Articles Posted in Employment Law

California rings in the New Year and decade with new laws designed to give employees more protections of their rights, and businesses more incentives to leave the state. 1) AB 5: Codifies the ABC Test to determine whether a worker is an Independent Contractor or Employee In 2018, the California Supreme Court held that the…

Many hardworking employees who dedicate their lives and sacrifice their own health and family for the good of their corporate employers will sooner or later find a pink slip in their inbox, usually right before the holidays. Whether it’s due to “downsizing” or for whatever pretextual reason the employer can think of to justify their…

Beginning July 1, 2019, businesses located in the city of Los Angeles or in the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles county are now required to pay higher minimum wages – the amount of which depends on the number of employees as set forth in the charts provided by the City of Los Angeles and Los…

The Court of Appeal for this district recently held that an employee is obliged to arbitrate any disputes with the employer once the employer declares that continued employment manifests assent to such a requirement, even if the employee declines to sign an arbitration agreement. Policy Announcement An employee brought her action against her employer on…

The new calendar year brings in new employment laws that both employees and employers should consider. Notably, the changes are geared towards providing more protections for employees in the workplace and some are in response to recent high profile sexual harassment incidents in the entertainment industry. Please note that the information provided here is for…

The California Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in the matter of Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles earlier this year establishing a new and employee-friendly test in determining whether an employee has been misclassified as an independent contractor. In particular, the Court embraced a standard presuming that all workers are…

From Metnews.com: Off-clock time which employees are expected to put in regularly, for such purposes as locking up, cannot be disregarded under California wage-and-hour laws, which do not incorporate the de minimis doctrine found in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the Supreme Court said yesterday in response to a question certified by the Ninth…

The Court of Appeal for this district yesterday affirmed an order to an African American medical doctor, who was fired from his post as provost of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, a predominantly African American university, and sued for racial and age discrimination in addition to retaliation and whistle-blowing, to pay $94,017.50…

Employers with 25 or more employees must now start paying minimum wages at the rate of $12.00 per hour starting July 1, 2017. This also means that overtime exempt employees must also be paid fixed salaries of at least two times the applicable minimum wage rate for full-time employment (2 X $12.00 X 40 =…

Beware of Becoming Enslaved by a Severance Agreement! Many hardworking employees who dedicate their lives and sacrifice their own health and family for the good of their corporate employers will sooner or later find a pink slip in their inbox, usually right before the holidays. Whether it’s due to “downsizing” or for whatever pretextual reason…