California Employment Lawyers Blog

Vincent Howard frequently discusses the topic of wage and hour violations in the hospitality industry in our Riverside employment lawyers blog--a workplace epidemic where employers in low wage industries, such as the hospitality industry, often violate the rights of vulnerable employees.

In recent news that Mr. Howard has been following, a group of fourteen Indianapolis hotel workers have filed a class action wage and hour lawsuit against ten hotel staffing agencies--claiming that they were purposely robbed of their right to fair compensation.

The workers are reportedly primarily Hispanic immigrants, who were employed by Hospitality Staffing Solutions (HSS), a work agency providing temporary and low-wage workers to hotels like Marriott, Western, Embassy Suites, and other hotels across the country. Many of the workers were employed as housekeepers, bussers, and dishwashers, and claim in the lawsuit that they were forced to work off the clock hours, and forced to work through their unpaid rest and meal breaks--which often times pushed their earnings to well below the federal minimum wage, $7.25.

The outsourcing of work by the staffing companies has reportedly led to a two-tier class system within the hotels, as low-wage and lesser paid workers from HSS suffer, while working next to direct hotel hires, who are better compensated for the same work. Many HSS employees claim that compensation did not properly reflect the hours that they actually worked--and if they did not complete their work in the scheduled time, they would be threatened with job termination.

Continue reading "Hotel Workers File Lawsuit Against Hotel Staffing Company for Wage and Hour Violations" »

According to recent employee misclassification news that our Anaheim, California labor and employment lawyers have been following, a unit of Novartis AG, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, received preliminary approval from a New York U.S. District Judge this week, for a $99 million settlement--to resolve the wage and hour lawsuit brought by 7,700 sales former and current sales representatives who claimed they experienced employee misclassification and were denied overtime payment.

The settlement follows a July 2010 ruling by New York's 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, that Vincent Howard discussed in a related Costa Mesa employment lawyers blog. The ruling decided that the sales representatives, who meet with physicians to encourage them to prescribe the drug company's medicine, were qualified for overtime under the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and should not be classified as "exempt" from state and federal overtime laws.

In April, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on a similar case involving employee misclassification, with a GlaxoSmithKline lawsuit--where the nation's highest court will rule on whether the outside sales employees are subject to exemptions under state and federal labor law, or if they are promoters or marketers who should receive overtime payment.

As Vincent Howard has reported in a previous Carson, California employment lawyer blog, under California law and the FLSA, most non-exempt employees are entitled to overtime compensation, which by law equals time and one half their normal rate of payment for every hour worked beyond forty in a workweek.

Continue reading "Novartis To Pay $99M in Employment Misclassification Lawsuit Settlement" »

According to a recent U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) press release that Howard Law attorney Vincent Howard has been following, Pepsi Beverages has decided to former job applicants $3.13 million, and will provide job possibilities and employee training to resolve a charge of discrimination based on race.

During the EEOC race discrimination investigation, the commission reportedly found that Pepsi had a policy in place that used a criminal background check for job applicants--and violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating against African Americans.

The EEOC discovered that Pepsi's former policy reportedly adversely affected over 300 African Americans, by excluding the black job applicants from permanent employment after applying a criminal background check to each applicant. Under Pepsi's former hiring policy, any job applicants who had been previously arrested and were pending prosecution or who were convicted of certain minor offenses were not hired for permanent positions.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, using records of arrest and conviction for the basis of hiring or denying within an employment setting can be against the law when it is not pertinent for the job, because it can reduce the opportunities for workers or job applicants based on ethnicity or race.

Continue reading " Pepsi Will Pay Over $3M in EEOC Hiring Discrimination Case" »

Last year, Vincent Howard discussed a Riverside class action wage and hour lawsuit in our Costa Mesa employment lawyers blog, that was filed by a group of workers at a Riverside, California warehouse who claim that there are forced to work under brutal conditions, required to perform in dangerous working environments, and regularly experience wage theft.

The Riverside wage and hour lawsuit was filed after California State Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su launched investigations into the staffing firm operations at the warehouse facility, that handles goods for nationwide Wal-Mart retail stores. The Riverside warehouse is one of a wide network of Inland Empire-area warehouses in California, that receive goods headed for retail stores across the country, and the state investigation uncovered staggering labor law violations that resulted in $1 million in fines by Commissioner Su.

After the investigation, the three staffing agencies, as well as Schneider, the company responsible for running the Wal-Mart distribution center, were sued in the class action lawsuit by six workers--who claim they are purposefully underpaid due to outsourcing and subcontractor layering, they are pressured to perform in dangerous working conditions, and are consistently denied minimum wage and overtime compensation. The workers claim in the suit that when they confronted their employers about the treatment, they reportedly received threats of retaliation, actual retaliation and job termination.

Last week, according to the Huffington Post, the workers staffed by the Rogers-Premier Unloading Services company have been notified both in writing and orally that their jobs will come to a close by February 24th, when the contract between Schneider and Rogers-Premier ends--as the staffing company has decided to no longer provide workers in the Riverside County warehouse, as well as the Illinois and Georgia locations as well.

Continue reading "Riverside CA Warehouse Workers Fear Job Loss after Initiating State Investigation and Filing Wage and Hour Lawsuit" »

Last month, a federal judge approved a $915,000 class action California wage and hour settlement, filed by a group of 82 migratory Fresno County farmworkers who claimed they experienced violations of California State law and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), after their employer failed to may them proper minimum wage for their farm work.

According to the lawsuit, that attorney Vincent Howard has been following, thirty-one workers originally claimed that H&R Gunland Ranches paid them wages based on a piece rate basis for their work pruning and tying grape vines--regardless of the number of actual hours worked. The farmworkers, who were represented by the California Rural Legal Assistance, (CRLA) accused the farm of paying them less than $2 per hour, in the 2009-filed lawsuit.

As Howard Law's labor and employment attorney Vincent Howard has reported in a related Riverside wage and hour blog, under the FLSA all employees covered by the act must receive at least $7.25 per hour, the national minimum wage, for hours worked in a forty-hour week. If employees work over forty hours in a week of work, they must according to federal law receive overtime compensation, which totals one and one-half times their routine rates of payment, and includes incentive pay, any bonuses, and commissions.

The wage and hour lawsuit was reportedly granted class action status, after the workers alleged that they were forced to work beyond 10 hours per day and 60 hours per week, yet did not receive minimum wage, as required by federal law. An additional 51 workers joined the lawsuit, which brought the total to 82 members who will be eligible to receive the settlement.

Continue reading "Farmworkers to Receive Nearly $1M in CA Wage and Hour Lawsuit Settlement " »

In a recent Costa Mesa, California employment lawyers blog, Vincent Howard discussed a California class action wage and hour lawsuit in which 6,700 Polo Ralph Lauren employees were awarded $4 million, after the employees accused the high-end retailer of forcing employees to endure off the clock bag checks without compensating them for their time, and denying them rest and meal breaks--violations of California labor law.

In related Los Angeles, California wage and hour news, popular Los Angeles-based retail store Forever 21 is being sued in a similar class action wage and hour lawsuit, by employees who allege that the company forced them to work off the clock hours, and skip rest and meal breaks.

The class action lawsuit, filed by five former and current employees, accuses the clothing maker of forcing them to frequently work through meal breaks, and work off the clock hours--violations of California labor law and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The workers claim in the wage and hour lawsuit that they were often made to work during lunch breaks, and were kept after the end of their work shifts after they had already clocked out, in order to search their bags for stolen retail items--amounting to off the clock work that they were not paid for.

According to the Huffington Post, bag checks for workers are a part of the loss prevention policy for Forever 21 retail stores across California. The employees' attorney, who also reportedly helped bring the class action case against Polo Ralph Lauren, stated that this case is expected to be even larger--as the practice of off the clock bag checks appears to be widespread.

Continue reading "California Workers Sue Forever 21 in Class Action Wage and Hour Lawsuit" »

In our previous Irvine employment lawyers blog, Howard Law attorney Vincent Howard discussed important California and federal labor and employment law cases from 2011.

In this Costa Mesa employment blog issue, Mr. Howard will continue in his labor and employment discussion, highlighting other key 2011 developments, including the EEOC's largest disability discrimination settlement with Verizon, the topic of suitable seating in the workplace, and the U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) continuing crusade to curb wage and hour violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), among other high-profile cases from last year.

Verizon Pays Record $20M in EEOC's Largest Disability Discrimination Settlement
Last year, in the largest disability discrimination settlement in a single lawsuit in the EEOC's history, Verizon, the telecommunications giant, agreed to pay $20 million to resolve the EEOC's nationwide class disability discrimination lawsuit. Verizon Communications was accused in the lawsuit of violating the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) by refusing to accommodate disabled employees and make exceptions to the company's "no fault" attendance plans--which reprimands employees if they accumulate a certain amount of "chargeable absences." The EEOC accused Verizon of denying reasonable accommodations to hundreds of disabled employees by either disciplining them or firing them when they needed more time off than Verizon's leave policy allowed--especially when the "chargeable absences" were caused by disabilities.

Wage and Hour Violations Hit All Time Highs
In 2011 the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) continued on its crusade to reduce workplace labor violations and wage and hour issues. According to the DOL, overtime payment is the largest wage and hour violation issue in the country, with thousands of complaints reported every year. In 2010, nearly 6,800 wage and hour lawsuits were filed, totaling about 700 more than the previous year, and the DOL forced employers to pay an estimated $176 million in back wages to employees. In the past five years, employers have also paid nearly $925 million in back pay and overtime wages to 1.2 million workers.

Continue reading "2011 Labor and Employment Law in Review: EEOC's Verizon Settlement, Suitable Seating, Employee Misclassification" »

In this month's Costa Mesa, California employment lawyers newsletter, Howard Law attorney Vincent Howard reviewed key California and federal labor and employment law developments from 2011--hot topics that our Riverside, California employment lawyers blog covered over the course last year, including GINA's final regulations, the Supreme Court's ruling in the Walmart v. Dukes sex-discrimination lawsuit, and Charlie Sheen's wrongful termination lawsuit against Warner Brothers and Chuck Lorre, among others.

GINA's Final Regulations Take Effect
After the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted unanimously in late 2010, the final regulations that implement the employment provisions of GINA (Title II), the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, took effect in early 2011. Title II of GINA represents the first extension of the EEOC's jurisdiction since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), and makes it illegal for employers to engage in genetic testing or discriminate against employees based on genetic make-up.

Third Party Retaliation Limits Case Decided by Supreme Court
In January of last year, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thompson v. North American Stainless, a retaliation ban limits case, stating that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a company can be sued for retaliation by terminating an employee's fiancée. The case arose after a former female engineer with North American Stainless, who was engaged to a metallurgic engineer at the company--claimed to have experienced gender-based discrimination and filed a complaint with the EEOC. The female engineer's fiancée was fired three weeks after her EEOC sex-discrimination complaint was revealed, whereupon the fiancée filed his own third-party retaliation claim. As Vincent Howard reported in our California employment attorney blog, the highest court decided that third-party victims of retaliation are covered by federal protections.

Charlie Sheen Sues for Millions
One of the highest-profile employment lawsuits from 2011 that garnered massive media attention was filed by Hollywood actor Charlie Sheen in March, who sued Warner Brothers Studio and Chuck Lorre, the executive producer of Two and a Half Men, in a $100 million dollars lawsuit--for wrongful termination, breach of contract, retaliation and other Los Angeles, California labor and employment charges. Sheen's contract was reportedly terminated for health issues that allegedly led to his inability to perform his duties for the television show, for public tirades against Lorre, and for alleged substance abuse and destructive behavior. Sheen and Warner Brothers reportedly finalized a multi-million dollar settlement in September.

Continue reading "2011 Labor and Employment Law in Review: GINA, Charlie Sheen, Walmart v. Dukes" »

In recent employment misclassification news that our Costa Mesa wage and hour attorney Vincent Howard has been following, last month, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) filed a lawsuit against Healthy Solutions Home Health Services LLC, based in Columbus, Ohio--seeking over $84,000 in liquidated damages and back wages for ten workers, after a DOL investigation found the employer responsible for employee misclassification.

According the DOL, the lawsuit was filed after an investigation uncovered that the employer had misclassified employees as independent contractors--violating the Fair Labor Standard Act's (FLSA) minimum wage and overtime payment provisions.

As our Carson, California employment lawyers blog has often discussed, employment misclassification is a growing workplace trend, particularly in low wage industries like the health care industry, that often preys on vulnerable workers who aren't aware of their rights. Employee misclassification poses a serious threat to employees, by denying them access to important employment benefits and protections, like minimum wage and overtime payments, meal periods and rest breaks, workers' compensation, family and medical leave, and other critical benefits. Employee misclassification also causes a great threat to honest, law-abiding employers who have a difficult time competing against those businesses who are breaking the law.

As Vincent Howard has also discussed in related Anaheim wage and hour blogs, under the FLSA, employers are required to pay employees covered under the act at least the federal minimum wage, which is currently $7.25 per hour, for every hour worked--with overtime payment of one and one-half their normal hourly pay rates for any hours worked over forty in a work week. The FLSA also requires that employers keep accurate time and payroll records, and prohibit any form of retaliation against employees who stand up for their rights under the FLSA.

Continue reading "DOL Sues Healthy Solutions Home Health Services for Employee Misclassification" »

California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris announced this month that her office has secured a California wage and hour settlement of $1 million from eight Southern and Northern California car washes--who were found to have violated California Labor Code by engaging in a wide variety of wage and hour and record keeping violations, along with worker exploitation.

The civil lawsuit was filed in October 2010, as Vincent Howard discussed in a related Newport Beach employment attorney blog, after investigators found that the car washes consistently denied workers minimum wage and overtime compensation, failed to compensate workers who quit or whose employment was terminated, and denied the workers their legal right to rest and meal breaks.

The lawsuit was filed against eight car washes, located in Santa Monica, Venice, Irvine, Folsom, Fair Oaks, Laguna Niguel, San Ramon, and Laguna Hills, California, along with Dipu Haque Sikder, the man responsible for starting the business.

According to the wage and hour lawsuit, the car washes required employees to report for work several hours early for their shifts, and to be available for work without pay, until the business would pick up. When workers received compensation, many received checks that could not be cashed, because the company lacked the proper funds. The car washes also reportedly operated for many years without proper state licenses required from the Labor Commissioner.

Continue reading "CA Attorney General Harris Announces $1M Wage and Hour Settlement with Car Washes" »

In recent Los Angeles, California employment lawsuit news that our Costa Mesa attorney Vincent Howard has been following, a former employee of a California car dealership owned by John Elway, the well-known former quarterback of the Denver Broncos--is suing the dealership, claiming that minority employees were regularly subjected to racial discrimination, harassment and a hostile work environment.

According to the class action lawsuit filed earlier this week in Los Angeles Superior Court, Timothy Sandquist, a former sales manager at Elway's Toyota dealership in Manhattan Beach, claims the he and other minority employees were frequently denied employment opportunities and promotions based on their race.

The California racial discrimination lawsuit names John Elway and his two business partners, and claim that Sandquist who was an employee of the company for eleven years, was paid less than his white colleagues and was frequently passed over for promotions that he was entitled to after many successful years of employment with the company--because he is black.

The lawsuit also claims that the general manager of the dealership, Darrell Sperber, created a hostile work environment for minority employees by saying ethnic slurs against black, Middle Eastern, and Latino employees, along with allegedly encouraging employees to say demeaning comments about non-white customers who chose not to buy cars. The discrimination and harassment lawsuit also claims that Sperber, who was hired to be the general manager in 2007, engaged in retaliation against any employees who reported the alleged racial harassment or discrimination.

Continue reading "Employee Sues John Elway's Los Angeles Car Dealership in Class Action Racial Discrimination Lawsuit" »

In recent employee misclassification news that Howard Law attorney Vincent Howard has been watching, a national collection action lawsuit has been conditionally certified this week by a New York federal court--after thousands of entry-level audit employees accused KPMG LLP of violating federal labor laws by engaging in employee misclassification, and failed to compensate them for overtime hours.

According to the lawsuit, KPMG, the U.S. audit, tax and advisory services firm, allegedly misclassified the firm's nationwide audit associates as "exempt" and did not properly compensate them according to the overtime provisions of the Federal Labor Standards Act (FSLA) as well as New York Labor Law.

The audit associates reportedly worked beyond forty hours per week and received no overtime compensation--a violation of the FLSA, which mandates that covered employees receive a minimum wage of at least $7.25 per hour for all hours in a forty-hour workweek, with overtime compensation of one and one-half their standard rate for any time worked beyond forty hours.

KPMG reportedly claims that these audit associates rightly receive professional or administrator exemption classifications, or "white collar" exemptions, as our Anaheim employment attorney blog has previously discussed, and are exempt from the FLSA's overtime payment and minimum wage provisions.

Continue reading "Audit Associates Gain Certification for Conditional Collective Action--in Employee Misclassification Lawsuit" »

Lady Gaga, the wildly flamboyant popstar, was sued recently by former personal assistant Jennifer O'Neill, in a wage and hour lawsuit that accused the singer of violating wage and hour laws by forcing her to work without proper overtime payment.

According to the wage and hour lawsuit that our Orange County labor and employment attorney Vincent Howard has been following, the former employee claims that as Gaga's personal assistant for thirteen months during her 2010 Monster Ball world tour, Lady Gaga owes her hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid overtime.

O'Neill's was reportedly paid $75,000 per year for as Gaga's personal assistant, and was responsible for ensuring that Lady Gaga was always on schedule, and for catering to the popstar's every need at all times of the day and night--in her home base New York duplex, and during her travels to cities throughout the country, and during her global concert tours, including assisting the popstar on tour buses, trains, yachts, hotel suites, stadiums, private jets, and on ferries.

O'Neill was also reportedly expected to manage personal details like Gaga's finances, food intake, and ensuring that Lady Gaga always promptly received towels following showers. O'Neill was also responsible for ensuring the availability of her specifically chosen and often outlandish outfits.

Continue reading "Lady Gaga Sued by Former Personal Assistant for Nearly $400K in Wage and Hour Lawsuit" »

In a recent California disability discrimination lawsuit settlement that Howard Law's managing attorney Vincent Howard has been following, UPS Supply Chain Solutions has recently agreed to pay $95,000 after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) found the world's biggest package delivery company responsible for illegally denying a deaf employee with reasonable accommodation in the workplace.

According to the EEOC lawsuit, deaf employee Mauricio Centeno worked at the UPS facility from 2001 until 2009 as a junior clerk in the accounting department. Centeno has reportedly been deaf since birth, and his primary language is American Sign Language (ASL). The EEOC investigation uncovered that during his employment with the company, Centeno struggled to understand written English language in the workplace, and continually asked for reasonable accommodation--in order to receive help from an interpreter for departmental staff meetings, training, and other work-related sessions.

Although aware of his hearing impairment, UPS supervisors continually denied Centeno's requests for reasonable accommodation in the workplace, and instead required that he attend the meetings, where he was reportedly counseled about his job performance without the aid of an interpreter. The EEOC found that although at times the company would provide Centeno with written notes and summaries, this did not adequately accommodate his disability--due to his lack of written English language proficiency.

The EEOC reportedly filed the disability discrimination lawsuit in 2006, claiming that UPS violated the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) by failing to reasonably accommodate Centeno.

As Vincent Howard of Howard Law has discussed in a previous Santa Ana labor and employment attorney blog, under the ADA, it is against the law to discriminate against workers who suffer from disabilities, and all employers are required by federal law to reasonably accommodate disabled job applicants and employees, unless doing so would cause a significant expense or difficulty for the employer.

Continue reading "UPS to Pay $95K in EEOC Disability Discrimination Lawsuit Settlement" »

Our Costa Mesa labor and employment attorney blog recently covered the topic of religious discrimination in the workplace, while discussing a religious discrimination lawsuit that involved a Muslim security guard--who sued his employer for pressuring him to shave facial hair while working for a security company. The employee claimed that his facial hair is part of his Islamic faith, and under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the security company engaged in discrimination and retaliation by firing the employee for not shaving his beard.

In related California religious and racial discrimination lawsuit news, a Muslim Employee at the Human Assistance Department for Sacramento County, has recently claimed in an employment lawsuit that he has consistently suffered from harassment and discrimination based on race and religion since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

According to the lawsuit, filed last year, Abdur-Rahim Wasi, an African American employee, claims that since the terrorist attacks, he has been called a variety of discriminatory names including, "Taliban," "Osama Bin Laden," and "Al-Qaida." Wasi claims that the county managers have failed to stop the racial and religious harassment, and have even gone as far as to mock his employment concern. The lawsuit states that after Wasi filed an harassment complaint, his program manager proceeded to wear a Muslim head covering at a Halloween party in jest.

In his complaint to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Wasi claims that six months after starting this job with the county in 2001, when the terrorist attacks occurred, his co-workers started questioning Muslims and harassing him by saying that he was a member of the Taliban. Wasi also reportedly endured other pranks and jokes over the years that were allegedly associated with his faith. When he reported the harassment and discrimination to his superiors, he claims that he was told that his colleagues were just joking.

Continue reading "California Muslim Alleges Religious Harassment and Racial Discrimination in the Workplace" »

In a recent Santa Ana labor and employment lawyers blog, Howard Law attorney Vincent Howard discussed a series of lawsuits filed against the popular Los Angeles, California-based retailer American Apparel, a manufacturing company that employs thousands of workers in the Los Angeles production facility, and in retail stores throughout the country.

In related news that our Riverside labor and employment attorneys have been following, American Apparel has agreed to settle a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission-filed (EEOC) disability discrimination lawsuit for $60,000, after the retail company was found to have violated federal labor laws for disability discrimination.

According to the EEOC lawsuit, American Apparel violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by firing a garment worker while he was on disability leave, failing to accommodate him based on his disability.

The EEOC and American Apparel have reportedly worked over an extended period of time to settle this case, and recently arrived on a three-year consent decree--whereupon American Apparel will adopt a comprehensive ADA policy, will agree to provide the retailer's managers and supervisors with ADA training, will ensure that workers are informed as to their rights under the ADA and how to seek ADA accommodations, and will designate an ADA coordinator in order to oversee the implementation of the decree.

Continue reading "American Apparel Settles EEOC Disability Discrimination Lawsuit for $60K" »