Employment Misclassification

Court: California Can Enforce AB5 Against Trucking Companies for Employee Misclassification

May 1, 2021 | by Nassiri Law

The State of California can begin enforcing a labor law geared to combat employee misclassification that trucking companies say will force them to eliminate the use of independent owner-operators. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a judge in San Diego was wrong to hand down an injunction barring the state’s labor commissioner from enforcing the 2019 Assembly Bill 5.

The statute codified the 2018 ruling in Dynamex Operations W. v. Superior Ct. by the California Supreme Court, formalizing the so-called “ABC Test” of ascertaining when a person is an employee or an independent contractor.

As our Los Angeles employment attorneys can explain, employee misclassification has long been a serious problem in California, with companies intentionally classifying workers wrongly as independent contractors rather than employees to avoid responsibility for things like minimum wage, required breaks, workers’ compensation insurance coverage and more. Continue Reading ›

Summer is Coming, and So Are Intern Misclassifications

April 7, 2018 | by Nassiri Law

Internships can be one of the most beneficial learning experiences of a young person’s life, providing skills and experience unattainable in any classroom. However, some are trying to argue that these benefits mean more interns should go without payment for their work.

The U.S. Labor Department recently released a new set of guidelines that relaxes the requirements around paid internships. According to a Los Angeles Times report, the new guidelines do keep intact a series of factors companies should use to determine whether they have to pay their interns or not, referred to as a primary beneficiary test. In other words, the test determines who benefits the most from the internship: the intern or the company. But now instead of using these factors as the standard by which to judge the employer’s final decision, the merits will be determined on a case-by-case basis. Continue Reading ›

Report: Tech Jobs On the Rise in Los Angeles

September 12, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

When most people think of technology industry jobs in California, they are thinking of the Silicon Valley and other areas in the northern part of the state; however Los Angles and Southern California are the areas experiencing the most sector growth, according to a recent news article form CBS Los Angeles.

With the increase in tech and tech jobs in our area, many now consider Los Angeles to be leading the nation in terms of tech job employment and economic growth. Part of this is due to the influx of “behemoth” global technology companies into the city of Los Angeles and the Southern California area, along with the emergence of many tech start ups that have decided to make Los Angeles their home.

While many of these startups may ultimately not be successful, the ones that are will need to hire a lot of employees. Many of the most needed jobs are in web development, coding, and software engineering. This is a good fit for the area, with a large number of schools teaching these highly technical subject areas. Continue Reading ›

Court: Uber Drivers Are Employees in California

September 2, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

Most people living in Los Angeles are familiar with Uber and how the company and its competitors operate. When a person needs a ride, he or she can take out a smartphone, open the company app and request a driver to come to a given location.

Drivers working for the company own their own vehicles and have to pay for a company-owned smartphone that allows them to respond to requests for rides. If they accept a ride request, they must pick up the passenger and take him or her to the desired destination. There is no exchange of money, because the company debits the money from customer’s account and pays the driver after taking a percentage. There is no need to tip a driver, because that is supposedly covered in the company transaction. Continue Reading ›

A Look at the “Employment/Layoff Paradigm”

August 16, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

According to a recent news report from The Denver Post, there is a new “employment/layoff” paradigm at work in the United States, and it is blaming the victims of this system

The article begins with an account from a worker who was employed by a major corporation. This employee worked around 50 hours per week, and the company always paid overtime for hours in excess of 40 per week. However, this all changed when the company changed this employee over to an independent contractor following a routine layoff. Under the new contract, he was paid a flat rate for 37 hours a week, but the company still demanded the same level of work from him as it did when he was working 50 hours per week. In other words, they wanted to cut his pay and cut his benefits, but still get the same productivity Continue Reading ›

Hillary Clinton to Crack Down on Worker Misclassification

July 18, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

With an upcoming presidential election getting closer, all of the candidates are busy making campaign speeches and trying to garner support from likely voters. According to a recent news article from Huffington Post, Hillary Clinton has vowed that she will do whatever she can as president to crack down on the rampant misclassification of employees that is going on across this country.

One of the companies who may be most affected by this vow is Uber, the popular mobile ridesharing app and service which just suffered what many legal experts considered to be a devastating blow in a recent decision by the employment commission in California. In that decision, a commission determined Uber drivers are in fact employees for the purpose of labor rights and workers’ compensation benefits and not independent contractors, as the company would like everyone to believe. Continue Reading ›

Uber Drivers: Employees or Independent Contractors?

June 15, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

The economy is doing better than it has in years. One of the main benefits of a stronger economy is a lower rate of unemployment.

As it turns out, employment is up in California and across the nation. This will in turn drive the economy further, as people will have more disposable income to spend on consumer products.

However, this recent upturn in the local and national economy is somewhat different than previous periods of economic prosperity. One major difference has to with an increase in the type of employment we are seeing. In the past, greater production lead to more manufacturing jobs. When the economy shifted to outsourced production and services in the 1990s, we saw more sales and marketing jobs and other service-based forms of employment.

California Unemployment Rate Down

May 26, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

Despite the growing problems in low wage jobs across the state of California including wage theft, and employee misclassification, there has been an overall decrease in the unemployment rate throughout the state.

According to a recent article from the Modesto Bee, the current unemployment rate in California has fallen slightly to 6.3 percent. The recent economic upswing has created approximately 30,000 new jobs across the state. Continue Reading ›