California Employment Lawyers Blog

In a recent Carson employment attorney blog, managing partner Vincent Howard discussed the Obama administration's resent proposal to change the 37-year old minimum wage and overtime exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for nearly two million home care workers who care for elderly and disabled people across the country.

For years these workers have been considered as companions to the elderly, in the same category as babysitters, and the Obama administration and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) calls for these workers to be considered home care aides, and protected under the FLSA--to ensure that they are paid fairly for their important care giving services.

According to the DOL's posted announcement, this change will revise the companionship and FLSA's live-in home worker regulations, in order to more accurately define the responsibilities that an exempt companion performs, and in order to restrict the exemption to exempt companions who work only for the household or families using the companion's services. The DOL also proposed that third party employers, like home care agencies who staff workers, cannot claim the exemption for companionship or the overtime pay exemption for live-in home workers, even if the employee is employed both by the family and the third party.

As Howard Law's employment attorney Vincent Howard previously stated, when the FLSA protections were expanded in 1974 to include domestic service workers, these Amendments created a restricted exemption for both overtime pay and minimum wage requirements of the Act for companions and babysitters for the infirm and elderly, and created an exemption from the overtime requirement only for live-in home workers.

Continue reading "DOL Proposes Revisions to FLSA's Wage and Hour Laws for Home Care Workers" »

In wage and hour news from last week that our Vincent Howard, our Riverside labor and employment attorney has been following, President Obama and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced a plan to provide minimum wage and overtime law protections to health care workers --a decision that would increase the standard of living for around two million of these domestic employees, but could also increase the costs for the disabled and elderly.

Home health care workers have reportedly been exempt from federal wage and hour laws since 1974, when the workers were considered only as elderly companions, and placed in the same employment category as local baby sitters. But as the amount of full-time home health care workers rapidly climbed, so did the number of seniors who needed help accomplishing an array of daily functions, from bathing to dressing, and taking the correct medication, among other tasks.

President Barack Obama stated recently that it is unacceptable that health care employees are paid less and considered to be in the same category as teenage baby sitters. Obama stated that home heath care workers deserve to be paid fairly, and provide an important service that many elderly people in this country couldn't live without.

According to the Washington Post, the size of the U.S. population over the age of 65 is expected to nearly double in the next twenty years, which will lead to millions of people relying on long-term health care from these domestic workers, who currently receive no federal wage and hour protection in the workplace.

Continue reading " Obama and DOL Seek to Extend Federal Wage and Hour Laws to Home Health Care Workers" »

Wal-Mart made California discrimination lawsuit headlines again last week, according to an U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) press release that our Vincent Howard, our Riverside labor and employment lawyer has been following--for allegedly failing to accommodate a disabled employee, and wrongfully terminating his employment in retaliation, because of his disability.

According to the EEOC lawsuit, David Gallo worked as an employee for Wal-Mart starting in June of 2003, and was employed for six years for the retail chain, working his way from overnight stocker to manager of the tire and lube express bay in Placerville, California.

Gallo reportedly suffers from a heart condition called atrial fibrillation, which causes a shortness of breath and making walking difficult. In March of 2008, a new store manager reportedly refused to allow Gallo to park in the handicap parking spots along with any spaces that are close to the front of the Wal-Mart store--even through the company was aware of Gallo's heart disability and his handicap parking placard. Gallo filed a California disability discrimination charge with the EEOC in September of 2008, and was fired eight months later, allegedly for a mistake made by one of Gallo's subordinates. The subordinate and the inspector who reviewed the work were not, however, fired for their mistake.

As our Carson, California employment attorney Vincent Howard has discussed in a previous Santa Ana employment lawyers blog, under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), discriminating against workers who suffer from disabilities is against the law, and employers must reasonably accommodate disabled applicants and employees. It is also against the law for employers to retaliate against employees for requesting an accommodation or for filing an EEOC discrimination charge.

Continue reading "Wal-Mart Sued by EEOC for Disability Discrimination and Retaliation of Employee with Heart Condition" »

Howard Law's managing partner Vincent Howard recently discussed the topic of understanding employee rights during the holidays in regard to holiday pay--an important topic that often surfaces for many Howard Law clients during the holiday season, as many people assume that their employer is obligated to pay them extra pay or even double time for their holiday work hours. Some employees are upset when their employer makes them work during the holidays and wonder if the practice is even legal in California.

According to the California Department of Industrial Relations, hours worked during holidays, as well as Saturdays and Sundays, are treated like any other days of the week. Under California labor and employment law, employers are not required to either provide employees with paid holidays, close its business operations on any holidays, or provide employees with days off for any particular holidays.

Our labor and employment attorney Vincent Howard states that if an employer chooses to close its business on holidays and makes the decision to give employees time off from their jobs with compensation, such employment circumstances exist according to a policy or employment practice put into place by the employer, according to the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, or according to the terms of an employment agreement between the employee and the employer, as there is nothing in California law that mandates such a practice of employment.

There is also nothing in the law that requires an employer to compensate an employee with special premium compensation for work performed on a holiday or over a weekend, beyond the regular overtime compensation required for all work performed beyond eight hours in a workday, or forty hours in a week of work. Our Orange County, California labor and employment attorneys advise our clients to always review their company policy when it comes to holiday pay, so there are no surprises when it comes to working during the holiday season.

Continue reading "Understanding An Employee's Right to Holiday Pay" »

According to the Denver Post, this week, Colorado joined the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in a joint effort to eliminate employee misclassification in the workplace. This will make Colorado the 11th state join the department in its effort to cut down on employee misclassification.

As Vincent Howard discussed in a recent Howard Law employment attorney blog, employee misclassification is an illegal workplace practice where employers misclassify workers as independent contractors instead of employees--often times to gain an unfair advantage over their honest business competitors by avoiding to pay payroll taxes, along with other important employee benefits.

The executive director of Colorado's Department of Labor and Employment, Ellen Golombek, stated that employee misclassification costs everyone--by destabilizing the business climate and forcing fair businesses to suffer unfair competition.

Workers who are misclassified miss out on important employee rights, benefits and protections, like minimum wage, overtime payments, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, rest breaks, meal periods, and family and medical leave, among other employee benefits.

Continue reading "Colorado joins DOL in Partnership to Cut Down Illegal Employee Misclassification " »

In a recent Howard Law, California employment attorney post, our wage and hour lawyers discussed a Riverside, California wage and hour lawsuit filed by warehouse workers who handle Wal-Mart store goods. The lawsuit sued both the operator of the warehouse, Schneider Logistics, and three of its staffing contractors who supply the temporary employment to the facility--claiming that the workers were shortchanged on their hard-earned wages, and were continually subjected to abusive and dangerous working environments.

In a similar wage and hour lawsuit, a group of eighteen workers from an Illinois-based Wal-Mart warehouse have recently filed a lawsuit against two staffing firms alleging the firms failed to pay the warehouse employees for all hours worked.

The staffing firms, Eclipse Advantage, and Midwest Temp Group Inc., were both named in the wage theft lawsuit, and are being accused of promising to pay the employees $9.25 to $10 per hour, with the possibility of earning a bonus for productivity. But according to the lawsuit, the workers' paychecks did not match the actual hours the employees worked, and did not equal minimum wage.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the warehouse employees on November 18, by Warehouse Workers for Justice, an organization based in Chicago that was founded by the United Electrical Workers in 2008. The organization has filed three lawsuits against Wal-Mart in the last two years, although Wal-Mart was not named in this suit.

Continue reading "Warehouse Workers File Another Wage Theft Lawsuit Against Wal-Mart Staffing Agencies" »

Wage and hour issues are a growing problem in workplaces around the country, as our Irvine, California employment lawyers blog frequently discusses, especially in low wage industries where minimum wage, overtime payment and record-keeping requirements are often overlooked--a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

As managing partner of Howard Law, PC, Vincent Howard recently reported on the U.S. Department of Labor's ongoing enforcement initiative, under the Wage and Hour Division (WHD), targeting the restaurant industry in various states across the country--where comprehensive noncompliance with the FLSA's overtime, record-keeping and minimum wage provisions have been found.

According to a DOL press release, in 2011, the WHD conducted a thorough investigation of 34 full-service restaurants in South Florida, recovering $664,704 in back wages for 271 employees of the restaurants. The WHD also assessed civil money penalties in the amount of $14,520 in penalties, for employers who willfully repeated FLSA laws.

The common FLSA employer violations that were found during these wage and hour investigations were paying employees cash wages or off-the book payments with no record-keeping, requiring employees to work for tips only or for a fixed payment for all hours worked instead of paying minimum wages or overtime payment, requiring managers to participate in a tip pool, and falsifying the time and payroll records of employees.

Continue reading "DOL Wage and Hour Investigation Forces South Florida Restaurants To Pay Nearly $700K in Back Wages " »

In a recent Newport Beach, California employment attorney blog, Howard Law partner Vince Howard discussed the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), and the department's continuing enforcement initiatives aimed to uncover major noncompliance with the wage and hour requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Violations of federal labor law continue to be a common problem in low wage industries across the country, when employers fail to comply with the minimum wage, overtime payment and record-keeping provisions of the FLSA.

The FLSA requires that employees covered by the act are compensated with at least $7.25, the federal minimum wage, and receive overtime compensation for each hour worked beyond forty hours in a workweek, that equals one and one-half times their normal payment rates. Employers are also required to maintain clear employment records of employees' hours, accurate wages, and all other conditions of employment. Employers, under the act, are prohibited from retaliating against employees who stand up for their labor and employment rights.

In a recent initiative, the DOL investigated 46 restaurants in Long Island, NY, and recovered over $2.3 million back wages for 578 workers, and assessed over $200,000 in civil money penalties against the employers for repeatedly and willfully violating the FLSA.

Continue reading "DOL Continues Long Island Wage and Hour Enforcement Initiative to Stop FLSA Violations" »

Our Riverside employment attorneys have been following a recent California employment lawsuit against The Finish Line, after a former store manager reportedly secretly recorded female employees in a restroom with a hidden camera, as well as customers in a dressing room.

According to the Indianapolis Star, the athletic gear and shoe store is facing lawsuits in both California and Indiana, for failing to properly supervise David L. Meyer, who had been working as a manager in California for a few years, and installed a hidden video recorder in the store restroom.

Five female employees working in Milpitas, California reportedly filed an employment lawsuit in Northern California federal court, against Meyer and the Finish Line, accusing him of secretly recording them with a hidden camera in the bathroom and also dressing room--used by both employees and store customers between December of 2009 and April of 2010.

Meyer admitted in one of the federal employment lawsuits that he installed the recording device in the bathroom secretly, recording the personal and intimate moments of females in the restroom, to catch a person who repeatedly flushed items down the toilet that allegedly caused frequent plumbing problems.

Continue reading " Finish Line Female Employees Sue Over Hidden Camera in Bathroom" »

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently discussed a sexual harassment lawsuit settlement, involving a class of female greenhouse workers in an Oxnard, California Orchid Growing Company.

According to the EEOC lawsuit settlement, that our Anaheim employment attorneys have been following, Cyma Orchids, Inc., one of the country's largest orchid growers, will pay $200,000 to settle the sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation charges due to national origin bias and sex--filed by the EEOC on behalf of the female Hispanic workers. The Orchid Farm's owner will also pay $40,000 to resolve the lawsuit.

The California sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit claims that a class of female workers were continually sexually propositioned and inappropriately groped by Hispanic and Korean male managers, supervisors and company owners. The female workers were reportedly groped on their breasts and bottoms, forced to endure sexual propositions, and were frequently the subject of sexual jokes and lewd comments about their bodies and their national origin. The EEOC found that the female workers who complained or reported the sexual harassment were retaliated against. A male lead worker in the greenhouse who defended one of the victims was also reportedly retaliated against, by being fired for standing up for a female employee.

As Vincent Howard has discussed in a previous Howard Law employment lawyer blog, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is illegal to sexually harass, discriminate or retaliate against job applicants or employees based on gender or national origin in hiring, training, firing, benefits, wages, promotions and other employment terms and conditions. According to the EEOC, sexual harassment can include advances of a sexual nature that are unwelcome, requests for sexual favors, and other sexual harassment in a physical or verbal form. The EEOC also states that harassment can include remarks about a person's sex or gender that are offensive.

Continue reading "Orchid Growing Farm to Pay $240K for Sexual Harassment, National Origin Discrimination" »