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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…

Gone are the days when a foreign student in F-1 status who fails to maintain their status, such as by failing to attend school or working without authorization, could nevertheless enjoy “duration of status” for several years or more and not accrue unlawful presence in the U.S. until either an immigration judge or the USCIS…

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 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently updated its guidance, taking a much stricter approach to approving applications that are largely filed by those seeking work in the tech industry. Under the new policy, which goes into effect Sept. 11, 2018, agents will be able to deny applications deemed incomplete or containing errors, without…

Immigrants on the H-1B highly-skilled visas, as well as their partners, are the targets of an under-the-radar effort to weed out foreign workers. Activists say the move is inhumane and business leaders argue it will hurt the economy. A report released Tuesday by the Silicon Valley-backed immigration lobbying group FWD.us lays out the White House’s…

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…

The Entrepreneur Parole Rule Lets Foreigners Buy their Way Into the USA Starting July 17, 2017 The US Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) has finalized new regulations creating the Entrpreneur Parole Rule, which takes effect on July 17, 2017. The DHS believes that this final rule will encourage foreign entrepreneurs to create and develop start-up…

The California Supreme Court Recently Held That Employees Cannot Be “On-call” Or “On-duty” During Their Rest Breaks On December 22, 2016, the California Supreme Court ruled that employers may not require their employees to remain “on duty” or “on call” during rest breaks. In Augustus v. ABM Security Services, Inc., the plaintiffs were required to…