WSNYC Blog: The Latest in Employment Law

In the wake of coronavirus, some businesses have provided paid-time-off for infected employees, quarantined employees, or employees with sick family members, while others have not.  Workers at Whole Foods were outraged when they received a message from the company’s CEO, John Mackey, earlier this week asking healthy employees to “donate” their accumulated paid days off to sick employees.  Mackey wrote, “team members who have a medical emergency or death in the immediate family can receive donated PTO hours, not only

France’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court of law, recently ruled that Uber should have classified a former Uber driver as an employee rather than a self-employed worker.  The ruling is the latest in a series of lawsuits against Uber for improperly treating drivers as independent contractors to save money. Other ride-sharing drivers may use the case as precedent to demand employee classification because independent contractors aren’t given the same benefits such as minimum wage, overtime, insurance, and more. 

The

Judge Woods of the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York recently granted our firm’s motion. Our firm moved to invalidate deceptive arbitration agreements on behalf of IT workers in a class-action lawsuit. The Court found that the IT employer’s new arbitration policy was instituted in bad faith. IT workers were required to sign the arbitration agreement in order to keep their jobs, essentially giving them no choice but to sign away their rights in court. Because the IT

Americans are known for working longer hours. In an average year, the typical American works 100 more hours than a Brit, 300 more hours than a Frenchman, and 400 more than a German. The typical American also takes fewer vacation days than our European counterparts. When taking on more overtime hours, some employees are hyper-focused on overtime payments and moving up the career ladder. However, there are a number of negative consequences to working longer hours that you may not

The Coronavirus outbreak is believed to have originated in a seafood market in Wuhan, China. The flu-like illness is both deadly and contagious, with thousands of cases confirmed globally and over 2,700 deaths. Symptoms include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. There are now at least 60 confirmed cases in the United States. As the virus is spreading globally, so are racist attacks against Asians. Many are comparing this discrimination to that which occurred during the SARS epidemic in 2003,

Within the next month or two, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide to what extent religious organizations may be exempt from discrimination lawsuits filed by employees. The court is considering two cases involving teachers at two Catholic schools in California. Both teachers filed wrongful termination and bias lawsuits. Generally, courts have ruled that the First Amendment prohibits anti-bias lawsuits against religious organizations for hiring or firing employees. However, some argue that all employers, regardless of their religious affiliation,

The Law Office of Christopher Q. Davis is proud to announce that our attorney Rachel Haskell was named as a rising star to the Super Lawyers New York Metro 2019 listing. We are also pleased to share that Christopher Q. Davis was named as a Superlawyer. Our attorneys know what it takes to win. We are committed to working on all employment legal needs, and our hard work delivers excellent results to clients.

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EMC Frontline, a crisis pregnancy center in New York, has sued to prevent the state from enforcing the “Boss Bill,” which the state legislature passed in 2019. The law prohibits employers from discriminating based on an applicant or employee’s beliefs about abortion. Specifically, the law states that employers may not refuse to hire someone based on the “reproductive health decisions” of an applicant or his or her dependents. Additionally, the law forbids employers from accessing “information regarding the employee’s or

Before starting work, DoorDash, the popular food delivery company, made its delivery workers sign away their right to sue. According to their contracts, disputes could only be resolved in privatized arbitration.  Privatized arbitration predominantly favors corporations over workers as it prohibits class actions, allows the employer to choose the arbitrator, and reduces damages.  While DoorDash’s policy was intended to protect the company against costly lawsuits, the policy has backfired. 

The Allegations Against DoorDash

Now that more than 5,800 of the company’s delivery

Chipotle, a beloved Mexican food chain, was recently fined $1.37 million for child labor and other state wage and hour violations in Massachusetts. Chipoltle violated earned sick time laws, failed to make timely payment of wages, and committed employee records violations. 13,253 child labor violations occurred at over 50 locations across the state. $500,000 of Chipotle’s payout will go towards a fund to be administered by the attorney general’s office. The purpose of the fund is to educate young people