A yoga company has agreed to settle claims of unfair wages and failure to meet minimum wage obligations for $1.65 million, according to Bloomberg, which detailed the proposed settlement.yoga

The case, before the California Northern District Court in San Francisco, stemmed from allegations by students that they were paid to clean the studios in exchange for free or discounted memberships.

The situation sheds light on how “bartering” can be inherently unfair to one side, and also legally pretty tricky. There is no provision of state or federal law that allows companies to draw up minimum wage obligations with in-kind payments, like the ones extended by this studio. Employees must be paid at least the minimum wage.  Continue Reading ›

Frustrated with stagnant negotiations with city leaders, the teachers’ union in Boston is accusing the city of gender discrimination and bias. teacher

The union is comprised mostly of women, and talks regarding a new contract between the union and the city have been stalled for a good year now. The president of the union noted that more than three-fourths of the city’s teachers are women, and the city has repeatedly treated them poorly and with disrespect. He asserted that there was “little doubt” that if the union were male-dominated rather than female-dominated that a contract would have been settled long ago.

According to The Boston Globe, city spokespersons declined to respond to allegations of gender discrimination, except to say that conversations between the two sides are still underway and that the city “hopes” for a faster resolution that will ultimately help to best serve the students in the district. Continue Reading ›

Plaintiff in a newly-filed federal lawsuit alleges the nursing home for which she worked failed to protect her from sexual assault by a manager with a known history of sexual harassment. nurses

The Denver Post reports her former employer in Colorado hired her  boss/ attacker in 2014, after he had just been fired from his last job at a Minnesota hospital amid allegations of sexual harassment. Despite knowing this history, plaintiff said when she reported the two instances of sexual assault, administrators responded by falsely accusing her of stealing narcotic medications and terminating her.

She is now seeking compensation for lost wages, punitive and compensatory damages and attorney’s fees. Defendant in the case is a company that owns more than two dozen nursing homes in three states. Although the company purports to value cultivating and maintaining a safe space for residents and staffers, that was not what plaintiff experienced.  Continue Reading ›

A former engineer for the ride-sharing technology service Uber wrote a scathing blog detailing numerous allegations of sexual harassment, sexism and gender discrimination at the California-based firm. woman working

Now, the company is launching an “urgent investigation” into her claims, which included allegations that her complaints to management were repeatedly dismissed. She further asserted that a repeat offending sexual harasser was protected by higher-ups with the organization and she was threatened with termination for having the gall to raise concerns in the first place. The allegations come amid longstanding complaints that women are vastly underrepresented in Silicon Valley tech jobs.

The CEO of the company now says the company will conduct an internal investigation in response to the blog post, written by an employee who was a former software programmer. She was repeatedly propositioned by her manager, she alleges, and the reports she made to the company’s human resources division were ignored.  Continue Reading ›

It’s been 50 years since federal lawmakers passed a law intended to protect workers from discrimination in employment on the basis of old age. oldwoman

But it would seem we still have a long way to go on this front.

A new study – one of the biggest ever on age discrimination – has revealed that in terms of hiring, the problem persists to this day and that it’s on the whole far worse for women than men.  Continue Reading ›

A woman once employed by Tiffany & Co. alleges the jewelry maker forced her out of work after she underwent surgery to remove her ovaries and breasts to avoid cancer.womenworking

Plaintiff filed a federal lawsuit asserting the company, based in New York, discriminated against her based on her age and gender after she had the surgeries, which her attorney described as “life-saving.” Prior to the surgery, plaintiff learned she carried a genetic mutation that put her at high risk of developing these specific type of cancers, according to BusinessofFashion.com. You may recall two years ago, Actress Angelina Jolie revealed she had surgery to remove both breasts and her ovaries after discovering she had this same BRCA1 gene. Jolie’s mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, died of ovarian cancer at age 56, while her grandmother died of it at age 45 and her mother’s sister died of the disease at the age of 61. Presence of the gene typically puts women at a 50 percent higher risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer.

Meanwhile, plaintiff in this employment lawsuit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, says that while she is seeking damages, she said she wants people to know the company treated her as if she’d done something wrong after she took decisive measures to save her own life. Continue Reading ›

Employment lawsuits have been on the rise for the last several years, with complaints ranging from sexual harassment to wage-and-hour disputes. Some of these cases have involved massive settlement agreements. It’s likely this trend will continue, though the success could be curbed if the new U.S. Supreme Court justice swings the court toward decisions that tend to favor arbitration agreements and the prohibition of class action employment lawsuits.workers2

As The Associated Press recently reported, the SCOTUS recently accepted review of three cases that center on the viability of arbitration agreements in workplace disputes. Such agreements require workers to use a private arbitrator to resolve grievances, rather than avail themselves of the courts.

The question is whether this deprives workers of due process. Private arbitrators tend to come down on the side of the business, and even those cases decided in favor of the worker tend to result in modest awards in comparison to what they might receive if they had prevailed in court. Plus, arbitrators don’t have to follow the law and proceedings aren’t public, which can strip the employer of any real incentive to change the underlying offensive action in the future. Continue Reading ›

A new report by Broadly indicates many females who work as professional massage therapists report experiencing constant sexual harassment – mostly from clients or prospective clients. massage

This sexual harassment can include anything form inappropriate requests to heckling to unwanted touching, usually from male clients.

Erotic massages, which are a sexual service, are illegal in the U.S., except for in licensed brothels in Nevada, where prostitution is legal. Nonetheless, several high-profile incidents of arrests for illicit massages (a form of prostitution) has led to erroneous presumptions about what these professionals do. Legitimate therapists, who studied for their position and are certified and consider themselves health professionals, are often inundated with insults, sexual rhetoric and sleazy comments. Continue Reading ›

A blog post written by a woman detailing sexual assault by her powerful boss in an upscale bar prompted fifteen women to come forward with their own stories – about the same man. restaurant

The blog, The Reality of Sexual Assault in the Cocktail Community, details in graphic, difficult-to-read accounts, their experiences of sexual harassment and sexual assault in the restaurant and bar industry. The homepage contains content wherein the original author explains she wants to start a dialogue about what happened, why none of them have gone public with these allegations and what can be done by women in similar situations today.

A large study conducted in 2014, The Glass Floor: Sexual Harassment in the Restaurant Industry, revealed there are more than 11 million workers in the restaurant industry, which is one of the largest and fastest-growing segments of the economy nationally. It is also the biggest source of sexual harassment complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Women are especially vulnerable in these roles, which are some of the most precarious from a financial standpoint. Approximately 70 percent of all servers are women and more than 60 percent of all tipped jobs are filled by females.  Continue Reading ›

A judge in California has ruled on an employment lawsuit, ruling in favor of the airline in finding out-of-state workers with limited attendance in the state aren’t entitled to protections under California’s wage-and-hour laws. airplane

The class action litigation, to which four flight attendants had been a party to, alleged their airline employer had violated California’s Labor Code. They argued that because they were frequently stationed in the state and because state law governs their scheduled work for that pay period, they should be entitled to the benefits that come with that.

However, the judge favored the employer, finding the workers were hardly ever in California, which meant they weren’t eligible for California’s legal workplace protections – specifically, the wage and hour laws. Further, the fact that the airline is not headquartered in the state bolstered the defense.  Continue Reading ›

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