Overlawyered » wage and hour suits

Employment law roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:12:54 +0000

Fueled by liberal foundation grants and federal money, “Restaurant Opportunities Center” launches litigation campaign against chain-eatery leader Darden [Orlando Sentinel] Still to be explained: why the Detroit Chamber of Commerce would be so happy to announce a business-backed non-profit’s funding for ROC.
Major employment plaintiff’s firm Outten & Golden promotes Hearst magazine intern class action [Romenesko, Reason]
“Retaliation Charges Pose Growing Threat to Free Speech” [Hans Bader, CEI]
Debate: “Should state outlaw requirements that job applicants be employed?” [Pia Lopez/Ben Boychuk, Sacramento Bee]
“Is it time to do away with McDonnell Douglas?” [burden-shifting test in job bias cases; Jon Hyman]
Supposed exemption from OSHA for under-10-employee businesses is mostly myth [Eric Conn, EBG]
WSJ is kind enough to pick up my item on Italian labor law professors as a “Notable and Quotable” today;
New York Times fires 23 employees after searching their emails and finding that they had forwarded blonde and ethnic jokes and other common forms of workplace humor [eleven years ago on Overlawyered]

Tags: discrimination law, Ford Foundation, hostile environment, New York Times, OSHA, restaurants, wage and hour suits, workplace

Labor and employment law roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:18:19 +0000

“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]
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]

Tags: labor unions, Mitt Romney, The Excuse Factory, wage and hour suits, Wisconsin

Firing of employee for working at lunch

Walter Olson — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:19:30 +0000

It makes no seeming sense unless you’re aware of the grim legalities for employers whose “nonexempt” employees work off the clock [Richard Bales/Workplace Prof, BoingBoing, ABC "Good Morning America"]

Tags: wage and hour suits

Synagogue youth workers wage-hour suit

Walter Olson — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 05:43:59 +0000

“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]

Tags: churches, wage and hour suits

Labor and employment law roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 05:18:04 +0000

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]

Tags: bullying, Chicago, labor unions, wage and hour suits, Wisconsin, workplace

Bastianich: I’m through with NYC due to wage/hour suits

Walter Olson — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:04:00 +0000

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.

Tags: NYC, restaurants, wage and hour suits

Labor and employment law roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 05:10:00 +0000

“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]

Tags: labor unions, public employment, wage and hour suits, workplace

Calif. bill proposes work rules, meal breaks for babysitters

Walter Olson — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:55:51 +0000

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.

Tags: California, wage and hour suits, workplace

“If I could press a button and instantly vaporize one sector of employment law…”

Walter Olson — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:32:45 +0000

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.

Tags: accolades, age discrimination, wage and hour suits, WO writings, workplace

August 12 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:08:46 +0000

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]

Tags: autos, children's rights, class action settlements, hospitals, Italy, law schools, schools, Schools for Misrule, wage and hour suits

Overlawyered » wage and hour suits

Employment law roundup

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Calif. bill proposes work rules, meal breaks for babysitters

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