Legal justification for licensure of pharmacy technicians. Mace v. Charleston Area Medical Center

OBJECTIVE

To review the facts and legal rationale of a lawsuit in which a hospital was held liable for discharging a pharmacy technician from employment.

SUMMARY

The hospital and the pharmacy technician previously had disagreed about several matters. The technician believed he was being discriminated against based on his need to be away from work to serve in the National Guard. On one occasion, the technician reported to work in what appeared to be a drug-impaired state. The technician subsequently was discharged from employment. He sued, contending that the discharge was in retaliation for his asserting his rights as a National Guard member. The technician won the lawsuit.

CONCLUSIONS

Employment law bends over backward to protect employees. When an employee is not licensed, the only effective peer review is within the employment relationship. The public may not be effectively protected from harm that might be caused by employees who are not competent. Strong laws that protect employees restrict the ability of employers to oversee employee conduct. Therefore, for employees whose incompetence may pose a threat to the public, licensure provides a necessary additional level of protection.

Sympathy and support for industrial actions: a justice analysis

The authors investigated the effects of different causes of grievance and different types of industrial action on observers' justice perceptions and their sympathy toward and support for grievants in industrial actions. Results indicated that grievances based on interactional injustice generated a stronger perception of unfairness, more sympathy, and more support than did grievances based on procedural injustice, which in turn generated a stronger perception of unfairness, more sympathy, and more support than did grievances based on distributive injustice. Ss also expressed less support for strikes than for sit-ins, but no such difference because of the types of industrial action taken was found for perceived fairness and sympathy. Finally, the ratings on perceived fairness, sympathy, and support were more discrepant among the three types of grievance for sit-ins than for strikes.

Employment discrimination and wrongful discharge

The law and concepts applicable to the employment relationships between and within medical group practices have been evolving over a period of time in response to a number of factors. According to author David Yates, Esq., this evolution has been impacted by a revolution in the law applicable to employment relationships in general. His article is intended to help the administrator steer through this revolution.

Employee participation programs after electromation: they're worth the risk!

Employee participation programs (¿EPP¿s) can be an invaluable means of utilizing employee input, particularly in the healthcare industry. However, the National Labor Relation Board's (¿NLRB¿) recent decision in Electromation, Inc. affects the structure and use of EPPs. There are still ways in which EPPs can be structured to meet the NLRB's requirements.

Willingness to take legal action in wrongful dismissal cases: perceptual differences between men and women

146 business students with full-time work experience participated in a study of dismissal from employment. Based on self-ratings, men were more likely than women to favor court action in the event of dismissal.

Sexual harassment: guidelines for laboratory managers

Sexual harassment can poison a work environment, create legal problems, and cause productivity to suffer. Excellent clinical laboratories recognize its potentially disruptive effects and develop proactive strategies to deal with sexual harassment while enacting policies that prevent its occurrence. This article outlines steps to be taken when sexual harassment is alleged. A sample organizational policy on sexual harassment is also included.

Sexual Harassment in Academia: Legal and Administrative Challenges

Guidelines and institutional policies regarding sexual harassment in academia have a relatively short and controversial background. Deference to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines in employment sexual harassment incidents guides much of the thinking in contemporary courts. Title IX of the Educational Amendments and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 are but two of the legal redresses available to students with harassment grievance complaints. Lack of definition of the term as well as research studies in nursing complicate the issue of sexual harassment. The potential impact of harassment on nursing students both in the classroom and in the practice area is significant. Nursing administrators and educators must be proactive in writing and implementing policies regarding sexual harassment.

[Access to equal employment: retrospective studies and perspectives]

Reaching for more fair representation of women in all levels and in all areas of employment involves a fundamental change in mentalities and administrative practices. Following twenty years of efforts to improve women's situation, where are we now? Do men and women approve of the same strategies to eliminate sex discrimination? We will address these questions by relying on results obtained in the context of a research program developed at the University of Ottawa. The results of these studies lead us to question the human costs for women's slow access to employment equity.

A just alternative. Church tribunals may be the best forum for settling wrongful discharge disputes

The threat of a wrongful discharge lawsuit should be a concern for every employer. However, Church employers can minimize their risk if they follow Church teaching in their employment practices and policies and if they use the Church tribunal system to settle employer-employee disputes. As it originally developed in common law, the "employment-at-will" concept stipulated that an employer could discharge an employee at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all. Most states have adopted this common law concept, although courts and legislatures have created a number of exceptions to it. Despite these exceptions, employment-at-will has proven to be a powerful tool in the hands of employers. However, employees of Church institutions who feel they have been discharged wrongfully can turn to Church tribunals, which are governed by canon law. A Church tribunal can do virtually anything a civil court can do, with the exception of ordering someone to jail. Moreover, because the standards of justice and equity applied by Church tribunals are stricter than those applied by American courts, employees of Catholic institutions in the United States may make increasing use of them in the future. Disputes that come before a Church tribunal will be settled by either arbitration or mediation. Arbitration is a kind of informal litigation. Mediation, however, is preferable because it forces the parties involved to examine themselves, their motives, and their effects on each other and the Church as a whole.