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Anyone who has ever worked in the restaurant service industry is familiar with the term, “side work.” It’s the work that servers are often required to do on top of the normal serving of tables. What many workers may not know is that payment for these duties must be at least the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is currently set at $7.25. server

A recent wage and hour lawsuit in North Carolina highlights this problem.

A former server at a restaurant chain alleges the company paid her – and hundreds of other workers – just $2.13 an hour (typical for waiters and waitresses), even while requiring her to do side work for which she should have received minimum wage.  Continue Reading ›

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The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle the wrongful termination claim from an ex-employee who claimed whistleblower status after he asserted he was improperly fired and then defamed for recommending a top lieutenant be fired for reported sexual harassment. sad

Instead, Attorney General Kathleen Kane promoted the alleged harasser and fired the person who recommended his termination.

Now, this settlement brings the total amount paid out by Kane’s office to current and former employees for employment lawsuits to more than $586,000. There are also numerous employment lawsuits still pending for claims like slander, retaliation and wrongful termination.  Continue Reading ›

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A former worker at a Mexican food restaurant chain has been awarded $550,000 – which includes punitive damages – after a federal jury in Washington D.C. found she was in fact discriminated for her pregnancy. pregnantwoman

Although the national chain, Chipotle, and its franchise owner had denied that it had fired the woman for her pregnancy, the jury opined this was in fact the reason for her termination from the job.

The case dates back four years. It was at that time in 2011 when plaintiff became pregnant while working at the fast-food restaurant. It was not long after she informed the manager of her pregnancy that he started acting out. He restricted her access to water. He also began giving her a hard time about bathroom breaks and informed her she needed to limit them. He even went so far as to say that anytime she needed to go to the bathroom, she had to announce it to every employee in the store, and further that he had to approve them so that her post could be covered. Continue Reading ›

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One of the largest insurance brokerage firms in the world is facing down allegations of pregnancy discrimination.pregnancy5

According to The Orlando Sentinel, this was a situation in which a pregnant applicant was offered an entry-level post, which was almost immediately rescinded once the company learned she was with child. Although the company thanked her for “telling us beforehand,” it was explained in an email that that the firm had “a very urgent need to have somebody in this position long-term.”

The woman had informed the company of her pregnancy by asking about maternity benefits almost immediately after she was hired. Less than a half hour later, she received an email rescinding the offer.  Continue Reading ›

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Five years ago, Jeff Gottlieb won the highly-coveted Pulitzer Prize while working as a reporter for the New York Times. Today, he is now preparing to face his former employer in court, alleging age discrimination following a years-long battle over the prize money. newspaper

His complaint, Gottlieb v. Los Angeles Times Communications LLC, was filed recently in Los Angeles Superior Court, and asserts a number of events that unfolded after his work on the corruption in Bell, California was published. That as in 2010, and he resigned from the paper in 2015. He won the Pulitzer in 2011.

The lawsuit alleges the newspaper essentially forced him to resign and that the paper’s editor and publisher frequently fired older employers with greater frequency than younger workers. The company also allegedly hired fewer workers older than 40 and employees on the younger end of the spectrum often were handed plum assignments and better benefits than their older counterparts.  Continue Reading ›

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Donald Trump, the Republican Presidential nominee, caused a stir (again) by answering a reporter’s question about sexual harassment by saying that if his daughter Ivanka were to face it, he would, “advise her to find another career or find another company.” Attempting to clarify his father’s remarks, son Eric Trump said his sister, “wouldn’t allow herself to be subjected” to sexual harassment. woman

These comments came soon after Fox News chief Roger Ailes was accused of sexually harassing a slew of current and former female staff members, including one-time Fox & Friends host Gretchen Carlson.

Wherever you stand politically, it’s necessary to point out that victims of sexual harassment should not have to change careers or jobs because of the illegal behavior of their co-workers. Sometimes sexual harassment victims do end up taking this course of action when the abuse and/or harassment becomes so severe, though it’s worth noting that not everyone has the option of such fluidity in their jobs or careers. Beyond that, some don’t want to leave their jobs or careers, either because they love it or they need the money. Those who find themselves forced out of the workplace or having suffered some other negative outcome on their careers. In those cases, it is absolutely worthwhile to explore a sexual harassment lawsuit.  Continue Reading ›

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The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has found that sexual orientation is not a protected class under Title VII, which means it’s now in the hands of Congress to take action to change existing law if LGBTQ employees are going to be allowed the right to sue. The other alternative would be for the U.S. Supreme Court to take on this case or one similar and decide differently. sadness

In the Indian case of Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College, the court noted that this was not the first time it had been asked to consider whether Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 shields workers and provides an avenue for dispute resolution (usually stemming from claims of discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community). However, the court noted that in this case, the court was deciding the matter “in the shadow of criticism from the EEOC,” which alleged the 7th Circuit and others have continued to reflexively declare sexual orientation is not protected under Title VII/

The court noted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had questioned the court’s acceptance of cases born of gender non-conformity discrimination, even as it rejected sexual orientation discrimination cases. Even in the face of this criticism, however, the federal appeals court held once again that because the claim was solely for discrimination based on sexual orientation, it was beyond the scope of the statute.  Continue Reading ›

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The board of education in a small city in New Jersey has paid $45,000 to settle a claim of racial discrimination that alleged a white woman was passed over time and again for assistant principal jobs that instead went to less qualified black workers. checkingtheinternet

Such cases of “reverse discrimination” in the workplace are rare, but they can sometimes prevail. It will depend heavily on the circumstances.

Bear in mind too: The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer v. University of Texas did uphold affirmative action in the education system when a white student alleged the university used her racial identity as a white person as a mark against her to admit less qualified black and minority students. That was characterized as a gross oversimplification of the university’s policy, which the court ruled did not violate plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection.  Continue Reading ›

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It’s been more than a decade since FedEx was first accused of driver misclassification by drivers for the company. The cases quickly began to pile up – ultimately some 12,000 from 20 states. tractortrailerwheels

As the multi-district litigation was combined into one action that crawled forward, a whole new generation of employee misclassification lawsuits were filed against other companies.

It’s only now, in 2016, that the company is proposing a settlement with drivers whom it formerly called independent contractors. The allegation has long been that the company hired them to work as “independent contractors.” They were paid as such, but they weren’t treated as such. In considering whether the classification was proper, courts were analyzing the level of control the company had over the workers, including facts like:

  • Drivers were required to drive trucks that were branded with the FedEx logo;
  • Drivers were required to wear FedEx uniforms;
  • Drivers had to use FedEx scanners;
  • Drivers weren’t free to turn down jobs if they wanted to keep working for the company.

Continue Reading ›

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A recent lawsuit filed by a Colorado judge alleges that female prosecutors, assistant city attorneys and other judicial officers make tens of thousands of dollars less on average than their male peers. That’s according to a recent lawsuit filed by a top-level career services judge, who asserts she earned less than male workers whom she supervised. womenworking

The gender discrimination lawsuit was filed in a federal district court in Denver by a plaintiff who alleged that when she complained about this discrepancy, her superior demoted her. She is now seeking compensatory damages and injunctive relief.

The lawsuit asserts that female workers in both the city’s district attorneys’ office and city attorney’s office were paid less than their male peers who worked the same jobs. In the city attorney’s office, men who worked in both non-supervisor and supervisory roles earned on average between $21,000 and nearly $23,000 more than their female counterparts. Meanwhile, in plaintiff’s district attorney’s office, men who worked in both non-supervisory and supervisory roles made between $8,000 and $11,200 more than the women who worked the very same jobs in the same office. They also generally are not given the same job titles as the men in their offices – even when they are largely performing the same work.  Continue Reading ›

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