Alaska Employment Law

Providence Alaska settlement with EEOC:  The Illinois Sexual Harassment Attorney Blog writes:

 The EEOC charged that in February 2005, Providence laid off and refused to rehire longtime employees Gola Anderson, Lawrence Harris, Milagros Lopez, Rebecca Petrie and Canijie Sadiku, following a restructuring of the hospital’s operating room. The five employees had devoted between 11 and 24 years of their careers as surgery aides and anesthesia technicians to Providence and all had hoped to retire from Providence one day. The EEOC said that the five employees, ages between 46 and 56, lost their jobs due to their age, and were replaced by new hires in their twenties and thirties.

“Employers have a duty to ensure that they do not run afoul of the law when they restructure their workforce,” said EEOC San Francisco Regional Attorney William R. Tamayo. “We commend Providence for working cooperatively to resolve this lawsuit and believe that the relief provided in the consent decree will prevent something like this from happening in the future.”

The Consent Decree is available in this earlier article by AEL. 

Alaska Ethics Act:  The Alaska Attorney General, per AAG Julia Bockmon, has opined that the State Ethics Act does not restrict the employment of a resource engineer whose pension and retiree health insurance premiums are funded by a previous employer who works in the employing agency’s field: 

Given the nature of Employee’s disclosed interests, it appears conjectural that any actions he may take as an engineer with Agency could substantially affect his interests, if at all. The cost of the health insurance premiums is most likely set as to all retirees based on factors not likely to have a direct connection with Agency operations or Employee’s actions. We assume that the value of his pension benefit is fixed or only accrues interest or dividends based on investment factors, not related to day-to-day operations. Even if Company were to encounter future financial difficulties, it would seem highly conjectural to link the viability of the company and an impact on his benefits to his actions as an Agency employee.

Attorney General Opinion, AGO File No. 661-07-0014, 2009 WL 1664961 (May 21, 2009)