Archive for December 19, 2018

A new law in Hungary allows employees to work up to 400 hours of overtime every year. However, the new law also permits employers to delay overtime wage payments for up to three years. Critics call the new legislation a slave law. Labor unions have pointed out that Hungarians already struggled with low wages and poor working conditions. This new law may further damper workers’ rights in Hungary. “And now to give employers, especially multinational companies who want even lower

A recently leaked memo from Qantas, an Australian airline, asked employees to consider working voluntary and unpaid shifts during the holiday season. This volunteer initiative has angered employees and customers alike. Many have claimed that asking employees to perform unpaid work during this especially busy travel period is wage theft.

Qantas’ Request

The memo reads: “To support our airport teams at [Sydney International Terminal] over the 2018 peak Christmas travel period, we’re trialing a new volunteer program for our Campus-based people who’d

Mark S. Luckie, Facebook’s former Strategic Partner Manager for Global Influencers focused on Underrepresented Voices, recently sent a memo to Facebook employees around the world. Before his last day at the company, Luckie wanted to expose what he calls Facebook’s “black people problem.” He described several issues that black employees at the company have had to face.

Luckie’s Accusations

Black people are one of the most engaged demographics on Facebook. According to the Pew Research Center, 70% of black U.S. adults use

Another employment sector is under fire for sexual harassment in today’s #MeToo era. Female federal prison workers are coming forward to describe their experiences with sexual harassment at work. Prisoners have allegedly threatened rape, exposed themselves, and even groped female employees. To make matters worse, male employees have encouraged this unacceptable behavior and even participated in it.

New York Times Examination

The New York Times recently conducted a thorough examination of the unique challenges that female federal prison workers face. The examination

Amanda Johnson, former L’Oreal marketing vice president in New York City, has sued the cosmetics company due to racial discrimination and a hostile work environment. Johnson was first hired as an assistant vice president of digital marketing, and she quickly rose up the corporate ladder at L’Oreal. Even at the highest levels of management, however, she claims that she experienced a sexist and racist culture in L’Oreal’s c-suite. Johnson claims that L’Oreal’s sexist corporate culture involved male colleagues watching pornography

A recent New York Times investigation has found that women in physically demanding jobs lost their pregnancies after employers denied their requests for accommodations. Some employers even ignored doctor’s notes that pregnant employees provided. When the expectant mothers continued to perform such physically demanding work, they miscarried. The federal laws regarding pregnancy discrimination are vague. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act states that a company has to accommodate pregnant workers’ requests only if it is already doing so for other employees who

In the “#MeToo” era, people are becoming increasingly aware of the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace. This problem can arise in small and large companies. For example, WeWork, a New York City start-up that provides shared workspaces for tech-startups, recently has been accused of having a “frat-boy” workplace culture. Ruby Anaya, a former WeWork employee, alleges that the “frat-boy culture” enabled sexual misconduct and punished employees for coming forward.

Lawsuit Filed

Anaya filed a lawsuit against WeWork in the

Non-compete defense occurs when employees leave, compete with a former employer, and break a contract in doing so. Non-competes, which originally were used to keep top executives from taking trade secrets to rival firms, have now become common among all types of workers. For example, non-competes in the medical field – ie nurses and doctors – are particularly popular. Non-competes now cover 18 percent of all U.S. employees and have covered 38 percent of workers at some point in time.

In 2016, the wife of a Manhattan financier hired a nanny to care for her newborn. Upon discovering the race of the new nanny, she intended to send her husband a text saying “NOOOOOOOOOOO ANOTHER BLACK PERSON.” Lynsey Plasco-Flaxman, a mother of two, wrote this message upon meeting the new nanny, Giselle Maurice, for her first day at work. However, Plasco-Flaxman did not actually send this message to her husband. She accidentally sent the message to her nanny. Twice. Upon

In response to recent allegations of unfair employee treatment, Amazon said it will boost its minimum wage for all U.S. workers to $15 an hour starting in November. The decision affects more than 350,000 employees, as Amazon is one of the largest employers in the United States. Workers in customer service or operations, some of whom already make $15 an hour, will also get pay raises. A company spokesman predicted the wage increase will “have a profound impact on the