Category: Employment Law

In what has been called potentially “the first shareholder proposal calling for a company to rethink its policy on paid family leave,” Starbucks is being pressured to publicly address a glaring gap that exists regarding a key employee benefit. Namely, that is time off for a worker following the birth of a child. Starbucks’ family leave…

For California employers and prospective hirees, this cuts both ways. On the one hand, a hiring manager might reasonably be deemed to have a legitimate concern when a background check reveals a criminal record for a job applicant. And on the other hand, that applicant unquestionably has valid concerns when he or she checks off…

In the workplace, and as regards the interaction between employers and employees, the relationship is symbiotic. That is, each side needs the other and engages in a balancing act of give and take. Labor exchanged for wages. Time for food. It’s an interesting phenomenon, isn’t it? And while it is certainly true that both sides…

A recent Bloomberg article terms it an “imbroglio.” Other depictions might be apt, too, of course, including this one: public relations disaster. It hasn’t been the sweetest August thus far for tech giant Google, which, rather than currently being in the news for mainstream articles on business performance and related information is instead embroiled in…

he debate rages on. Title VII of the seminal Civil Rights Act passed by Congress in 1964 extended workplace protections against discrimination on myriad grounds. Notably, protection for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community was not included in the list of safeguarded categories, and that continues to be the case today. A recent article…

The Private Attorney General Act, or PAGA, allows an aggrieved employee to act as if they are the state in an attempt to make claims for recovery of civil penalties for Labor Code violations. Claims under this Act essentially substitute the plaintiff for a state labor law enforcement agency and give the plaintiff similar rights…

What a UC Berkeley honors graduate who came back to her alma mater last summer to work with a described “world-renowned professor of philosophy” as his assistant prior to embarking on a graduate program reasonably expected was s singular opportunity to grow in her chosen field. What she nearly immediately experienced instead, as related in…

The below-described entertainment litigation imbroglio has a close and obvious nexus to Los Angeles, given the film industry’s central association with the city, which is flatly unparalleled elsewhere. By happenstance, though, the venue that most formally features in a tale involving multiple allegations of wrongdoing and claims for damages that are well in excess of $100…

The “ban the box ” campaign is a national push to prohibit employers from asking prospective employees about their criminal records during the early stages of the hiring process.  Twelve states, as well as 70 cities and counties, have implemented “ban the box” legislation. California joined these states in late 2013 with AB 218. Under AB…

Two ranking members of the U.S. Department of Labor recently discussed workplace retaliation against employees who file wage-related complaints, sending this strong and unequivocal message to employers in California and elsewhere across the country: Don’t do it. In fact, don’t even entertain the thought, say the writers, because employer retaliation in the realm of wage-and-hour matters is…

State and federal employment officials and regulators often take pains to walk a very fine line when discussing the use of contracted-for labor by companies across the country. On the one hand, they appear to acknowledge and support the need for an at-the-ready independent contractor pool, knowing that it lends flexibility to business managers, keeps…

The legislation referenced above in today’s blog headline is formally entitled the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order. As noted from its name, the law comes in the form of an executive proclamation issued by President Obama, with such rules and orders bypassing the more typical route for the passage of federal laws that…

What one national media outlet refers to as Uber’s “freelance labor model” generally works quite well for the company, obviously, given the online transportation entity’s estimated worth of as much as $68 billion. At its core, that model regards company workers — that is, the hundreds of thousands of Uber drivers — as independent contractors.…

A recently concluded workplace discrimination case serves as a virtual primer to employers in California and nationally regarding how not to interact with pregnant employees at the workplace. For starters, don’t treat them differently from other workers in a manner that even remotely signals harassing behavior. This would quality as such conduct: demanding that a…

While most people would like to think that they have the ability to remain at a job as long as they like and leave whenever something better comes along, this is actually not the reality for many. Though some people have agreements with their employer that provide them some protections from termination, the presumption is…

In the year since California lawmakers approved a new paid sick leave law, legislators and state authorities have spent a lot of time trying to explain what the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act means to employees and employers. The confusion prompted Gov. Jerry Brown to sign another measure to amend the law to provide further…

You need me, and I need you. In a nutshell, and in fundamental terms, that preceding sentence just about sums up the essentials of the important employer/employee relationship in California. And given its reality and symbiotic nature, one might reasonably think that relations between managers and workers across the state are routinely informed by fair…

A California worker files a workers’ compensation claim following an on-the-job injury and is terminated from his or her employment shortly thereafter. Is such a fact scenario likely to pique the interest of a jury? It likely will, states an article noting that workers’ comp retaliation is “becoming a rapidly growing field within employment law.”…

It’s a win-win scenario, right? That fitness tracking apparatus that you agreed to wear on your wrist at the request of your employer is proving to be a real ally in helping you understand relevant health-related numbers. Truly, of course, not that many workers are yet strapping on those little mobile tech tools, but enough…