California has passed a new law that requires employers to provide 52 weeks of paid leave to all employees.

The All Leave Act of 2008 (SB-401) cleared its final hurdle yesterday when, as expected, it passed the Assembly by a wide 65-12 margin.

“This is a great day for all Californians,” said bill co-sponsor David Lirpa (D-San Jose). ”This law represents an historic bipartisan effort by both sides of the aisle to ease the burden on this great state’s workers,” added the bill’s other sponsor, Barbara Loof (R-Palo Alto).

“I would consider a veto,” said California Jerry Brown as he stepped onto a plane bound for the Cayman Islands. “But, technically, as an employee of the state, I can’t — I’m required to be on leave every day for the rest of my term.”

The new law is effective today, April 1.

Yesterday, we discussed performance evaluation best practices. Here are some worst practices – actual real-life performance review quotes used as evidence in employment litigation (courtesy of Professor Dick Beatty of the University of Michigan Ross School of Business):

• “I would not allow this employee to breed.”
• “The gates are down, the lights are flashing but the train isn’t coming.”
• “He’s so dense, light bends around him.”
• “The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.”
• “He’s got the whole six-pack but lacks the plastic thingy holding it all together.”
• “Since my last report, the employee reached rock bottom and began to dig.”
• “He would argue with a signpost.”
• “If you stand close enough to him you can hear the ocean.”
• “Takes an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.”
• “If he were any more stupid he’d have to be watered twice a week.”
• “His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity.”

Don’t let this happen to you. Please follow the suggestions we made here yesterday.

Got any performance evaluation nightmares you’d like to share? Leave a comment below or shoot me an e-mail at blawg@na.manpower.com.

To help reduce potential fistfights, riots and other forms of workplace violence, we thought we would seek a peaceful resolution to a highly charged and controversial question that inevitably pops up at this time of year. That question, of course, is: What is the best holiday movie of all time?

So, please promote peace on earth by voting in our latest poll to help resolve this divisive issue once and for all. If you’d like to add a write-in candidate, please leave a comment below.

Thank you.

Click here to view our interactive online novel, Bob Sits In His Cube (And Other Exciting Adventures).

At each critical juncture of this action-packed saga, we stop and give you a chance to tell us what you think should happen next. We’ve gotten some highly creative suggestions, but I wanted to give you one last chance to express yourselves before we create the next chapter. Just leave a comment below or shoot me an e-mail at blawg@na.manpower.com.

Thank you for your assistance in this important endeavor.

Fresh off a stunning twelfth-place finish in this year’s Skankleton County Bratwurst Festival Karaoke Contest, the musical team of Slimon and Carbunkle has embarked on its new “Up Close and Personnel Tour” — a musical tribute to the joys and travails of human resources.

We’ll be bringing you exclusive footage as the duo travels the country. Below is the tour’s second stop: the great state of Iowa.

Last week, we posted a rather mind-blowing list entitled “Tips on Getting More Out of Women Employees” and then asked you to identify where the list was from.

Here are your responses (265 total votes):

a.  My company’s current employee handbook (1%)
b.  1976 course materials from the Archie Bunker School of Management ( 8%)
c.  1957 bulletin board posting in GM plant (59%)
d.  1943 issue of Transportation Magazine (30%)
e.  12 B.C. edition of Personnel Times (2%)

The correct answer is “d”, the 1943 issue of Transportation Magazine. Thankfully, that publication is no longer in existence.

For those of you who responded “a,” you might want to consider revising your handbooks.

As incredible as it might seem, the following is an actual real-life list of tips designed to help companies keep their female employees productive and happy. Read through it, try to keep your head from exploding and then see if you can guess when and where it originally appeared.

Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employees

1. Pick young married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility, they’re less likely to be flirtatious and they still have the pep and interest to work hard.
2. When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a hard time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy.
3. General experience indicates that “husky” girls — those who are just a little on the heavy side — are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.
4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination — one covering female conditions. This step not only protects the property against the possibilities of lawsuit, but reveals whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job.
5. Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that they’ll keep busy without bothering management for instructions every few minutes.
6. Give every girl an adequate number of rest periods during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology.
7. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidied, apply fresh lipstick and wash her hands several times a day.
8. Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they can’t shrug off harsh words the way men do.
9. Be reasonably considerate about using strong language around women. Even though a girl’s husband or father may swear vociferously, she’ll grow to dislike a place of business where she hears too much of this.
10. Get enough size variety in uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. This point can’t be stressed too much in keeping women happy.

In my humble opinion, NBC’s The Office is the world’s #1 employment law training aid. All you have to do is (1) watch it and (2) do the exact opposite of everything you see.

To help enhance your viewing experience, each week I provide a critique of the action from an employment lawyer’s perspective.

Last Night’s Episode: “The Lover.”

The Plot: Pam finds out that Michael is dating her mom. Dwight tries to spy on Jim.

My Analysis:

1. Issue: Disability Discrimination
   Description: Michael pretended to be blind as a “joke.” It didn’t go over very well. Along the way, he engaged in inappropriate touching and potentially discriminatory comments.
   Risk: $$$
2. Issue: Invasion of Privacy
   Description: Dwight complained that Jim “violated his personal space” by leaving a pen on his desk. Dwight then implanted listening devices in that pen and in a wooden mallard as a decoy.
   Risk: $$
3. Issue: Disdain of HR
   Description: Michael and Pam took turns yelling at Toby, the office HR “professional.” The company’s continual allowance of the degradation of this fine profession is tantamount to ignoring the law and could expose it to increased liability in just about any discrimination or harassment suit.
   Risk: $$$$
4. Issue: Breach of Contract/Emotional Distress
   Description: Michael breached an agreement with Jim not to tell Pam about his (Michael’s) affair with Pam’s mom. Given the explosive results and damaged relationships, Michael could face significant liability. The scream unleashed by Pam as a result of Michael’s breach may have damaged several bystanders’ ears, thereby increasing the potential damages.
   Risk: $$$
5. Issue: Inappropriate Touching
   Description: Dwight gave Michael a creepy massage, replete with bizarro commentary and sound effects. Michael touched Jim and Pam excessively and hugged Toby.
   Risk: $$
6. Issue: Opera-induced Emotional Distress
   Description: An opera played over the company sound system left Creed in tears. It also may have violated copyright laws because a license was not obtained prior to playing it.
   Risk: $$
7. Issue: “Helping” the Community
   Description:  Michael led a brainstorming session on how to get the office more involved in the community. Michael should never be allowed to lead any discussion and the office staff should never be allowed to interact with the public. Violating either of those basic principles is virtually certain to lead to lawsuits.
   Risk: $$
8. Issue: Insubordination
   Description: Pam was allowed to be openly and repeatedly insubordinate to Michael without any consequences. That could limit the company’s ability to discipline other employees for similar future infractions. Note: Pam could have a possible unfair labor practice defense/claim if the company attempted to discipline her based solely on her Norma Rae-like attempt to rally her co-workers into protesting working conditions by chanting “no more meetings.”
   Risk: $$$
9. Issue: How Not to Mediate a Dispute
   Description: After Michael made a “hostile work environment” complaint against Pam, Toby attempted to mediate the dispute. He conducted no investigation, immediately took Michael’s side, tried to conduct the mediation in front of their co-workers and then asked Pam to leave the office. His “efforts” only escalated the conflict.
   Risk: $$$
10. Issue: Dress Code Violation
    Description: Ryan’s fedora probably violated the company’s dress code (or at least culturally acceptable standards of good taste).
    Risk: $
11. Issue: Various Other Inappropriate Comments/Actions
    Description: Once again, virtually every employee said or did something inappropriate. The main culprit this week was Michael (touching Pam and Jim, hugging Toby and making comments about national origin, Pam’s mom, etc., etc.). At this point, every employee could sue the company for something and win.
    Risk: $$$$$

OFFICIAL “ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A LAWYER?” CONTEST: Anyone who leaves a comment below identifying an employment law issue that I missed will win a valuable prize. If you didn’t get a chance to see the episode, you can view it on NBC’s official web site here.

As always, thanks for your participation!

I am often asked for tips on how to ask deep, probing Perry-Mason-type cross-examination questions in investigations, unemployment hearings and other contexts where it’s important to get at the truth.

With the help of Blawg reader Dorothy Douthit, we have assembled a set of actual questions taken from real court records for you to use as a handy training guide.  Our suggestion:  study the list and then do the exact opposite of what you see.

Here you go . . .

Q:  Do you recall approximately the time that you examined the body of Mr. Huntington at St. Mary’s Hospital?
A:  It was in the evening.  The autopsy started about 5:30 p.m.
Q:  And Mr. Huntington was dead at the time, is that correct?
A:  No, you idiot, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was performing an autopsy.

*****

Q:  What happened then?
A:  He told me, he says, “I have to kill you because you can identify me.”
Q:  Did he kill you?

*****

Q:  I show you Exhibit 3 and ask if you recognize that picture.
A:  That’s me.
Q:  Were you present when that picture was taken?

*****

Q:  Have you lived in this town all your life?
A:  Not yet.

*****

Q:  Do you know how far pregnant you are now?
A:  I’ll be three months on March 12th.
Q:  Apparently then, the date of conception was around January 12th.
A:  Yes.
Q:  What were you doing at that time?

*****

Q:  Mrs. Jones, do you believe you are emotionally stable?
A:  I used to be.
Q:  How many times have you committed suicide?

*****

Q:  You say that the stairs went down to the basement?
A:  Yes.
Q:  And these stairs, did they go up also?

*****

Q:  Now then, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?
A:  By death.
Q:  And by whose death was it terminated?

*****

Q:  She had three children, right?
A:  Yes.
Q:  How many were boys?
A:  None.
Q:  Were there any girls?

*****

Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, in most cases he just passes quietly away and doesn’t know anything about it until the next morning?

Was that the same nose you broke as a child?

The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?

Were you present in court this morning when you were sworn in?

You don’t know what it was, and you didn’t know what it looked like, but can you describe it?

Were you alone or by yourself?

Was it you or your brother that was killed in the war?

So, you were gone until you returned?

Do you have any children or anything of that kind?

An attorney, apparently realizing that he was just about to ask a dumb question, interrupted himself and said, “Your Honor, I’d like to strike the next question.”

Thanks, Dorothy, for your submission!  (And special thanks to the Salt Lake Tribune which originally published the excerpts.)

The Teamsters in Oakland, California filed a grievance against Mills College, complaining that the school had violated its collective bargaining agreement by hiring non-union workers to clear brush.

The Teamsters demanded that the college either (1) award backpay to the union members who lost out on the work or (2) require the 500 non-union workers to join the union.

The only problem? The 500 non-union workers were — and we’re not making this up — goats.

“If the college opts to have the goats become members,” said a Teamsters spokesperson, “we intend to represent them in the same aggressive manner as we do every member.”

(Source: Education Intelligence Agency)