Suits In The WorkPlace

Gender bending

As much as I try to make my entries here informative and useful, occasionally there is a case that cries out for inclusion just for its sheer bizarreness.  Like this one.

The employer is a capital management company called SAC Capital Advisors LLC.  It is being sued by one of its former junior traders, a male employee who claims that he was ordered to take female hormones in order to effectively implement a trading method that involved a "feminine" approach.  Apparently, it didn't occur to the company management to just go out and hire a woman.

In addition to whatever money management skills the hormones were supposed to promote, they also rendered the male employee impotent, and caused him to begin wearing women's clothes.

Along with the suit for wrongful femininity, the employee filed an EEOC charge of discrimination, harassment and retaliation.  Presumably the first task the Commission will have is to try to figure out exactly what protected class the plaintiff belongs to.

In any event, the New York state court dumped this one into arbitration as quickly as it could.  However, the federal trial may be reported after the charge gets out of the EEOC.  Stay tuned.

NYT Advice--Boss's Memo: Go ahead, date (with my blessing)

An article in today's New York Times seems to indicate that it's no big deal to date coworkers and that employers are generally turning a blind eye to the practice.  Citing surveys in careerbuilder.com and the Society for Human Resource Management, the article also quotes a number of consultants who seem to say that concern over the traditional bugaboos of workplace dating--sexual harassment, gender discrimination, etc.--are fading.  As a result, more couples are being open about their workplace relationships.

Notwithstanding the fact that every single consultant cited in the article either met their spouse at work (and in one case dated the boss), or engage in extensive workplace dating, I have to question the impression that's created here.  The vast majority of my clients frown on workplace romances for any number of reasons, but mainly because they're bad for morale and they create a distraction for everyone else. 

One of the consultants, founder of a nonprofit organization promoting fairness in the workplace (now that's a tall order) noted that forbidding office dating is not a solution.  "The real issue is not that they're sleeping with each other... the real issue is that their emotional attachment to each other may get in the way of their business judgment."

This is about as dumb as statement as I can recall seeing in the Times.  I guess it's possible that people can have sex repeatedly and avoid emotional attachment that carries over into their day-to-day interactions  in the workplace, but the two in my experience are usually linked pretty tightly.  The issues, I mean.  The comment also ignores the obvious problem of what the coworkers think about the relationship.  Regardless of what reality is, the perception in the workplace will be that these two people are going to be looking out for each other and will take steps within their sphere of influence to benefit each other, almost always unfairly.

But hey, I didn't meet my wife at work, so perhaps my perception (based on literally dozens of workplace investigations involving allegations of sexual harassment, favoritism, nepotism and the like resulting from romantic relationships) is simply out of touch.  Perhaps.

Sidley settles

Over a year ago I wrote about the Sidley Austin age discrimination class-action going on here in Chicago.  Sidley settled the suit yesterday, agreeing to pay the terminated partners more than $27 million, and also agreeing that it would not enforce a mandatory retirement age for its partners.  In other words, Sidley effectively admits that the partners who are not part of its executive management group are employees, with full protection of the federal and presumably state antidiscrimination laws.

This represents a fundamental change in the management of large, traditionally organized law firms, and presumably other similar professional services entities.  The large national firms, with hundreds of partners sharing in the profits or losses of the operation, will have to take greater care to ensure full participation in firm decisions, or risk finding themselves in the same position as Sidley.  Otherwise partner management is going to start looking a lot more like employee management.  That means less job security for partners, and probably less room at the top as partners will likely elect to work past the traditional mandatory retirement age of 65.