EEOC Wants Tougher Retaliation Rules

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has proposed changes to its guidance on workplace retaliation. The new guidance would “further stack the deck against employers” by among other things, expanding the definition of both protected activity and “adverse action,” says a post from Ogletree Deakins attorneys. Perhaps most important, they say, the new guidance would make it easier to establish a causal connection between protected activity and an adverse action, by saying such connection could be made by demonstrating what one court has called a “convincing mosaic” of circumstantial evidence. That evidence can include allegedly protected activity that took place years before the alleged retaliation.