Orange County employee misclassification

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 ›

A federal judge in California has refused to accept a proposed $100 million settlement in a class action lawsuit against ride-sharing service Uber, which is accused of misclassifying its drivers as independent contractors when they are, in fact, employees.

The U.S. District judge in his order stated that the settlement was just 10 percent of what the drivers’ lawyers estimate the company would have to pay in legal fees. Plus, it only accounted $1 million for state penalties that could easily pile up to more than $1 billion. In light of these facts, the judge wrote, the settlement proposal was not fair to the workers, and neither was it reasonable or adequate.

It’s unclear what this and other cases are going to mean for the future of the company. The company’s fast-paced growth and low prices are contingent on the fact that it doesn’t have to pay its drivers fuel reimbursements or offer health insurance. But the company’s profitability is not the concern of the courts. The issue is whether more than 385,000 workers in California and Massachusetts (the parties to the lawsuit) were cheated out of these employee benefits by being wrongly classified. They argue the company had enough control over their day-to-day activities to be deemed employees – not independent contractors. Continue Reading ›

Articles Tagged with Orange County employee misclassification

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