Can Your Employer Deduct Your Pay for a Work Uniform?

Suppose your employer requires you to wear a work uniform. It’s common in manufacturing, mostly for safety reasons.

Recently, Indiana passed a law permitting an employer to deduct employee wages for renting uniforms. 
Furthermore, the new statute applies retroactively! Indiana employers can go back in time, and deduct from a person's wages.
In a major ruling this week, Judge Amy Coney Barrett (recent finalist for the U.S. Supreme Court) ruled that the law was valid, stating: “courts generally must honor the legislature’s choice to make a law retroactive.”

For context, Metal Technologies employs 500 workers in Indiana. It deducted wages from employees for uniform rentals. At trial, the workers won treble (triple) damages for this wage deduction. Judge Barrett vacated the ruling—the workers lost the judgment at trial.

What does this signify?

First, Indiana has various anti-union laws, including “right-to-work.” That means unions cannot require members to pay dues—and that means unions in Indiana are weak.

Second, with weak unions muscled out of politics in Indiana, the state assembly and governor enacted a law that shifts a cost of manufacturing to the employee.

[Shout-out to Indiana lawmakers: Since you are “employer friendly,” will you consider expanding the wage deduction law to allow employers to charge employees rent for parking space? Unions have too little clout to stop you.]

Third—related to the second point— this ruling follows a growing trend that allows employers to subsidize their business by deducting wages.

Some examples? 
In strip clubs, dancers must pay rental fees for stage time, another rental fee for a dressing room, and tip money for the bouncer.

That idea has spread to restaurants. Employers have pushed for tip-pooling laws. When you tip 20 percent, for example, that money might not be going to your server. It might be going to management. They will decide how much of the tip to share with waitstaff.

Uber relies on drivers who have cell phones. 
Who pays the cost for the cell service? The driver pays 100%. Uber gets a totally free ride on the connectivity of its massive pool of drivers. Many Uber drivers also rent premium cars and SUVs to comply with Uber’s premium-service  requirements. Again, Uber pays nothing.

Many FedEx and other courier drivers buy their trucks (usually with a loan). The corporation pays no direct cost of the fleet. The cost is borne by the driver/owner-operator.

If you have an office job, heads-up: this practice is spreading to your type of work. One case in my database of wage deduction lawsuits involved an insurance company that requires sales people to rent office cubicle space.

Unions have traditionally fought back against these practices. Their influence is shrinking about as fast as the polar ice cap and mountain glaciers.

The future is likely to bring more employer cost-shifting schemes to our jobs.

GOP Aims to Outlaw Birth Control After Overturning Roe

In the past year, a more clear picture is emerging: Not only do conservatives want to criminalize abortion—some appear to seek a return to criminalizing the sale of birth control pills and condoms.

Some history, first: Estelle Griswold was the local director of Planned Parenthood in New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. C. Lee Buxton was a licensed physician and a professor at the Yale Medical School, and served as Medical Director for the local Planned Parenthood chapter.

Both were convicted of violating the state’s anti-contraception laws, specifically:

“Any person who uses any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception shall be fined not less than fifty dollars or imprisoned not less than sixty days nor more than one year or be both fined and imprisoned.”

Also: “Any person who assists, abets, counsels, causes, hires or commands another to commit any offense may be prosecuted and punished as if he were the principal offender.”

They were convicted and fined for giving birth control advice to married people. In this case, they examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use.

The Supreme Court in 1965 overturned their convictions and found a right to privacy in the 14^th Amendment Due Process Clause (a state shall not deny a person of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law”).

The majority opinion said: “The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees.”

Seven years later, Roe v. Wade extended that right of privacy to a woman who sought an abortion.

During confirmation hearings in September, Brett Kavanaugh was asked if he considered Griswold settled law. It was a bit of a trick question: If he answered yes, he would imply a “yes” to Roe being settled law. Kavanagh refused to answer the question—a clear hint that he harbors not only strong views against abortion but contraception.

Chief Justice John Roberts—also Catholic— was asked the same question in 2006.

He said “there is a right to privacy protected as part of the liberty guarantee in the Due Process Clause” and he was explicit that he agreed with the court’s decision in Griswold, stating unequivocally, “I agree with the Griswold Court’s conclusion that marital privacy extends to contraception and the availability of that.”

This week, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a bizarre 20-page concurring opinion in a case involving Indiana’s aggressive anti-abortion law. He did not take aim at Griswold there, but he disparaged the reasoning behind the right to privacy in contraception and abortion cases.

Many years ago, the NRA was a sportsmen’s and collectors’ gun club. 
It morphed into a group that recognizes no bounds at all to gun restrictions. Everyone has a Second Amendment right to own armor penetrating, rapid firing military weapons.

Similarly, the right to life group is not likely to stop with anti-abortion laws. Any group that legislates a 99-year sentence for a woman who has an abortion has a bigger agenda. That agenda appears to include a return to laws that made purchase of condoms and birth control counseling a criminal offense in Connecticut and other states.

Seeds of Anti-Semitism in the Magna Carta (1215 A.D.)

This might be the first anti-Semitic painting. It was created in 1215 A.D.-- the same year of the Magna Carta. Isaac of Norwich is depicted as a multi-person anti-Christ-- as a rabbi, a moneylender, and merchant.

The Magna Carta was the first constitutional document that limited a king’s powers and granted rights to ordinary people. 

Our own Constitution—with supposed checks and balances and supposed individual rights— descended from this charter. (I say “supposed” because our Constitution is often breached these days.)

Now consider the rise in anti-Semitism here and in Europe. A “respectable” German politician is suggesting that Jews avoid wearing their kippas (religious skullcaps) in public.

I have not understood why anti-Semitism finds fertile soil in Europe and here … but read on. The fact that King John listed rights of ordinary people against Jews is testament to the irrational hatred of Jews.

10. If one who has borrowed from the Jews any sum, great or small, die before that loan be repaid, the debt shall not bear interest while the heir is under age, of whomsoever he may hold; and if the debt fall into our hands, we will not take anything except the principal sum contained in the bond.

11. And if anyone die indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; and if any children of the deceased are left under age, necessaries shall be provided for them in keeping with the holding of the deceased; and out of the residue the debt shall be paid, reserving, however, service due to feudal lords; in like manner let it be done touching debts due to others than Jews.

Severely Harassed “Faggot” “Fairy Boy” Not Protected by Federal Employment Law

The Supreme Court will soon decide whether Title VII—a law that prohibits sex discrimination in employment— applies to LGBT employees.

In some states, the answer is yes—but in this case, decided in Pennsylvania on Friday, the answer is no.

David Troutman works in an aluminum manufacturing plant.

He was subjected to unrelenting harassment by co-workers and managers because he is gay (they asked; he said he is gay). The harassment included being called a “faggot,” “fairy boy,” and “pickle splitter”; having penis shaped sex toys placed in his locker; having male employees begin discussing how much they like “pussy” after he walked into the office; being told that his head “looks like a penis”; hearing that new employees were warned to be “cautious” of him because he is a “flamboyant gay guy”; being told that he is “feminine”; seeing sexually explicit drawings in the bathroom stall and his locker naming the plaintiff and his supervisor, with whom the plaintiff allegedly had a relationship; and, seeing “#firetroutman” written in the bathroom.

After Troutman complained to HR, the harassment continued unabated.

The federal district court cited a leading precedent in the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit (Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey) that refused to interpret “because of sex” to mean anything beyond harassment directed at heterosexual employees. Again: Heterosexuals are protected: LGBT are not protected.

Other circuits differ: They include sexual orientation under Title VII’s protections.
The Seventh (Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana) and Second Circuits (New York, Connecticut, and Vermont) are notable.

The Supreme Court will decide whether the phrase “because of sex” applies to sexual orientation.

…

Companies that ignore severe harassment often have other legal issues. This employer was fined $49 million last month for defrauding NASA, the Department of Defense, and others to resolve criminal charges and civil claims relating to a 19-year fraud scheme that included falsifying thousands of certifications for aluminum extrusions provided to hundreds of customers.

“Perhaps I am Partial to the Complexion of My Country”: A Memorial Day Quiz

For this patriotic holiday, here is a quiz: Who spoke the words in the title quote? … Time’s up.

Did you say Benjamin Franklin? If yes, you are correct.

The population of immigrants surged in the American colonies in the 1750s. Franklin penned this essay, “Observations Concerning the Increasing of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c..” He suggested the people who should (and should not) settle in the colonies.

Bring them in: “There are suppos’d to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North-America, (tho’ ’tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over Sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather more, on Account of the Employment the Colonies afford to Manufacturers at Home….  This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another Century be more than the People of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power to the British Empire by Sea as well as Land! What Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Number of Ships and Seamen!

Keep Them Out: “Why should the Palatine Boors [Germans] be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.”

On Race: “Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. 
And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? 
Why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.”

Franklin was also very anti-German, as shown in a letter to Peter Collison:

“Those who come hither (here) are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation, and as Ignorance is often attended with Credulity when Knavery would mislead it, and with Suspicion when Honesty would set it right; and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, ’tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain. Their own Clergy have very little influence over the people; who seem to take an uncommon pleasure in abusing and discharging the Minister on every trivial occasion. Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it; and as Kolben says of the young Hottentots, that they are not esteemed men till they have shewn their manhood by beating their mothers, so these seem to think themselves not free, till they can feel their liberty in abusing and insulting their Teachers…. Few of their children in the Country learn English; they import many Books from Germany; and of the six printing houses in the Province, two are entirely German, two half German half English, and but two entirely English; They have one German News-paper, and one half German.”

Did the troops who served our country fight for a white nation or a “melting pot” America? It’s something to think about today.
***
To readers who have served in our military: Thank you for making this day of freedom possible for all of us.

Will High-Tech Strikes by Unions Help Workers?

In the past month, Uber and Lyft drivers have staged some clever “strikes.” One involved drivers who were near major airports: They all turned off their apps at the same time, creating a spike-shortage of drivers. Uber’s surge pricing algorithm reset prices high. Two minutes later, they logged in. Yes, riders got stiffed. What’s their alternative? A cab?

“When I first started with Lyft everything was perfect, I was making about $25 an hour. But then the system started changing and they started paying less and less,” said Linda Valdivia, a union organizer.

In another “strike,” Uber drivers for McDonald's descended on a store and circled it with dozens of cars in the drive-thru.

“Hello, McDonald’s, may I take your order?”

“Yes, a living wage.” 
Car pulls up; next car pulls in to order. 
Repeat.

Meanwhile, Uber’s chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, earned $45.3 million last year.

Putting this in perspective is—of all things— a report by McKinsey Consulting, an elite management advisor. They published a report that many unions would endorse: “A New Look at the Declining Share of Labor Income in the U.S.” It’s here: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/a-new-look-at-the-declining-labor-share-of-income-in-the-united-states?cid=eml-web

Their key finding: “They (policy makers) will need to ensure that technology works alongside human labor to make it more productive rather than substitute it; this would include retraining workers.”

That seems impossible in Washington and London, where America First and Britain First politicians run effective campaigns but cannot advance legislation.

In the meantime, gig workers are angry and more organized. They’re doing something the McKinsey study didn’t consider: Act in concert to withhold their labor (i.e., go on strike).

Jeremiah 29:7— DACA 2019 and English Jews and Catholics, 1700s-1800s

Jeremiah 29:7: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

Perhaps we can learn from history.

The U.S. has roughly 2.3 million DACA recipients. The DA part of DACA means “Deferred Action.” The policy means that the U.S. will defer deportation indefinitely for these young adults who were born outside the U.S.—typically in Mexico and Central American nations. (The CA part of DACA means “Childhood Arrivals.”)

It is quite interesting to compare this group to Jews and Catholics who lived in England in the 1700s and later. 

These two outcast religions faced punishing persecution in much of Europe and beyond. 

England did not allow them to become citizens: But England also recognized them as valuable economic assets, and created privileges that allowed them to work.

That seems to be essentially what many DACA recipients want foremost: a home in the U.S. to lead a productive life.

Jews in England felt so out of place in a hostile world that most avoided any discussion of full citizenship. They didn’t want to rock the boat and make new enemies.

A Jewish convert remarked in 1838, “There are very few of Abraham’s descendants that really concern themselves about the coming of the Messiah and the return to the Land of Israel. I have heard many Jews say that they would prefer continuing to reside in this country.”

Another Jew, David Levi, wrote to his brethren in 1795: “We never enter into the political disputes of the different nations among whom we dwell, but endeavour strictly to abide by the admonition of the prophet Jeremiah, ‘And seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.’

Levi cited Jeremiah 29:7.

England extended full citizenship to Roman Catholics in 1829. Jews were gradually granted citizenship rights from 1835 to 1867. England tolerated Jews and Catholics when others would not.

***

Turning to today, the prophet Jeremiah’s injunction rings true: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

Help Wanted in USA! Single, Male, Young, English Fluency

What does Jared Kushner’s immigration policy mean?

Here is one summary, from the New York Times: “Currently, about 12 percent of those immigrants qualify to enter based on their skills, while more than half are given permission to enter because of a family connection. Under Mr. Trump’s proposal, those numbers would be reversed, with nearly 60 percent of all visas going to immigrants with particular skills or offers of employment.”

Sounds wonderful at first glance— base immigration policy on merit.

But there are big fallacies in the plan, which is a version of the Cotton-Purdue Senate bill, with the catchy title RAISE Act The RAISE (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment) Act.

The real intent behind the Kushner plan is to reduce immigration to approximate the inflows in the 1920s and 1930s.

Currently, the nation’s population of immigrants is about 14.7% (includes legal and illegal immigration). See first red bar (meaning, according to CIS, that we are in danger right now).

I’ve included a chart from an anti-immigration policy group, Center for Immigration Studies. It is accurate— it comes from U.S. Census Bureau— but CIS has color-coded future years in red bars because it fears more immigration.

So, let’s boil down the merit idea. 
What does it mean, and who will successfully immigrate?

He (not she) will be young, unmarried (and unattached), with no kids, likely college-educated, and pass an English proficiency test (or use college degree as a proxy).
Picture Stephen Miller. He fits the criteria.

Who won’t immigrate? A married Indian man with computer programming skills in his late 20s (or older) who is married and/or with kids.

A Middle Eastern man—including Israelis, with valuable medical technology skills— who is situated like the Indian man.

Physicians from Canada, computer programmers from South Korea, global grain traders from Brazil, poorly educated Central Americans who are willing to do the real dirty jobs in the U.S…. You get the picture.

This is a modified version of three fiercely anti-immigration laws that the U.S. enacted 100 years ago: The Immigration Act of 1917 (required passing an English test, which sharply drove down the number of people boarding ships to the U.S.), the Emergency Quota Act of 1922, and the National Origins Formula Act of 1924. 
Key word: Quota. 
Limit: 100 per nation. 
Result: The gradual depletion of immigrants in the U.S. from the 1910s (see chart, at 14.7%) to 4.7% in the 1970s.

The bottom line: when immigration is pitched as a merit proposition, foreign men who feel deeply committed to being married, having children, and taking care of aging parents drop out of the in-flow. 
It takes decades to replenish that stock. 
Perhaps worse, America misses out on high-achieving first generation Americans, wherever their parents came from.

Is a Fetus a U.S. Citizen? Do Abortion Laws Create In-Utero Citizens?

Recently, Alabama voters amended their Constitution. The law states that the “public policy of this state is to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life.”

As states enact total or virtual abortion bans, they appear to be opening some new— and unexpected— legal possibilities.

Take birthright citizenship. President Trump and other conservatives wants to end it. This idea stems from the 14^th Amendment which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The citizenship law is premised on the legal idea that a person’s life begins at birth—not at conception.

But if the legal view is that life begins at conception, then birthright citizenship should logically expand to in utero citizenship.

Here are some possible implications (you might think of others … feel free to add to the list):

A person conceived in the U.S. could not have his or her mother deported because that fetus would have a right to remain in the U.S. as an in-utero citizen.

The census should count pregnancies as people. Given the higher fertility of people of color in the U.S., this would benefit “blue states” for purposes of apportioning seats in the House of Representatives and electoral votes.

The fetus would have the same right to health care under Medicaid as a newborn child.

These ideas will strike many people as absurd. My point is that the law cannot cherry pick the starting point of life for purposes of a conservative agenda without running into serious contradictions when that premise plays to liberal policy preferences.

Uber Drivers Strike Today in Large Cities: My KCBS Interview

https://kcbsradio.radio.com/blogs/kcbs-radio-morning-news/uber-drivers-stage-protest-advance-companys-ipo

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS Radio) -- With Uber's expected multi billion dollar initial public stock offering just two days away, some drivers for the ride-hailing platform and its rival Lyft staged a protest on Wednesday.

Organizers of the effort asked drivers to turn off their ride-hailing apps, essentially taking their vehicles out of the pool of rides available to users.

Uber driver Jeffrey Perry said his pay has been shrinking. Perry said three years ago, he could earn $300 to $400 by driving for eight hours in San Francisco. Now, the Sacramento resident says it takes 15 or 16 hours to reach $300 in earnings.

Another Uber driver, Nam Doan, is seen in the photograph at the top of this story.  He told KCBS Radio he drives in San Francisco from 4 am to 4 pm, six days a week, and his earnings have been slipping. He'll continue to drive during the Wednesday protest because he says his earnings support a wife and three children and he can't afford to take the day off.

Organizers of the protest point to the nature of the relationship between the ride-hailing platforms and their drivers. Uber and Lyft consider the drivers to be independent contractors, meaning they lack such benefits as health care, vacation, or workers compensation insurance.

The companies tout the benefit of what Uber advertises as a "side hustle". 

University of Illinois professor Michael LeRoy, a specialist in labor law, acknowledges the freedom is attractive to some drivers. "Certainly it benefits a lot of people," LeRoy told KCBS Radio,"but a growing number are unhappy and it's not just in the United States."

Supreme Court Says Tough Luck to Workers Whose Tax IDs Were Hacked in Employer’s Database

Split along conservative-liberal lines, the Supreme Court issued a stunning decision last week.

Meet Frank Varela, a Lamps Plus employee in California. A computer hacker got into his employer’s HR database. He was tricked into divulging current tax information. About 1,300 other employees bit on the bait.

The hacker filed a fraudulent tax return in Varela’s name. Varela wanted to sue his employer but could not. As an alternative, he wanted to pursue a class-action claim in arbitration.
His employer—like 54% of employers in the private sector— required Varela and his co-workers any right to sue in a federal or state court. They were compelled to arbitrate their claims.

The law in this area is simply awful for the little guys of the world. Not only are people forced to forego court: If their employers put in a class action waiver for the arbitration hearing, that, too, is allowed.

What this means is that employers can avoid legal liability by conditioning new or continuing employment on a person’s “voluntary” waiver. 
The laws that Congress and states pass to protect employees? Ordinary workers cannot vindicate their rights.

In this case, Lamps Plus did not put a class waiver into the arbitration agreement. 
That was probably a mistake on the part of the company’s attorneys (or failure to update their form agreement).  
The Ninth Circuit, therefore, allowed the arbitration claims to proceed as a class.

Last week, the Supreme Court cleaned up the employer's mistake. They voted 5-4 to “infer” that the company waived its class action limitation.

That is stunning. Conservative judges supposedly read laws and contracts strictly— they reject the very kind of “reading-in” terms as some liberal judges do.

Justice Kagan dissented. She said the “heart of the majority’s opinion” is a how-to guide for “cataloging of class arbitration’s many sins.” In her view, the majority engaged in a policy-driven determination.
***

Soon, I hope to blog President Trump’s new regulation that protects health care workers who refuse to provide care on grounds of religion or “conscience.” 
Presumably, those workers are subject to forced arbitration. I can well imagine a pharmacist who refuses to dispense a morning-after prescription, or a nurse who refuses to care for gay man who has an STD (there are many other possibilities). Their employers will insist on following work orders or be fired.

The five conservative judges are extremely narrow in their view of protected liberties. 
They have had immense power in curbing employee rights since the late 1980s.

The day is coming, however, when they will have to choose between blindly protecting employers and blindly protecting evangelicals. That’s what happens when judicial power in the area of arbitration is unchecked and unbalanced for decades.

Company Rehires Manager Facing Rape Charges: Who Pays for Its Negligent Hiring?

It is an increasingly common story. An employer knowingly hires or fails to fire an employee—usually someone in a position of authority— even when there are credible allegations of serious sexual misconduct.

Starting in an Illinois Supreme Court decision in 1988, courts have a “tool” for this: Negligent hiring. Essentially, courts reason that if an employer is responsible for negligently maintaining equipment that harms a worker, an employer is also responsible if it hires a known groper (or worse, an alleged or convicted rapist).

Consider the following. Three female employees sued a major vacuum cleaner company. Kristl Thompson, Ashley Raby, and Corbie Leslie filed suit in Missouri alleging that a co-worker, John Fields, sexually harassed and assaulted them. 
The company hired Fields knowing that he had a lengthy criminal history, including crimes with sexually deviant propensities, and was awaiting trial on rape charges. 
As a registered sex offender, he could not sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door.

Eventually, the company settled its cases with the women in excess of $1 million per employee. 
That’s where the insurance company comes into the picture. Zurich American Insurance provided liability insurance, including for workplace torts, for judgments over $ 1 million—the company had to pay the deductible first.

Back to the litigation: the women alleged that because of the company’s HR-negligence, each of them was assaulted under different circumstances, at different locations, at different times, and sometimes in different policy years.

For matters of insurance, the company argued that it made one bad hiring decision—and therefore, the insurance company could not deduct $1 million for claims of two of three women.

Last week, a conservative federal appeals court agreed with the employer. The trial court said that the assaults were separate torts. Thus, for each occurrence, the company had to pay the first $1 million in liability.

Why does this matter? When insurance pays for the “moral hazards” of policy-holders—a nice example includes homeowners who build expensive beachfront estates in hurricane-prone areas— the insured party uses other people’s money to cover their risky behavior. They build a new home with insurance money in the path of the next hurricane.

Here, the insurance company must pay up. That’s good news for the victims. For the company, it avoids most of its liability. 

In my opinion, this company should have been forced to close by paying these damages. The injuries it caused were that egregious.

Big picture? If corporate America is successful in shifting liability for #MeToo to their insurer, they won’t feel much of the pain they cause—and odds are they won’t learn much, or change much, either.