Source: http://gilbertlegal.net/category/uncategorized/
Timestamp: 2018-06-18 11:40:52
Document Index: 1718963

Matched Legal Cases: ['§790', '§790', '§254', '§254', '§790', '§254', '§790']

Uncategorized Archives - Gilbert Law Group
New Kind of Employment Discrimination to be Banned
Ten states, the city of Chicago, and now, New York City will soon bar most New York City employers from using credit checks and credit history to deny hiring according to an amendment to the city’s human rights law. This new category of employment discrimination may usher in a wave of changes nationwide.
The rationale, according to its supporters, is that applicants’ consumer credit history bears no correlation to their future job performance, and can be used to discriminate. They argue that those most likely to have poor credit are people of color. City Councilman Brad Lander stated, “Credit checks for employment unfairly lock New Yorkers out of jobs for a whole set of unfair reasons: divorce, health care debt, student loans, identity theft, simple errors.” Although Mayor DiBlasio has not signed the law yet, his spokeswoman said, “Credit discrimination is oftentimes an unnecessary obstacle to New Yorkers getting jobs.” In opposition, Councilman Mark Weprin likened the restrictions to those of a “nanny state,” adding that it would be difficult to prove definitively that credit problems were the reason an applicant was rejected.
There are exemptions to the law. Positions excluded are chief financial officer-like jobs with authority over company or third-party funds, or assets worth over $10,000, police officers, elected officials, and others who must report their finances to the Conflicts of Interest Board, as well as those with access to intelligence, national security information, or trade secrets. Additional compromise language was included in an effort to protect the interests of businesses and consumers. New York City’s law is tougher on the financial industries than other similar laws nationwide.
Nonetheless, we can expect similar measures to increasingly pop up across the nation as states and other municipalities attempt to address this growing concern over employment decisions being based on credit history and/or credit problems.
If you have questions or encounter issues or problems with this or any employment-related matter, call the Gilbert Law Group at 631.630.0100.
Pregnancy Discrimination Act: Employment Retaliation Claims Are At an All-Time High
The Supreme Court will decide whether UPS violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) when it refused to provide a temporary light duty assignment to Peggy Young when she was pregnant 7 years ago before giving birth to her daughter, Triniti. The assignment would have allowed Young to work but avoid lifting heavy packages, as her physician had ordered. The issue is whether UPS violated the law by its policy of providing temporary light duty only to employees who had on-the-job injuries, were disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or lost their federal driver certification. It is well-settled that drawing a distinction between pregnant and nonpregnant employees is generally unlawful pregnancy discrimination, unless there is a legitimate business reason to justify the distinction.
In 1978, Congress passed the PDA in response to the Supreme Court ruling that workplace rules that excluded pregnant workers from disability benefits and insurance coverage was not sec discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In this case UPS argues that unless Young can show that it intentionally discriminated against her, she has no case. Young contends that UPS “told me basically to go home and come back when I was no longer pregnant.” Young is now 42 and it has taken 7 years to get before the Court.
New Law Regarding Franchise Joint Employer Liability
The Office of the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently issued 13 complaints against McDonald’s franchisees as well as their franchisor, McDonald’s USA, LLC alleging various labor law violations. The complaints follow the NLRB General Counsel’s announcement in July 2014 that McDonald’s USA may be held to be liable as a “joint employer” for unfair labor practices committed by its individual franchisees. This represents a departure from a long-standing precedent regarding franchise joint employer liability.
The 13 complaints allege that the individual franchises violated their employees’ right to engage in protect concerted activity. In other words, they took actions against them for engaging in activities aimed at improving their wages and other terms and conditions of their employment. This includes participating in nationwide fast food worker protests during the past two years. If successful, this would mean that under certain circumstances, a franchisor can be held liable for any unfair labor practices perpetrated by any of its franchisees. Such a precedent would have have a significant impact on franchise joint employer liability.
The NLRB posted on its website a “McDonald’s Fact Sheet” in which it claims McDonald’s USA “through its franchise relationship and its use of tools, resources and technology, engages in sufficient control over its franchisees’ operations, beyond protection of the brand, to make it a putative joint employer with its franchisees” sufficient to share liability for its franchisees’ violations of the National Labor Relations Act.
The results of these complaints will not be determined for some time. Franchisors should take note, however, there are steps a franchisor can take to mitigate its risk of being declared a joint employer of its franchisees’ employees under the current law, as well as potentially under any new law. These steps will also lessen the risk of a finding of common law vicarious liability for a franchisee’s employment practices in most states.
For more information regarding franchising and/or ways to avoid being declared a joint employer and therefore avoid liability for a franchisees’ employment issues call Gilbert Law Group today. 631-630-0100.
WAITING TO WORK OR WAITING TO LEAVE: PAID TIME? SUPREME COURT DECIDES
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that employees who wait on a security line before leaving the worksite to go home is not compensable or paid time under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Please refer to our blog post on 10.21.14 for how this case came about. Basically, contracted employees before leaving an Amazon warehouse are required to go through security screenings. They sought overtime compensation for the time spent. The unanimous decision was in favor of the employer.
When Congress enacted the FLSA, it purposefully left vague a number of provisions. As a result, a floodgate of litigation ensued as employees wanted to be paid for walking to and from job sites. More than $6 billion in payouts in 1940s dollars were paid, almost bankrupting several industries. As a result, congress passed and emergency law, the Portal to Portal Act that exempted travel to or from work. It also exempted from overtime pay “activities which are preliminary [before work begins] to or postliminary [after work ends] to said principal activities.”
The key in deciding whether a particular activity is exempt is determining whether it is “integral and indispensable” to the main work performed.
Thus, battery-plant workers’ showers after work have been held to be integral to their work duties because the chemicals were toxic and changing clothes and showering were indispensable to the principal work done. Similarly, meat packers sharpening their knives was compensable time, as dull knives are dangerous and wastes product. The Department of Labor (DOL) has issued regulations exempting checking in and out from work and waiting in line to do so. The situation presented in this case fell into that category, and was therefore found not to be compensable time.
Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan joined, wrote a concurring opinion which summarized the Court’s findings:
“The Court reaches two critical conclusions. First, the Court confirms that compensable ” ‘principal’ ” activities ” ‘includ[e] . . . those closely related activities which are indispensable to [a principal activity's] performance,’ ” ante, at 6 (quoting 29 CFR §790.8(c)(2013)), and holds that the required security screenings here were not “integral and indispensable” to another principal activity the employees were employed to perform, ante, at 7. I agree. As both Department of Labor regulations and our precedent make clear, an activity is “indispensable” to another, principal activity only when an employee could not dispense with it without impairing his ability to perform the principal activity safely and effectively. Thus, although a battery plant worker might, for example, perform his principal activities without donning proper protective gear, he could not do so safely, see Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U. S. 247, 250-253 (1956); likewise, a butcher might be able to cut meat without having sharpened his knives, but he could not do so effectively, see Mitchell v. King Packing Co., 350 U. S. 260, 262-263 (1956); accord, 29 CFR §790.8(c). Here, by contrast, the security screenings were not “integral and indispensable” to the employees’ other principal activities in this sense. The screenings may, as the Ninth Circuit observed below, have been in some way related to the work that the employees performed in the warehouse, see 713 F. 3d 525, 531 (2013), but the employees could skip the screenings altogether without the safety or effectiveness of their principal activities being substantially impaired, see ante, at 7.
Second, the Court holds also that the screenings were not themselves ” ‘principal . . . activities’ ” the employees were ” ‘employed to perform.’ ” Ibid. (quoting 29 U. S. C. §254(a)(1)). On this point, I understand the Court’s analysis to turn on its conclusion that undergoing security screenings was not itself work of consequence that the employees performed for their employer. See ante, at 7. Again, I agree. As the statute’s use of the words “preliminary” and “postliminary” suggests, §254(a)(2), and as our precedents make clear, the Portal-to-Portal Act of 1947 is primarily concerned with defining the beginning and end of the workday. See IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, 546 U. S. 21, 34-37 (2005). It distinguishes between activities that are essentially part of the ingress and egress process, on the one hand, and activities that constitute the actual “work of consequence performed for an employer,” on the other hand. 29 CFR §790.8(a); see also ibid. (clarifying that a principal activity need not predominate over other activities, and that an employee could be employed to perform multiple principal activities). The security screenings at issue here fall on the “preliminary . . . or postliminary” side of this line. 29 U. S. C. §254(a)(2). The searches were part of the process by which the employees egressed their place of work, akin to checking in and out and waiting in line to do so–activities that Congress clearly deemed to be preliminary or postlimininary. See S. Rep. No. 48, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 47 (1947); 29 CFR §790.7(g). Indeed, as the Court observes, the Department of Labor reached the very same conclusion regarding similar security screenings shortly after the Portal-to-Portal Act was adopted, see ante, at 7-8, and we owe deference to that determination, see Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U. S. 576, 587 (2000).”
There remain many issues still undefined in the workplace regarding whether a particular activity is exempt or not. The courts and DOL will continue to refine the parameters of exempt and non-exempt time as specific situations occur.
Should you have wage and hour questions or other workplace issues, please contact the Gilbert Law Group at 631. 630.0100.
Nurses Strike over Ebola
Approximately 18,000 nurses went on strike in Northern California to voice concerns about patient-care standards and Ebola. The nurses are in the middle of collective bargaining negotiations for a new contract. Nurses often strike while in the midst of contract negotiations. This time however, the circumstances surrounding the strike are unique. While picketing Kaiser Permanente facilities, they held up signs which stated “Kaiser Open for Premiums; Closed for Safe Patient Care” and “Strike for Health and Safety.” The two-day strike impacted more than 21 Kaiser-owned hospitals and 35 clinics.
The union claimed that the nurses were striking over the lowering of patient-care standards, and that the company has failed to adopt optimal safeguards for Ebola. The union also asserted that the nurses reported many stories about the lack of safety and concern for patients. “This isn’t about money. This is about something much deeper,” the union’s executive director said.
In response, Kaiser said that it was “particularly irresponsible” to strike just when the flu season was starting, and when the nation is concerned about the risk of Ebola. Kaiser disputed the union’s claims, asserting that the reasons the union leaders are giving for walking out are not supported by the facts, wither at the medical centers “or at the bargaining table.” Kaiser used replacement workers in order to remain open.
As the nation wrestles with infectious diseases like Ebola, how the health industry deals with patients and the workforce and their interactions with the public will remain a controversial and evolving drama.
Waiting to Work or Waiting to Leave: Paid Time?
The decades-long battle for pay during down time or time employees prepare to work, wait to work, or wait to leave work continues. Whether working to wait before leaving for the day or waiting to work before clocking in are instances of paid time is the issue. U.S. Supreme Court justices expressed doubts recently during arguments over whether federal law requires that workers be paid for the time they take to go through security checkpoints to prevent employee theft at Amazon. Previously, the Supreme Court held that employees must be paid for the time they take to put on protective gear, but not for the waiting time associated with taking it off. Also, the Court has ruled that butchers must be paid for the time it takes to sharpen their knives as it is an essential duty to working at a meatpacking plant.
This most recent dispute involves two former employees at a Nevada warehouse who claim that their employer, Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc., required them to wait up to 25 minutes in security lines at the end of every shift. Integrity provides workers who fill customer orders for Amazon at warehouses. The intermediate appeals court had ruled that the work was payable as the anti-theft screenings were necessary to the workers’ primary work at the warehouse, and it was done for the employer’s benefit. However, certain Supreme Court justices disagreed with the workers’ attorney who argued that the work was compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), as walking through security was a principal activity of the employees’ job duties.
Chief Justice Roberts responded, “But no one’s principal activity is going through security screenings.It may be part of that… but that doesn’t make it a principal activity.” Justice Scalia opined that the security check “is not indispensable to [the warehouse work].” In reply, the workers’ attorney argued that the screening was a “discrete act” that only occurred after the workers had clocked out and handed in their tools. He stated, “It’s work because you are told to do it.”
The Obama administration is siding with the employer. The Justice Department attorney argued that the security screenings were not “integral and indispensable to the workers’ jobs.”
It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court decides this hot-button workplace wage issue. Stay tuned.
Should you have wage and hour questions or issues, please contact the Gilbert Law Group: 631.630.0100.