Los Angeles wage theft lawyer

California Non-Profit Wage Theft Case Settled for $170k

September 5, 2021 | by Nassiri Law

A California non-profit wage theft lawsuit was settled recently for $170,000, according to Palo Alto Weekly. The organization is responsible for providing street cleaning services in communities around the Bay area. The class action claim was filed by a former employment specialist at the group, who alleged that she and others were routinely denied fair wages.

According to the wage and hour lawsuit, the workers were not paid for overtime, denied break and lunch time compensation, and received late wage payments post-termination or resignation. Additionally, workers alleged employee misclassification, categorizing some workers as salaried and thus “exempt” from overtime pay under the California Labor Code. The pay rate for “salaried” employees, plaintiffs asserted, fell below the statutory level that would qualify them as exempt employees.

As our Los Angeles wage and hour lawyers can explain, California labor laws do apply to non-profit agencies, unless the individual in question is a volunteer, not an employee. As of Jan. 1, 2021, the statewide minimum wage in California is $14 hourly for companies with 26 or more employees and $13 hourly for those with 25 for fewer. However, some local ordinances set forth higher minimum wage rate than state law. For example, the minimum age in Los Angeles is $15 hourly for companies with 26 or more employees and $14.25 hourly for those with fewer. Where local minimum wage rates higher than state rates, employers must comply with the local law. Continue Reading ›

Court: California Retail Workers Must Be Paid for Bag Check Wait Times After Shifts

November 22, 2020 | by Nassiri Law

After nearly a decade of legal battles, employees for Apple received a ruling in their favor when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that California’s minimum wage law entitles them to be paid for the time they spend waiting to be searched and being searched when they leave the retail store.

Our Los Angeles employment attorneys recognize this case could have far-reaching implications for employees in retail and other industries.

The class action case, Frliken et. al. v. Apple Inc., covers retail workers for Apple Inc. and was first filed in 2009. Key to the appellate court’s decision was the fact that Apple has a policy that requires employees who carry bags to work to undergo package and bag searches by supervisors or security staff at the end of each shift as a loss prevention method. Such actions are legal (so long as they aren’t applied in a way that is discriminatory) but employees can’t be expected to wait for and undergo these searches on their own time/at their own expense, the court ruled. Continue Reading ›

Wage Theft Lawsuits Harder to File Under Trump, But California Protections Remain Strong

January 19, 2020 | by Nassiri Law

The Trump administration recently loosened labor law protections by making it more difficult for franchise employees to sue corporations for wage theft under the joint employer rule. Those who work for subcontractors and staffing agencies will have a tougher time securing legal remedy for labor law violations. The new rule issued by the Department of Labor also makes it more challenging to prove that a corporation is responsible for the labor law violations committed by franchise owners and contractors.

The new rule, which is no surprise having been on the table since last April, are enacted under the administration’s supposition that reducing corporate regulation will stimulate economic growth. It’s been praised by business groups, but worker advocates and unions sharply oppose it.

Central to this rule was the question of whether a corporation can be considered the “joint employer” of a worker for a franchise. There have been numerous cases wherein large companies have been sued for labor law violations – including wage theft – that was committed by the owner of a franchise. What this rule does is set a higher standard for “joint employer.” As our Los Angeles wage theft lawyers can explain, the new rule stipulates that companies are considered joint employers only if they:

Hire
Fire
Supervise
Set pay
Maintain employment records

SoCal Garment Industry Coming Under Fire for Wage Theft

December 24, 2019 | by Nassiri Law

Southern California’s garment industry has in the past been accused of being one of the biggest wage theft offenders in the state. It’s been so bad in recent years that the California Labor Commissioner’s Office released a brochure specific to the problem for industry workers, noting that garment workers who aren’t paid for their work are entitled to file claims against all “guarantors” of wages, which includes the contractor that hired them as well as the manufacturers and in some cases the retailers.

The latest among these is a company called Fashion Nova. According to The New York Times, the L.A.-based online retailer with celebrity and influencer endorsements has found its niche of producing cheap clothing that looks much more expensive. It’s tailored to the Instagram crowd looking to keep their digs fresh every few weeks. Blowing a month or two’s expendable income on a pair of jeans isn’t an option for these consumers, explaining Fashion Nova’s rise in popularity.

But the U.S. Labor Department reports it’s the garment industry workers who ultimately pay the price. The DOL has found that the company is able to mass produce cheap clothing in the U.S. because the people actually sewing the garments are paid unlawfully low wages. Continue Reading ›

California Fast-Food Firm Facing 10k+ Mandatory Employment Arbitration Claims Seeks Reprieve

January 10, 2019 | by Nassiri Law

Wage theft is a serious problem in California. As Los Angeles wage and hour lawyers, we have seen this play out in almost every industry and at nearly every level of employment, but it tends to occur most often to the most vulnerable workers. The fast-food industry is no exception. One way that companies try to sidestep the worst outcomes in these cases is to, where possible, bar workers from banding together in class action litigation. This is achieved through mandatory employment arbitration agreements, which have largely been upheld by the courts, up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court, via an early 20th Century law known as the Federal Arbitration Act.

However, using this tactic in a series of California wage theft lawsuits may have backfired in the case of one national fast-food chain, according to The Los Angeles Times. The story begins as so many do: Large, chain employers cutting corners of labor laws and allegedly committing wage theft is fairly common, as is the practice of mandatory employment arbitration. What makes the recently-highlighted situation different is that in trying to shield itself from a class action litigation for wage theft, the company may have effectively shot itself in the foot.

This particular fast-food chain has some 2,300 restaurant locations nationally, and it’s been battling some 10,000 claims of wage theft for the last six years. Last summer, the company won its motion filed in a federal court in Colorado to compel some 2,800 workers who filed lawsuits to instead participate in mandatory employment arbitration. However, employment lawyers for the company may now be wondering if this was the smartest move because now it is facing tens of thousands of individual arbitration proceedings across the country – proceedings it is compelled to pay for itself and which could cost tens of thousands of dollars each. The alternative of a class action lawsuit may not seem so burdensome considering it would require a single group of lawyers in one location, rather than thousands scattered before abitrators across the U.S. As it now stands, according to The Times, approximately 150 claims have been filed. Continue Reading ›

California Wage Theft Attorney: Call-In Shift Counts as “Reporting to Work”

November 21, 2018 | by Nassiri Law

Wage theft from California workers isn’t always about paying less than minimum wage. Sometimes, it’s failing to pay wages for expected duties the company doesn’t consider “work.” We saw this with factory workers required to spend upwards of 20 minutes daily donning and doffing their uniforms on site. More recently, we saw it with Starbucks in the six-year battle, ending in the California Supreme Court, over failure to pay for unpaid tasks like locking up after closing – something that only takes an extra 5-to-10 minutes daily, but multiplied across days, weeks, months and years and many thousands of workers adds up to significant skimming off the top.

Other recent California wage theft cases focused on so-called “call-in shifts” or “on-call work.” This is when workers are required to clear their schedules in the anticipation they might be needed if it’s a hectic night. However, in some cases, workers weren’t being paid despite re-arranging their schedules to adjust for the possibility.

California labor law separates this time into two different categories: Standby/ waiting time and response/ reporting time. The case law that established all this started with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1944 case of Armour & Co. v. Wantock, though California has adopted several provisions and tests of applicability on its own.

Standby/ waiting time is time the employee is required to remain at an employer’s place of business and respond to emergency calls. Workers are required to be paid for all of this time, though the rate can change, particularly if the standby time is “uncontrolled” by the employer and is otherwise free time. Response and reporting time is that wherein employee is required to respond to a call or text – that has to be paid also, with the worker responsible for keeping track. As Los Angeles wage theft attorneys can explain, only de minimus work (literally one or two minutes) isn’t compensable. For every day the worker is required to report to work and does report to work but isn’t paid, employees are paid half the usual wage for that shift – but in no event for less than two hours or more than four hours. If a worker is required to report back to work on any given day and only works for two hours are less, they are to be paid at their regular pay rate (not less than minimum wage) for those two hours. Continue Reading ›