Governor Brown Signs New Sexual Harassment Laws The 2018 legislative session has come to an end. This year, over 100 new bills were signed which affect the labor and employment laws in California. The so-called #MeToo Movement influenced the Legislature, with twelve sexual harassment and retaliation-related measures making their way to Governor Brown’s desk. Five […]
Category Archives: Articles
IT’S OVER! THE ALRB JUST DECERTIFIED THE UFW AT GERAWAN! IT IS CERTIFIED that a majority of the valid ballots have been cast for ‘No Union’ in the representation election conducted on November 5, 2013, among the agricultural employees of Gerawan Farming, Inc., in the State of California, and that the United Farm Workers of […]
“No Union! No Union! No Union!” After Five Years of ALRB Antics, the Voices of Thousands of Gerawan Farming’s Workers Have Finally Been Heard For the past five years, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board has spent millions in taxpayer funds (and, by recent estimates, over $13 million) to aid the UFW in suppressing the results […]
A California Court of Appeal Found That a Group of Employees Waived Their Meal Breaks in a Collective Bargaining Agreement California Labor Code section 512, subdivision (a) states that an employee working more than five hours, but less than ten hours, in a shift is entitled to a meal period of at least 30 minutes, […]
Employer Knowledge of Employees Skipping Meal and/or Rest Breaks Alone Is Insufficient to Establish Liability California employers, including staffing agencies that provide temporary employees to their clients, are not required to police staff to ensure compliance with meal period obligations or to investigate time records to uncover possible violations. The California Labor Code guarantees that […]
Dollar General Discriminated Against a Diabetic Employee by Firing Her for Drinking Orange Juice in Violation of an “Anti-grazing” Policy A federal appellate court recently upheld a $725,000 jury verdict against Dollar General for discriminating against an employee on the basis of her disability. Central to the lawsuit was $3.38 worth of orange juice. This […]
California Supreme Court Issues New Classification Guidelines for Independent Contractors On April 30, 2018, the California Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in Dynamex Operations W. v. Superior Court (2018) 4 Cal.5th 903, clarifying the standard for determining whether workers in California should be classified as employees or as independent contractors for purposes of the […]
Employees Are Not Entitled to Multi-Month, Indefinite Medical Leaves of Absences California employers can breathe a sigh of relief in light of a recent decision from the Southern District Court of California. In Ruiz v. Paradigmworks Group, Inc., the court held that an employer is not required to extend an employee’s “multi-month” medical leave of […]
Employer Not Liable for $5 Million Punitive Damages Award The case of Leggins v. Rite Aid Corporation is an example of how courts can rein in an extravagant jury award. Leggins was a store manager for Rite Aid for 25 years. He suffered serious injuries to his neck and shoulders after being attacked during a […]
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Reminds Employers Just How Costly Retaliation Claims Can Be After a nine-day jury trial, an employer, a current supervisor, and several of its former supervisors, were ordered to pay three employees $6.6 million for race-based discrimination and retaliation for filing administrative complaints about the discrimination. The case, Flores v. […]