, or shall, interfere with Employee’s rights under federal, state, or local civil rights or employment discrimination laws (including, but not limited to, Title VII, the ADA, the ADEA, GINA, USERRA, or their state or local counterparts) to file or otherwise institute a charge of discrimination, to participate in a proceeding with any appropriate federal, state, or local government agency enforcing discrimination laws, or to cooperate with any such agency in its investigation, none of which shall constitute a breach of the non-disparagement, confidentiality, or cooperation clauses of this Agreement. Employee shall not, however, be entitled to any relief, recovery, or monies in connection with any such brought against any of the Released Parties, regardless of who filed or initiated any such complaint, charge, or proceeding.

Given the EEOC’s position, prudence dictates the breadth of this carve-out, which is more expansive than what I traditionally use. The alternative, however, is to omit these provisions all together, and draft agreements that looks like a Swiss cheese of risk.

I cannot understate the potential significance of the EEOC’s position in CVS. This case bear monitoring, and I will continue to update you as the case proceeds. In the meantime, consider adopting changes to your stock separation and settlement agreements; the EEOC is definitely watching.

Jon Hyman is a partner in the Labor & Employment group of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.  For more information, contact Hyman at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com. Follow Hyman on Twitter at @jonhyman.