- Gov. Walker’s public sector labor reforms popular with Wisconsin voters, and have saved taxpayers a fortune [Morrissey, Fund, Marquette poll (public favors new law by 50-43 margin] What would FDR say? [Dalmia, The Daily]
- “Why you should stop attending diversity training” [Suzanne Lucas, CBS MarketWatch, following up on our earlier post]
- The gang that couldn’t regulate straight: “Court rebuffs Labor Department on sales rep overtime” [Dan Fisher, Forbes] Lack of quorum trips up NLRB on “quickie”/ambush elections scheme [Workplace Prof]
- Not all claimed “gun rights” are authentic, some come at expense of the vital principle of at-will employment [Bainbridge]
- Brace yourself, legal academics at work on a Restatement of Employment Law [Michael Fox]
- “Why Delaware’s Proposed Workplace Privacy Act Is All Wrong” [Molly DiBianca]
- USA Today on lawyers’ role in growth of Social Security disability rolls [Ira Stoll]
Tagged as:
Delaware,
employment at will,
guns,
labor unions,
privacy,
wage and hour suits,
Wisconsin
- Arbitrator: felonious Montgomery County, Maryland cops should keep disability pay [Examiner] “Cop who took naked photos of rape victim can keep pension” [NY Post] Cop who pepper-sprayed UC Davis protesters is still on job, and maybe that’s how they’d have it [Radley Balko]
- “Billions in retroactive liability” in pharma detailer wage/hour action before SCOTUS [Marcia Coyle, NLJ] And USA Today chose a faulty “worker discontent” theme on wage/hour case, since as class actions these suits are lawyer-driven;
- Australia: “Worker injured during sex gets compensation payout” [News.com.au]
- “Courts are finally starting to apply ADAAA—and it ain’t pretty” [Jon Hyman] ADA: “Judge Rules In Favor of Fired Employee With Bipolar Disorder” [ABC]
- NLRB goes after Hyatt on employee handbook language [Gary Shapiro, Examiner] Union claims Indiana right-to-work law violates Thirteenth Amendment ban on slavery [James Sherk, NRO]
- EEOC: sex discrimination law bars bias against transgender employees [AP, Hyman] “EEOC Obtains Substantial Settlement in Obesity Discrimination Suit” [Disabilities Law]
- Law journal prediction: adherents of racism will claim Title VII protection [Lawrence D. Rosenthal, Temple L. Rev. via Workplace Prof]
Tagged as:
Australia,
disabled rights,
EEOC,
labor unions,
Maryland,
obesity,
police,
transgender,
wage and hour suits,
workers' compensation
Gee, thanks, lawsuit-filers: “Internships can be the key to the start of a successful career, but the positions are getting harder to find because a lot of employers are now nervous to offer them.” [KHOU] A New York attorney has filed a much-publicized series of suits seeking class action status to represent unpaid interns at organizations including Harper’s Bazaar magazine and the Charlie Rose show. [Atlantic Wire]
Relatedly or otherwise, a federal judge has dismissed the class action filed by social activist Jonathan Tasini alleging that the Huffington Post was violating the rights of its unpaid bloggers by basing a profitable media platform on their work. [Reuters, AP]
Tagged as:
minimum wage,
wage and hour suits
New York’s notoriously stringent Department of Labor has fined a pizza shop owner $5,535 for not giving his employees enough polo shirts to wear — at least five for those who work five days a week, even if they work only a few hours a day. Owner Christian King
was told that an appeal would take years due to the backlog and the fine would accrue with interest….
“What happened to him is not unusual,” agreed Richard De Groot, a Syracuse consultant who advises businesses — including King’s — on human resource issues. He represents employers across much of the Eastern Seaboard and says New York is unusually demanding.
“There is so much in the way of state rules and laws,” he said, adding that he would advise some businesses, such as manufacturers, to simply look to elsewhere.
[Albany TImes-Union via Stoll]
Tagged as:
New York,
restaurants,
small business,
wage and hour suits
- “Off-clock work: Flintstone laws in a Buck Rogers world” [Robin Shea] “NY Times offers unpaid internships after reporting on their questionable legality” [Poynter]
- Walker labor reforms in Wisconsin get results [Christian Schneider: City Journal, NY Post] “Watch the Walker recall election” [John Steele Gordon, Commentary]
- No prize for spotting fallacy: complaints that too many Europeans are collecting state disability payments construed as “demonizing disabled people” [Debbie Jolly, ENIL]
- “What could be worse than a self-righteous TSA agent? Answer: A TSA agents’ union advocate.” [Ken, Popehat]
- “Why Mitt Romney likes firing people” [Suzanne Lucas]
- Free speech and union dues: Tim Sandefur on the oral argument in Knox v. SEIU [PLF Liberty Blog] More: Jack Mann, CEI.
- My book on employment and labor law, The Excuse Factory, is alas still not available in online formats but you might find a bargain on a hardcover [Free Press/Simon & Schuster]
Tagged as:
labor unions,
Mitt Romney,
The Excuse Factory,
wage and hour suits,
Wisconsin
“A youth group adviser from California has brought a class-action suit against her employer, the Orthodox Union. …Her complaint states that in addition to her ‘nine-to-five’ duties of teaching classes, meeting with students and co-workers, cooking for holiday meals and running programs, she also had students at her house on Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays. She had to make herself constantly available to students and their parents by phone and e-mail, and she worked around the clock while chaperoning Shabbatons and trips.” Overtime was not paid for these duties as legally required, her lawyer says. [JTA via Helfand/Prawfs; related on scope of "ministerial exception" in employment law]
Tagged as:
churches,
wage and hour suits
- Ohio vote looms on Wisconsin-style public labor reform [NRO Corner, Columbus Dispatch, Atlantic Wire, Buckeye Institute "S.B. 5", Brian Bolduc/NRO]
- Florida lawmaker proposes leave for some employees with domestically abused pets [Eric Meyer]
- UK proposal: let employers have frank talks with underperforming workers without fear of liability [Telegraph]
- “Wisconsin legislation could restrict punitive damages for job bias” [AP]
- No, your mover can’t enter the building: a Chicago lawyer encounters union power [Howard Foster, Frum Forum] An insider’s game: “Two teachers union lobbyists teach for a day to qualify for hefty pensions” [Chicago Tribune]
- Alternatively, we might just want to go back to freedom of contract: “An employer’s bill of rights” [Hyman]
- Michael Fox on “Healthy Workplace Act” proposal creating rights to sue over on-job bullying [Jottings]
- Feds put employer use of “independent contractors” under microscope [Omega HR] FLSA risks to employer of using unpaid interns [SmartHR]
- A bit of health care deregulation from Obama [Tyler Cowen] Related on nurse practitioners: [Goodman]
Tagged as:
bullying,
Chicago,
labor unions,
wage and hour suits,
Wisconsin,
workplace
Entrepreneurial lawyers have filed numerous suits against New York City restaurants over alleged violations of tip-splitting and overtime rules, a trend helped along by wage rulings from the state Labor Department. Now one of the town’s best-known restaurateurs says he’s had enough, per the New York Post:
“Money-hungry lawyers, through frivolous lawsuits, are shaking down the very foundation of Manhattan’s restaurant industry,” fumed Joe Bastianich, co-owner of Eataly, Del Posto and Babbo.
Bastianich said the litigation — he has been sued twice — has left such a bitter taste that he’s done with setting up new ventures in New York.
“We opened Eataly and put 700 jobs in the New York economy. Since then we haven’t opened another restaurant in New York, nor will we,” Bastianich told The Post. “We opened three other restaurants, in California and Connecticut, worth 1,000 jobs that could have been here in New York. Someone in Albany needs to understand the agenda, what this is really costing the greatest restaurant city in the world.”
Earlier here, etc.
Tagged as:
NYC,
restaurants,
wage and hour suits
- “EEOC showing late summer spike in discrimination suits” [NLJ]
- In new Lamons Gasket case, NLRB generously protects unions from many secret-ballot decertification elections [Hyman] Some employers rename quickie-elections proposal “ambush elections” [ShopFloor; see also Hannah Bowen, CRC, PDF] “NLRB’s Pro-Big Labor Ruling Trifecta is Bad News for the Economy” [Ivan Osorio, CEI] Did NLRB have legal authority to issue rule requiring employers to post union-rights posters on pain of criminal penalties? [Schaumber/NRO via Ted/PoL]
- Wage and hour law roundup: Law clerks fail in bid for overtime pay [Above the Law] “U.S. Open Umpires Sue for Overtime” [Fox Rothschild] Lawsuit challenges unpaid Hollywood internships [NYT]
- Public sector labor reform: Let the lawsuits begin! [Daniel DiSalvo, Public Sector Inc.]
- “Verizon Settles EEOC Disability Suit Based on No-Fault Attendance Policy” [Workplace Prof]
- Just can’t win dept.: after white firefighters extract large settlement from city of New Haven over reverse discrimination, Second Circuit rules that black firefighters can sue the city over the same “validated” test [WSJ, Schwartz]
- Screening job applicants through personality tests: when is it legal? [Hyman]
- Way to discourage employers from offering sabbaticals: have courts construe them as deferred vacation benefits [Cal Labor] Way to discourage volunteers [Cain, FindLaw]
- No, rules Judge Preska, the law doesn’t obligate employers to provide work/life balance [Hyman, Greenfield, PoL]
- Another purportedly disabled firefighter fit enough to run an Ironman event [WITI] “Can you pay me under the table? I would lose my disability” [Coyote]
Tagged as:
labor unions,
public employment,
wage and hour suits,
workplace
The bill would also require employers of babysitters, i.e. parents, to prepare extensive paperwork and keep it on file for at least three years after a wage payment. Some critics say the obligation to provide periodic breaks would require families to hire a second sitter to relieve the first. Homeowners would be required to permit all-day domestic workers to prepare their own food in the family kitchen and would be forbidden to object to the workers’ choice of food. AB 889, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-S.F.) and grandly labeled the “Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights,” has passed the lower house in Sacramento and will now be considered by the Senate. [NBC Los Angeles, Matt Welch, Sen. Doug LaMalfa, earlier] Last year New York made itself the first state to extend general workplace regulation to domestic employment.
Tagged as:
California,
wage and hour suits,
workplace
In a new Reason symposium on how to revitalize the American job market, I explain my answer to that question.
More: This set off a round of discussion on employment blogs including Jon Hyman (nominating FLSA for vaporization), Suzanne Boy (concur), Daniel Schwartz (leave laws), Suzanne Lucas (citing “the fabulous Overlawyered.com”), the ABA Journal, Tim Eavenson, Jon Hyman again, HR Daily Report, and Russell Cawyer. Also relevant on age discrimination laws: a June symposium in the NYT’s “Room for Debate” feature; ComputerWorld on age bias and IT.
Tagged as:
accolades,
age discrimination,
wage and hour suits,
WO writings,
workplace
- More reviews of Schools for Misrule: Counterpoint (U. of Chicago), Wilson Trivino at PurePolitics.com;
- “Cops Collar 12 Year Old for “Walking Alone” in Downtown Toronto” [Free-Range Kids] Cop tells mom kids under ten “by law are not allowed outside unsupervised except in their parents’ yard.” [western Maryland, same]
- As lawmakers seek budget cuts, school finance litigators are on the march to counter their plans [WSJ Law Blog]
- Wouldn’t waive regs: “U.S. blocks $1 million Italian supercar” [CNN Money]
- You see, entrepreneurial suit-filing does create jobs: “Hike in Wage-and-Hour Litigation Spurs Demand for Calif. Employment Law Associates” [ABA Journal] How U.S. Congress devastated American Samoa through minimum wage hikes [Mark Perry]
- CCAF objects in Sirius class action settlement [PoL, earlier]
- “The Phantom Menace of Sleep Deprived Doctors” [Darshak Sanghavi, NY Times Magazine]
Tagged as:
autos,
children's rights,
class action settlements,
hospitals,
Italy,
law schools,
schools,
Schools for Misrule,
wage and hour suits
