WSNYC Blog: The Latest in Employment Law

Kohl’s Department Stores recently agreed to pay nearly $3 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the department store chain misclassified assistant store managers as exempt from overtime pay. Last week, these assistant managers stated in a settlement motion that “the agreement with Kohl’s over their Fair Labor Standards Act claims was appropriate because the retailer continued to deny wrongdoing and might oppose their bid for collective certification” in the future, according to a Law360 article. In other words, a

The unexpected and sudden emergence of Covid-19 this past year has left many financially burdened, including Uber drivers. The U.S. unemployment rate reached 14.7 percent in April, the highest level since the Great Depression, leaving many businesses losing  profit and unable to keep employees’ jobs. As a result, many Uber drivers in upstate New York have applied for unemployment insurance benefits. Beginning in March, several employees filed cases against the company for classifying them as independent contractors and therefore denying

New York City fast food workers have new protections under a law signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio this month. Now, fast food workers may not be fired without just cause or a legitimate economic reason. Addressing the difficulty the restaurant industry has faced during the Coronavirus pandemic, de Blasio stated “a strong, fair recovery starts with protecting working people . . . These bills will provide crucial job stability and protections for fast food workers on the front lines.”

When

Partner Rachel Haskell was recently interviewed by Law360 about the federal discrimination lawsuit our firm filed on behalf of Brandon Padgett, a former paralegal at Abrams Garfinkel Margolis Bergson LLP. Haskell’s comments were featured in an article discussing the case. Padgett is accusing the company of discrimination based on his non-binary gender identity and military status. In one instance, an employee in a different department allegedly called him “Beyonce.” After Padgett reported this comment to HR, the company organized a

Coinbase, the cryptocurrency start-up based in San Francisco, has recently made headlines following accusations made by current and former employees alleging racial and gender discrimination in the workplace. As we discussed in our previous blog on Coinbase, “the company’s internal racial tensions escalated in the wake of George Floyd and Brionna Taylor’s deaths as several black employees in the tech industry demonstrated their support for the Black Lives Matter movement.” Female employees have also spoken out about their experience with

Expertise, an online service that connects users with the best local services in a wide array of fields, recently included our firm on its list of “Best Employment Lawyers in New York” for 2021. The company scored 3,113 lawyers based on availability, qualifications, reputation, experience, and professionalism. 

We are proud to say that The Law Office of Christopher Q. Davis made the top 29 out of these 3,113 employment lawyers. Expertise gave us an A+ rating in the “reputation” category and

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released their December data last Friday. In the United States, 140,000 net jobs were lost last month. The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), a non-profit that fights against gender-discrimination, said that “All of the jobs lost were women’s jobs, with women losing 156,000 jobs and men gaining 16,000.” This data means that women account for 111% of the jobs lost in December of 2020. There is a clear disparity between the genders on this issue.