Free Republic

President Obama signed his first bill into law on Thursday, approving "equal-pay" legislation that he said would “send a clear message that making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody.” In reality, this bill limits the freedom of both employee and employer, and reduces people to representatives of their gender, not the sum of their abilities and aptitudes. Mr. Obama was surrounded by a group of beaming lawmakers... as he affixed his signature to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a law named for an Alabama woman who at the end of a 19-year career as a...

Europe's highest court ruled that a Belgian garage-door installer broke the European Union's antidiscrimination laws by stating publicly that he wouldn't hire Moroccans, even though there was no evidence any job applicant had actually been rejected. The decision expands the scope of EU discrimination laws, raises questions of free speech, and highlights a tension between the bloc and its constituent countries over how much sway Brussels should have in domestic labor-market affairs. A Belgian court originally found that the statements -- made in newspaper and television interviews -- might be unsavory but didn't necessarily amount to discrimination since no injured...

Walt Disney World fired a security guard on Monday after he protested the company's decision not to allow people with concealed weapons permits to keep guns in their cars on Disney property. Disney terminated Edwin Sotomayor, 36, of Orlando for violating three Disney employee policies, essentially for failing to cooperate with an internal investigation, said spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez. Sotomayor vowed to continue his fight. At issue is Florida's new law that allows people with concealed weapons permits to keep firearms in their vehicles in employee parking lots. Disney advised its employees late last month that the theme-park resort is exempt...

Bobby Jindal signs bill giving employees the right to have firearms in their automobiles "on company property".

The group requires all employees to sign a contract agreeing to abstain from all sexual immorality, including homosexuality. When Christian Horizons fired a female employee who became involved with another woman, she complained to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, which fined the ministry $23,000 and two years back pay.

What are ‘extreme’ hairdos for amusement park workers? By ROSE RUSSELL FOLKS are intimidated about hair, especially black people’s hair. This was an issue in the 1980s, and hasn’t been in the news until recently when Six Flags amusement park in Largo, Md., targeted employees wearing “extreme hairstyles,” such as locks — also called dreadlocks — long braids, and some cornrows. The park’s new general manger is a black man. But more about Terry Prather later. Six Flags America’s 2006 seasonal handbook says workers can’t wear locks, tails, partially shaved heads, “or any hairstyle that detracts or takes away from...

AP) The owners of a roller skating rink have fired an 18-year-old woman they called one of their "Top 10" employees because she moved in with her boyfriend, violating a company ethics policy that prohibits "live-in relationships of an intimate nature." "I loved my job and I didn't want to leave," Crystal Plotner told the Coeur d'Alene Press this week. She said she was fired after casually telling her bosses, Skate Plaza owners Marvin and Pat Miller, that she planned to move in with her boyfriend in mid-May. Before terminating her, Plotner said the Millers said she and her boyfriend...

May Day brought news of a very interesting new concept that definitely should be tried on all employees of our nation's largest employer. After all, an employer has a perfect right to know what all employees are doing in the workplace at all times. The first part of the plan is to standardize state issued driver's licenses and ID cards and to mandate that a computer chip be included to carry all sorts of personal information. This would allow more certain identification of employees and associated visitors to the workplace. The "Driver's License Modernization Act" is sponsored by Reps. Jim...