WSNYC Blog: The Latest in Employment Law

Merrill Lynch recently settled a class action lawsuit from 51 employees who claimed to have never been paid overtime wages. The employees were responsible for reviewing broker emails. These compliance employees were allegedly misclassified as exempt from overtime. Therefore, they were never paid time and a half their usual rate when they worked any hours over 40. The employees were scheduled to work from 8:30 to 5:30, but they regularly worked longer hours and from home. Under the Fair Labor

Age discrimination occurs when an employee or job candidate is treated less favorably on the basis of his or her age. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) outlaws age discrimination in the workplace. The ADEA protects workers who are aged 40 or older. Age discrimination can still occur when the discriminator is also over the age of 40. With Baby Boomers getting older, this type of discrimination is becoming more common than ever. 1 out of 5 workers between

A non-compete agreement is a contract that restricts an employee from working for a competitor during the employment period and for some time after its conclusion.  It is typically presented to you on your first day of work, in a promotion offer, or alongside a severance package. Non-compete lawsuits have tripled since 2000–a fact that companies claim is only natural in an economy that is based on knowledge more than on manual labor. As a result, non-competes, which were once

The U.S. Department of Labor has recently stated that live-in superintendents must earn overtime wages from their employers according to federal law. These employees are advised to keep personal records of all hours worked. Live-in superintendents should earn time and a half their usual rate of pay for any hours worked over 40 in a given workweek. 

Conflicting federal and state laws

There has been recent confusion on whether conflicting federal or state laws apply to live-in superintendents. Under New York’s state

The former CEO of a start-up company providing shared office spaces called WeWork has been accused of pregnancy discrimination by his former Chief of Staff, Medina Bardhi.  Adam Neumann, the company’s “charismatic” and “highly impulsive” founder, was ousted from WeWork after a failed attempt to take it public this past September.  Bardhi’s allegations in her federal complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) are not exceptional or isolated. Numerous court filings and accusations from female workers depict a company

Institutional Investor’s All-America Research Team ranks stock analysts annually. Many dismiss the ranking system as a popularity contest, but it has been known to make or break careers on Wall Street. 4,000 investment professionals are asked each year to rank their favorite equity analysts and research providers on Wall Street. A recent study analyzed whether there was gender bias and whether analysts were rewarded or penalized for their good looks. The findings reveal a pronounced gender bias based on beauty

Google’s employees have accused the company of installing a surveillance tool onto their computers to monitor attempts to organize unions or protests. The tool reports staff who try to make calendar events with more than 100 participants or 10 meeting rooms to executive employees at Google.  Employees allege that the tool is aimed towards preventing them from mobilizing and learning about workers’ rights.

The Accusations against Google

After the discovery that an internal Google team was developing this policy earlier this month,

The Washington State Civil Rights Initiative, first passed in 1998, outlaws racial preferences in public employment, contracting, and college admissions. At the time, the bill passed with 58% of the vote. People in Washington state now face a vote to roll back this law. The Democratic-controlled state legislature attempted to overturn the ban on preferential treatment. The new proposal allows for the following: “an individual’s race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, age, the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability,

A jury awarded a former Walmart employee from Wisconsin $5.2 million in punitive and compensatory damages for a disability discrimination lawsuit. The case found that Walmart was in violation of federal law when it refused to reasonably accommodate the employee’s disabilities. This employee is deaf, visually impaired, and has an additional developmental disability. He worked as a cart pusher for 16 years.

New Walmart Manager Refuses to Accommodate Disability

The employee in question had his disabilities accommodated for the majority of the

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans employment discrimination “on the basis of sex.”  This past Tuesday, the Supreme Court was fundamentally divided on whether or not this federal law should encompass discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.  For two hours, the nine liberal and conservative justices debated on two cases involving sexual orientation discrimination and one case involving discrimination against a transgender person.  The debate particularly focused on whether or not providing LGBTQ employment