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Employment Law

Bill would raise overtime threshold in California

06/06/2017
Assembly Member Tony Thurmond (D-Richmond) has proposed raising California’s overtime threshold to the higher of $3,956 per month ($47,472 annually) or twice the state’s minimum wage for executive, administrative and or professional employees.

Lost acknowledgment won’t sink arbitration agreement

06/06/2017
A case will go to arbitration even though the employer couldn’t find a signed acknowledgment page showing an employee agreed to arbitrate disputes. Because the employer made it a standard practice to have applicants sign such acknowledgments, the court said the employee was bound by the agreement.

Boss is equally demanding on everyone? That’s no excuse for employee lawsuit

06/06/2017
Some supervisors are more demanding than others. That’s no reason to sue, as long as the boss heaps demands equally on everyone, regardless of protected characteristics.

9th Circuit: Equal Pay Act allows past pay as excuse for current pay differences

06/06/2017
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that employers are free to use past pay as the starting point for a compensation offer as long as they can justify the practice as having a legitimate business purpose. That’s true even if using past pay ends up perpetuating past pay discrimination.

Is that an FMLA need, or just chaos at home?

06/06/2017
Employees who want to take FMLA leave must let their employers know. They don’t have to specifically ask for FMLA leave, but they do have to provide enough information for the employer to understand that the worker or a family member suffers from a serious health condition. Merely describing a chaotic life full of difficult events isn’t enough.

Title alone doesn’t make someone a manager

06/06/2017
As far as the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and California’s wage-and-hour-laws are concerned, how you label a job is absolutely irrelevant to its genuine exempt/nonexempt status. Classification is based solely on the work the employee performs. Put simply, calling someone a manager doesn’t make him one.

$1.9 million to settle EEOC race bias lawsuit against Chicago restaurants

06/06/2017
The owners of 13 Italian restaurants in Chicago have agreed to pay $1.9 million to settle an EEOC class-action suit alleging they routinely refused to hire black job applicants.

Colorado ski towns seek winter avalanche of H-2B visa workers

06/06/2017

The National Ski Areas Association recently wrote to Secretary of Home-land Security John Kelly asking him to more than double the number of H-2B visas granted next winter, from 33,000 to 70,000.

Research: Gender wage gap established early in careers

06/02/2017
The wage gap between men and women is established early in workers’ careers and increases “considerably” in the first 20 years of their working lives, according to new research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Legislation would amend NLRA, try to weaken organized labor

05/30/2017
The Employee Rights Act would let union members withhold the portion of union dues used to support political activities, require annual union recertification elections and make it illegal for union officials to call for a strike before rank-and-file members vote to walk out.