10 Things For Which This Employment Lawyer Is Thankful In 2018

What are you thankful for this year? Here is my list.

No. 1. Absence of drama. Admittedly, the political scene has had more than its share of drama, but from a labor and employment law standpoint, this year has been blissfully uneventful. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a Strategic Enforcement Plan that was extraordinary for its very ordinariness. Employers got an extended deadline for filing their EEO-1 reports without the pain of having to report their compensation data. My biggest problem this year has been coming up with material for blog posts because so little has been going on. As problems go, that's a good one to have.

No. 2. Various political developments, which shall remain unnamed. Because we're a non-partisan blog, I can't tell you which ones, but there were several developments for which I am particularly thankful. (I think there was a little something for everybody this year, so you can fill in the blanks as your own predilections lead you.)

No. 3. Right before Thanksgiving, an employer does the right thing. You probably read this week about Dominique Marie Moran, the manager at a Chipotle in Minnesota who was fired on Friday for refusing to serve a group of black customers unless they paid in advance. Outrageous!!! -- except that there was much more to the story. In fact, Ms. Moran had good reason to believe that the customers were going to "dine and dash" -- take their food without paying for it. In my opinion, Chipotle acted too quickly in terminating Ms. Moran, but to their credit, they rescinded the termination and publicly apologized to her once they had all the facts. (As of now, it isn't clear whether Ms. Moran will accept the offer of reinstatement, but at least the job is hers to accept or reject.) And in this case, social media got her fired, but it also seems to have been responsible -- at least, in part -- for getting her job back. Social media is a blessing and a curse, but since it's Thanksgiving, we'll focus on the "blessing" part.

No. 4: Gender pay gap isn't really that bad. A study published this spring indicates that the gender pay gap is almost negligible once you control for position held, career interruptions, and other relevant factors. According to the study, using only "raw" data (controlling only for gender and employment), women currently earn only 77.9 cents for every dollar that men earn. But women earn about 97.8 cents for every dollar that similarly situated men earn. Yes, it's...

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