WSNYC Blog: The Latest in Employment Law

On Friday, June 5, a California federal judge announced that after 14 years of litigation, a prominent gender discrimination suit against Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. will go to trial. Betty Dukes, the lead plaintiff in the formerly large class action, is a past Wal-Mart greeter who alleges that she observed widespread gender bias during her time as an employee. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer preserved several of Dukes’ allegations, along with those of four other women, including the claim that

Last week, one of our blog articles covered the risk of worker misclassification in tech start-ups like Uber and Airbnb. According to recent articles from Think Progress and New York Magazine, however, a much older profession is also consistently subject to worker misclassification and consequent employee abuse: the hairstyling industry.

Only 10% of hair salons rely on direct employees, which means that the other 90% are either privately owned by individuals or hire independent contractors. Journalist Bryce Covert at Think Progress reports

On Wednesday, June 3, four former CVS employees filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Manhattan, claiming that staff in CVS stores throughout New York City discriminated against African-American and Hispanic customers, profiling them and referring to them with slurs and racial epithets. The plaintiffs are suing the national pharmacy chain itself, as well as some of its managers, for reportedly directing the workers to keep an eye on certain customers under racially-motivated suspicion of larceny, ordering them, among

A recently announced class action lawsuit against Victoria’s Secret in California brings to light national concerns about “call-in” work schedules. The suit coincides with an investigation into on-call scheduling in New York by the state attorney general’s office.

Employees who are assigned call-in shifts are not guaranteed any work or pay for that particular day—rather, they are forced to remain available for hours before their shift, and call in to work well in advance to see whether the company needs them

On Tuesday, June 4, U.S. District Chief Judge K. Michael Moore conditionally certified two classes of Burger King Corp. employees who have accused the chain of misclassifying employees in order to exempt them from overtime pay and therefore save on labor costs. Plaintiff Ronald Joseph Torres Roman, at this stage in the litigation process, has shown that there are sufficient similarities in the treatment and situation of other trainee coaches and sales and operation coaches who have joined the suit.

Torres

Natavia Lowery already had a record of identity theft and embezzlement when she stole $30,000 from her boss Linda Stein and clubbed her to death with a piece of exercise equipment. There were no warning signs of her criminal record or personal history before she was hired by Douglas Elliman, Stein’s real estate company. Lowery was previously accused of stealing $3,000 while working at a Virginia church and had several arrest warrants. She was eventually convicted of second-degree

With transportation start-up Uber enjoying a valuation increase from $18 billion to over $41 billion in a matter of months—jumping as much as $15 billion in a single week—the “digital middleman” labor model is on the rise. Like many recently successful start-ups, the company operates by providing a platform for independent contractors in place of hiring employees, a system that appeals to people seeking to earn money outside of traditional long-term, hourly employment. However, recent class-action suits have proven that

In late 2013, the Obama administration announced the imminent extension of minimum wage and overtime pay protections to the nearly two million Americans who provide home care, including health care, to the elderly and disabled. The new regulation is in effect as of January 1, 2015.

As a result of changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s primary wage and hour law, workers who provide home care services—including certified nursing assistants, home health care aides, personal care aides, home

In late 2014, a three-member panel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concluded that Triple Play Sports Bar and Grille had violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) when it fired two employees over comments made on Facebook disparaging the restaurant’s owner, deeming the event an instance of wrongful termination.

The case began in January 2011 when waitress Jillian Sanzone discovered that she, along with several other coworkers, mistakenly owed state taxes on her wages. Shortly after the incident, a

The Law Office of Christopher Q. Davis is serving as co-lead class counsel on behalf of all Administrative Managers employed with the City of New York and affiliated with Local 1180 of the Communications Workers of America in a highly publicized discrimination lawsuit. In April, the EEOC made a probable cause determination that the City engaged in a broad pattern of discrimination, paying minorities and women substantially less than their white male counterparts. After completing its investigation, the federal commission recommended