WSNYC Blog: The Latest in Employment Law

Earlier this week, New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon Inc., for mishandling worker safety during the Covid-19 pandemic. This lawsuit is not the first time Amazon has faced criticism for not providing a safe working environment for its employees. In 2020, workers filed several complaints against the company, including a petition signed by 600 employees  that urged the online retailer giant to improve working conditions. Attorney general, Letitia James, filed the complaint

Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Amazon will pay $61.7 million to settle allegations that the company stole Amazon Flex drivers’ tips for two and a half years. The FTC says this number represents the amount of tip money that Amazon did not give to drivers until the company became aware of the FTC investigation in 2019. FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra said, “Today, the FTC is sanctioning Amazon.com for expanding its business empire by cheating its

A new study in the American Economic Journal of Economic Policy concluded that working mothers who took paid maternity leave had better long-term health outcomes compared to women who did not have paid maternity leave. Researchers studied pregnant workers in Norway both before and after paid maternity leave became the law of the land in 1977. The study found that women who gave birth after 1977 had better health outcomes in middle age than women who did not have paid

In the past few years, the Department of Labor (DOL) launched an investigation into pay disparities affecting female and Asian employees working at Google. The agency found that these disparities impacted software engineering employees working in Mountain View, California; Seattle, Washington; and Kirkland, Washington. The investigators discovered the pay gap during a routine compliance evaluation. Additionally, the DOL identified hiring differences that disadvantaged female and Asian applicants for software engineering employees in specific locations. As a result of the DOL

Instacart has terminated ten employees working at a grocery store in Illinois who voted to form the first and only union for the grocery delivery company in early 2020. The workers unionized with The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1546. The news of their termination was “buried” in a blog post the company published in January about introducing new curbside pickup models. The blog also informed readers about further layoffs of in-store shoppers. According to the UFCW, Instacart

PricewaterhouseCoopers, a large accounting firm, reached a nearly $12 million settlement deal last month over age discrimination allegations. The lawsuit began when Steven Rabin, who was 50 years old, claimed he was wrongly denied a job because of his age. In March 2019, a federal judge conditionally certified a collective action of roughly 5,000 other individuals who also allegedly experienced age discrimination. After this certification, the parties began settlement negotiations and eventually reached a deal worth $11.6 million. 

Is On-Campus Hiring

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, employers have implemented a series of workplace changes mostly in concern of safety. Many employers have instituted a number of health safety measures such as social distancing, intense and more frequent cleaning, and mask-wearing for
their employees. These measures have followed the guidelines mandated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). To further emphasize the importance of safety during this time, President Joe Biden signed several executive orders last week, including one directed

In early January, years of activism and hard work paid off when over 400 engineers and workers at Google formed the Alphabet Workers Union, the first union at the company and one of the only unions in the tech industry. It is extremely rare for tech workers to unionize, as most Silicon Valley companies have resisted white-collar workers’ efforts to organize. The new union is associated with Communications Workers of America (C.W.A.), the largest communications and media labor union in