Employment and Labor Rights 411

The Town Manager in Jackman, Maine was fired recently.  Tom Kawczinsky is a "steward" of a group called "New Albion," which promotes a white supremacist agenda for Northern New England.  Kawczinsky was fired for posts on the group's website, which he moderates, calling Islam "barbarism" and saying that the races should voluntarily segregate, among other things. While these views are reprehensible, the question still remains -- should Kawczinsky have been fired for expressing such views, outside of work and on his own time?  Doesn't he have a First Amendment right to say things, no matter how stupid, wrong-headed or offensive?  Indeed, such a firing could be unlawful in Connecticut.  Connecticut General Statutes Section 31-51q makes it illegal for an employer to terminate an employee for exercising rights protected by the First Amendment, as long as " such activity does not substantially or materially interfere with the employee's bona fid

A new lawsuit alleges that Aflac (of the famous duck) takes advantage of and abuses its employees in a myriad of ways.  Among the claims: fraudulently promising recruits six-figure incomes which are essentially unattainable using a multi-level marketing scheme to encourage employees to sell policies to friends and relatives and recruit them into the company improperly classifying employees as independent contractors, thus shifting business costs onto the employees and denying them compensation and benefits wage theft; and retaliation against whistleblowers Unfortunately, this type of employee abuse is all too common.  Companies routinely call employees "independent contractors" so they don't have to pay unemployment or workers compensation benefits.  And wage theft is an epidemic -- the Economic Policy Institute has found that minimum wage violations alone cost over $8 Billion annually. A court in Georgia has ordered  that the case go to arbitration instea