It’s a question that comes up often and it came up yet again yesterday: “Can an employer ask a job candidate how old they are?”

A colleague of mine at MSNBC.com, economy reporter Allison Linn, got this type of question from a reader on Facebook and we both pondered whether it was legal or not.

My gut feeling was this was a no no under the nation’s labor laws, but it turns out it’s not that cut and dry. (more…)

There have been undercurrents of weight discrimination in the workplace for years, but a Texas hospital decided to go anti-fat full throttle.

A Texas newspaper uncovered the story recently reporting about a fat-adverse Texas hospital — Citizens Medical Center — and it’s unheard of policy of refusing to hire anyone with a body mass index of more than 35.

The policy, according to The Texas Tribune, states:

… an employee’s physique “should fit with a representational image or specific mental projection of the job of a healthcare professional,” including an appearance “free from distraction” for hospital patients.

“The majority of our patients are over 65, and they have expectations that cannot be ignored in terms of personal appearance,” hospital chief executive David Brown said in an interview. “We have the ability as an employer to characterize our process and to have a policy that says what’s best for our business and for our patients.”

The hospital’s policy may cause outrage, but it’s an extreme example of an obesity bias that has been percolating in the nation’s workforces, starting with seemingly benign measures such as encouraging workers to walk at lunch. (more…)

Did you tweet today about your sister’s heart attack, or write a Facebook post about the anniversary of your father’s death from lung cancer?

What if your boss sees it?

Yesterday the government released data on workplace discrimination and not surprisingly the numbers spiked last year.

Disability and age bias charges increased, and the total number of complaints hit a record at nearly 100,000 total filed, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. That’s a continued influx of charges rising steadily for the last few years.

What I thought was most interesting about the data was a whole new category on the EEOC’s Charge Statistics list: GINA.

No it’s not bias against B actresses. It’s charges under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, aka GINA. (more…)

This week, Randolph Babbitt, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, resigned following fall out of his drunk-driving arrest.

It was a monumental fall from grace for a man who has had an impressive career. His FAA bio page has already been deleted.

It’s unknown what Babbitt’s drinking history is, but I thought this was a good time to look again at how drinking issues can impact your career.

If you’re caught doing something illegal as a result, in most cases, an employer can legally fire you. But if you’re an alcoholic, and your boss finds out, you may indeed have some protections against adverse actions by your employer, but they are limited, according to labor law experts.. (more…)

Andy Rooney is leaving “60 Minutes” at age 92 and some workers out there may be jealous he was able to hold onto his plum job for so long.

A growing number of middle-aged workers are finding it hard to hold onto their jobs, or find new ones, and they haven’t even reached retirement age.

There’s been a flurry of cases in recent weeks that point to a growing reluctance to treat 40 plus employees fairly, and many of my emails in the last few months are from readers who feel their age is holding them back.

Some of you have told me you lost your job because you were the oldest and among the better paid at your companies. Others searching for work said you believe you’re taken out of the running for jobs when hiring managers realize how old you are, either after the interview or before getting through the door because of extensive work histories on resumes.

Clearly age discrimination happens, as recent federal statistics attest to. According to the federal government, the recession brought with it a record number of complaints about age bias, more than 20,000 every years since 2008. And the cases can be rather egregious. (more…)

Career experts often advise job seekers to consider whether they fit into a company’s culture before they spend too much time trying to get hired.

But what if you think you fit the culture but the employer doesn’t?

Let’s say a hiring manager doesn’t think you have the right heritage, mores, values, or habits of the company. I took those words right out of the dictionary definition of culture. That’s what we’re talking about after all; how you fit into a company’s mini society.

Take Bass Pro Shops for example. The fishing and hunting retailer with stores that include an endless stream of dead animals and a log-cabin feel definitely has it’s own aura, and they make no bones about it. They even sell a t-shirt with the name “Redneck Fishfinder” emblazoned on the front. Here’s the definition of redneck:

a working-class white person, esp. a politically reactionary one from a rural area

What if you’re not a redneck? Can an employer refuse to hire you? The government is accusing the company of just that. (more…)

Trying to inspire workers to fight against real workplace or societal inequities can be an uphill battle. But complain about how women, minorities, or the disabled are depicted in TV shows, rap songs and movies, and you get a tidal wave of soldiers ready to charge against the entertainment industry.

I’m not saying such fights are useless, but sometimes they may end up reaping few rewards when it comes to discrimination in this country.

Recently, I’ve been getting tweets and emails of outrage from parents of disabled kids about what they see as slurs in the media; and today the big hubbub is feminist icon Gloria Steinem’s call for a boycott of a Playboy TV show. They’re all angry over how certain individuals are depicted and what’s said about them, but is their anger misguided, or better directed elsewhere? (more…)

The Supreme Court began hearing arguments today in the biggest sexual discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history, and it’s unclear whether working women or Corporate America will prevail.

The case is against the largest private employer in the country Walmart and it involves hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of female employees, current and former, who may have been discriminated against when it comes to pay and promotions dating back to 1998. At issue, is whether this large group of women be allowed to proceed with a suit en masse.

We may not know the outcome until June. June! The anticipation of the justices’ ruling is killing me, so I asked some legal experts on both sides of the issue, to review arguments today and offer a glimpse of how the high court may be leaning. (more…)

I got an email a while back from a former vice president at a bank who told his boss he needed medical leave for treatment related to his mental illness. “Shortly thereafter,” he said, “I became expendable.”

The executive, who I’ll call Mr. C., faced something many employees with mental illness face — bias in the workplace. And it’s a growing problem. (more…)

No matter how disgusting a creature you think Charlie Sheen is, his accusations against his former employer who fired him are genius. The guy is actually claiming in a lawsuit filed yesterday he was canned because his managers thought he was disabled. And his bozo bosses actually said as much to him and to the media.

It’s an interesting case that opens up the question of whether an employer can terminate or take any negative job action against a worker that has a disability or is perceived as having a disability. I say perceived because we don’t know for sure what Sheen suffers from. It’s all media speculation at this point. But even if he isn’t disabled under the strict definition of disabled, the law also protects against adverse employment action if an employer just thought a worker was disabled and as a result did something crummy to that worker.

Sheen doesn’t say in his suit that he has a disability, but he does say his employer thought he had a mental and physical disability and thus fired him as a result instead of accommodating his disability, which is required under federal and California law. (more…)