California Employment Lawyers Blog

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a press release that our Santa Ana, California attorney Vincent Howard has been following, announcing the signing of a joint memorandum of understanding between Nancy J. Leppink, the deputy administrator of the DOL's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) and Mary Morgenstern, California's Secretary of Labor--regarding the ongoing problem of employee misclassification.

At a press conference held on February 9th, Leppink and Julie A. Su, the Labor Commissioner for California, discussed how the DOL and the state of California will work together to implement new efforts guided by this memorandum--in order to protect the wage and hour rights of employees, to properly classify independent contractors, and to level the playing field for honest employers who are threatened by the practice of employee misclassification.

Labor Commissioner Su stated that California is proud to work in partnership with the DOL in order to attack the illegal practice of employee misclassification--and to address the problems of the underground economy. Su also claimed that her team is ready to work with the DOL in order to raise the labor conditions for hardworking employees and employers across the golden state.

As our Anaheim labor and employment lawyers blog previously discussed, Governor Jerry Brown recently introduced Senate Bill 459--a bill that took effect on January 1, 2012--and punishes employers who engage in the willful practice of employment misclassification with harsh penalties. Last year CA Representative Lynn Woosley introduced a reinvigorated bill from 2010 that also aims to eliminate employee misclassification--the Employee Misclassification Prevention Act (EMPA) of 2011.

Continue reading "State of California Signs Agreement with DOL to Reduce Employee Misclassification" »

Our dedicated Orange County labor and employment lawyer team, based in Costa Mesa, California and led by managing attorney Vincent Howard, is constantly looking at key employment issues that are plaguing the workplace throughout California and across the country--especially when it affects the way workers are being treated in regard to wages and fair pay.

As Vincent Howard has previous reported in an Anaheim wage and hour attorney blog, the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor, (DOL), continues to aggressively pursue employers who do not properly compensate employees for all hours worked. For example, a recent Wage and Hour Division investigation in Dallas, Texas, revealed that 252 temporary employees from The Temp Team were forced to work as many as 79 hours per week, without receiving overtime payment--a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The employees were reportedly placed at local businesses and paid "straight time" wages, rather than the FLSA overtime requirement, which is one and one half their normal pay rates for work hours that total over forty in a work week. Under the FLSA, employees who are covered by the act must be compensated with the federal minimum wage, $7.25, for all hours worked in a week, plus overtime compensation, which includes any bonuses, incentive pay and commissions.

The DOL investigation also found that the company engaged in employee misclassification by incorrectly classifying two temporary employees as exempt from the FLSA overtime provisions--so both employees failed to receive any overtime compensation or protections under the wage and hour act. The company was also charged with violating the FLSA by failing to maintain accurate time and payroll records for all employees.

Continue reading " Temp Agency to Pay Nearly $250K for Wage and Hour Violations, Employee Misclassification" »

In recent employee misclassification news that Howard Law's managing attorney Vincent Howard has been watching, Massachusetts State Attorney General Martha Coakley and the State's Office of Labor and Workforce Development recently fined six subcontractors for Pulte Homes development sites over $540,000 in fines and penalties, for engaging in widespread employee misclassification, and failing to properly pay workers at the construction sites.

The employee misclassification enforcement action, focusing on projects of a single builder of homes, was reportedly one of the largest in recent history. The six Pulte subcontractors were reportedly charged with misclassifying workers as independent contractors--a move often used by employers in order to avoid paying unemployment taxes, and to get away with illegal business practices.

According to the Attorney General's office, the workers at the Pulte sites, many of whom were Brazilian immigrants, were not paid minimum wages or overtime compensation for many weeks of work. The back wages were found to have totaled over $190,000. Coakley's office stated that all workers in the state deserve to be fairly paid with the wages that they deserve, including overtime payment.

As Vincent Howard has frequently discussed in our Newport Beach employment lawyers blog, employment misclassification is a problematic workplace issue that often preys on vulnerable, low wage workers who are unaware of their employment rights. Employee misclassification robs workers of important employment protections and benefits, like overtime and minimum wage payments, rest breaks and meal periods, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, and family and medical leave, among other important benefits.

Continue reading "Pulte Construction Subcontractors Fined for Employee Misclassification" »

According to a recent New York Times article that Vincent Howard, managing attorney of Howard Law, has been following--an unpaid intern who formerly worked for Harper's Bazaar magazine, filed a lawsuit this week accusing the both the fashion magazine and the Hearst Corporation, Harper's parent company, of violating wage and hour laws by making her work full time hours, without compensation.

As our Costa Mesa employment lawyers blog has recently reported, unpaid internships continue to be a hot topic in federal employment news, as a growing number of young people who do unpaid internships for experience and future employment, are often taken advantage of by employers who break wage and hour laws. Many unpaid interns and labor advocates claim that employers exploit internships by classifying the workers as interns, but then force them to perform the jobs of regular workers, in order to avoid paying proper wages--causing the interns to miss out on the educational experience that should be the focus of experience.

In the wage and hour lawsuit, Xuedan Wang, a 2010 college graduate, interned at the magazine from August 2011 until December 2011, working around 40 hours a week, but often up to 55 hours. Wang claims that although her degree was in strategic communications, she was given the assignment to coordinate the retrieving and delivering of samples between the fashion magazine, showrooms and vendors, and gave other unpaid interns the responsibility of helping to facilitate the drop-offs and pickups. Wang claims to have also helped maintain the sample records and process requests for corporate expense report reimbursements.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has been focusing on unpaid internships over the past few years, and investigating employers who take advantage of interns--many of whom have a difficult time finding paid jobs. According to the DOL, there are not many options for a for-profit employer to offer an unpaid internship--and employers must comply with the six federal legal criteria in order to achieve an unpaid internship status.

Continue reading "Former Unpaid Intern Files Wage and Hour Lawsuit Against Harper's Bazaar and Hearst" »

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" »

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 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" »

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" »

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" »

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 " »

Our Costa Mesa, California labor and employment lawyer blog previously discussed common wage and hour violations in the trucking industry--including wage theft, minimum wage violations and overtime payment violations, as well as the problem of employment misclassification.

In related news, two Massachusetts trucking companies have reached a settlement agreement with the Fair Labor Division of the Attorney General's Office, in order to resolve a wage and hour lawsuit by paying over $225,000 in vacation back wages to 170 former employees.

According to a press release from Attorney General Martha Coakley, in 2009, the Fair Labor Division began investigating two trucking companies, Ryder Truck Rental, Inc. as well as Ryder Integrated Logistics, Inc. after a former employee accused Ryder of failing to pay vacation wages when the employee's employment was terminated.

Upon review of Ryder's payroll documents and vacation policies, the Labor Division found that between January of 2006 and December of 2009, 170 former Ryder employees were not paid their entitled vacation wages at the time of job separation or termination.

Continue reading "Trucking Companies Settle Wage and Hour Lawsuit for Over $225K" »

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a federal appeals court recently reinstated a California class action employee misclassification lawsuit, filed by 1,000 SuperShuttle drivers who want to be classified as employees and not independent contractors--so they can receive important workplace benefits and protections under state law, like overtime compensation, and so they will no longer have to pay for their vans, or buy fuel.

The appeals court decision, a 3-0 ruling, overturned a 2009 ruling, where the lawsuit was dismissed by a U.S. District judge in San Francisco, Judge Jeffrey White--who claimed that only the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) regulating transportation companies, has the authority to overrule the driver classification--as the PUC allowed shuttle companies to originally classify drivers as independent contractors.

The drivers claim that because SuperShuttle regulates their employment operations in great detail by directing and prescribing their driving routes, their shuttle fares and every detail of their employee attire, they should have a strong case for changing their employee status. The drivers claim that SuperShuttle has violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as well as California law by misclassifying the employees as independent contractors instead of employees--and failing to pay minimum wage, overtime and failing to reimburse the drivers for expenses, among other alleged violations.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision claimed that Judge White must in fact decide, instead of the PUC, whether the shuttle transportation service exercises enough control over the work of the SuperShuttle drivers to give them reclassification, and to make them employees.

Continue reading "SuperShuttle Class Action Employee Misclassification Lawsuit Reinstated by U.S. Court" »

Our Orange County labor and employment attorney blog recently discussed a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) investigation into two Mexican restaurants in Tennessee, after the restaurants were found to have willfully and repeatedly violated federal wage and hour laws, by failing to pay regular and tipped employees with minimum wage, overtime payment and for failing to comply to the FLSA's record-keeping requirements.

The DOL continues to go after low-wage industries across the country, like the restaurant industry, that prey upon vulnerable workers who are often unaware of the state and federal labor and employment laws that protect them, or who are too scared to stand up for their employment rights.

In a related DOL wage and hour settlement from last month, a restaurant in Louisiana agreed to pay $83,569 in back wages to 43 former and current restaurant employees, after the company was found by the DOL to have profited from allowing the employees to work, without properly compensating them.

According to the DOL investigation, Superior Bar & Grill was found to have required bartenders, wait staff and bussers to pay for customer walk-outs, when customers place orders and leave before paying, along with incorrect customer orders, and failed to pay the employees for all hours worked--which caused the employees' wages to fall below the minimum wage level. The employer also violated the FLSA by failing to compensate workers for overtime hours worked, and neglecting to keep FLSA-required records of all employee hours worked.

Continue reading " Restaurant Pays $83K in Back Wages for Overtime, Minimum Wage Violations of FLSA" »

As labor and employment attorneys based in Costa Mesa, California, we have been following the recent announcement that Oracle Corporation, the technology giant, has agreed to compensate over 1,725 employees in Northern California, with $35 million in a class action wage and hour settlement.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, preliminary approval was granted last week by a Superior Court Judge, to settle the 2007 class action overtime lawsuit--filed on behalf of three groups of employees who worked for the company between 2003 and 2006, and claim that they were wrongfully denied overtime payment.

The class of employees reportedly includes technical analysts who answer customer questions and provide support, quality assurance employees, who test the company's software, and project managers, who perform task coordination for other employees--all of whom claim they were misclassified.

Oracle reportedly argued that the employees were either administrators or computer professionals, which would make them exempt from state overtime laws--requiring that employees are paid one and one-half their regular pay rate when working over eight hours in a day or beyond forty hours in a week of work.

Continue reading "Oracle Will Pay $35M in Class Action Overtime Lawsuit Settlement" »

In continuing its fight against wage theft and violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), has ordered two Tennessee restaurants to pay $39,232 in overtime back pay and minimum wages to twenty-three restaurant workers, after the restaurants were found to have willfully and repeatedly violated federal wage and hour laws. The DOL Wage and Hour Division (WHD) also assessed $4,301 in civil money penalties for these violations--as the company was previously investigated in 2008, and found to be in violation of the FLSA record-keeping requirements.

Our Irvine, California employment attorneys have been following the WHD Nashville District Office's announcement that the division is committed to ensuring that Tennessee employers who routinely employ low-wage workers, especially in the restaurant industry, are complying with FLSA laws--so that employees are protected from being denied overtime payments or minimum wage. The FLSA also protects employers who depend on the DOL to ensure that no companies receive unfair advantages by avoiding federal laws.

The wage and hour investigations reportedly revealed that the La Campina Mexican Grill Restaurants routinely and willfully failed to properly compensate and record compensation for employees for all hours worked during a workweek--violating the minimum wage, overtime payment and record-keeping provisions of the FLSA. The employees were reportedly paid a flat salary that did not incorporate the federal minimum wage, $7.25, for all working hours. The company also created records of employee hours that were inaccurate, in regard to the rates of payment and the wages that were actually paid.

Under the FLSA, employees must be paid at least $7.25 for every hour worked, and also receive one and one-half their normal pay rates when working over a 40-hour workweek, including bonuses, incentive compensation and commissions. Employers are also required under federal law to keep records of all accurate employee hours. For tipped employees, employers are only required to pay $2.13 per hour in direct wages, if that hourly wage with the added tips equals at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. If the tips and wages combined do not total the federal minimum wage, the employer must pay the difference.

Continue reading "Tennessee Restaurants To Pay Overtime Back Wages for Willful and Repeated FLSA Violations" »