|
|||||
|
The Washington Post has a story about an exotic dancer who is suing the club she worked for, The House, claiming that she was an employee, not an independent contractor. Her lawsuit is based on the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Quansa Thompson, whose stage name is “Love,” was able to [...] World of Work: “Earlier this week, a federal judge approved a $2 million consent decree, finally settling an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) suit alleging that the Les Schwab Tire Center violated Title VII by discriminating against women in its 420 stores in California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. Click here to [...] The law firm of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC. has an informative article that all employers should read. It is called “20 Ways Your Independent Contractor Might Be An Employee.” The IRS is conducting audits to find employers that have improperly characterized employees of independent contractors to avoid paying payroll taxes. [...] New York Times: “Federal and state officials, many facing record budget deficits, are starting to aggressively pursue companies that try to pass off regular employees as independent contractors. . . . Many workplace experts say a growing number of companies have maneuvered to cut costs by wrongly classifying regular employees as independent contractors [...] Aaron Morris’ Business Law Alert: “Less than a month ago I wrote on the folly of terminating an employee at an inopportune time, even if your reasons are just and your motives are pure. Apparently the lawyers at Wal-Mart are not subscribers to the Business Law Alert because they did nothing to stop [...] Arizona Republic: “City violating labor practices by impeding talks, workers say. A Phoenix employees union filed an unfair labor-practice charge against the city on Wednesday, claiming that management refused to turn over requested financial data, demanded the union cut its salaries by 3.2 percent and discussed contract negotiations with the media. The American [...] Phoenix Business Journal: “Two former Phoenix call center employees from an American Express subsidiary filed a class action lawsuit Tuesday, alleging the company required them to work off the clock and through their lunch breaks without pay. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court of Arizona, alleges that American Express Travel Related Services [...] Business Law Alert: “Can you say, ‘appearance of impropriety’? On a regular basis, I get calls from companies that apparently found it essential to terminate an employee that had just announced she was pregnant, or one who had just requested a leave under the Family Medical Leave Act, or another who just filed [...] Companies with employees should never fail to pay payroll taxes not just because its required by the law, but also because people who control a company’s finances can be personally liable to the IRS for the unpaid trust fund portion of payroll taxes. Employers such as corporations (for profit and nonprofit), limited liability [...] New Federal Law Requires Some Employers to Provide Mental Health & Addiction Insurance for EmployeesArizona Republic: “Arizona employers offering health insurance to their workers must now provide the same level of coverage for treating mental-health issues and substance addictions as they do for physical illnesses, under a federal law that took effect at the start of the year. The change is expected to improve coverage for workers [...] Arizona Republic: “Outback Steakhouse has agreed to pay $19 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging sex discrimination against thousands of women at hundreds of restaurants nationwide. It is the largest-ever settlement in the Phoenix district of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which encompasses five states, including Colorado, where the case originated. There [...] Phoenix Business Journal: “Female workers at corporate-owned Outback Steakhouses nationwide with at least three years of tenure at the restaurant chain are likely to share in a $19 million settlement reached Tuesday between the company and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC and the Tampa., Fla.-based restaurant chain came to the agreement [...] Arizona Republic: “Only weeks after a new state law went into effect, the Department of Economic Security has provided federal authorities with nearly 800 names of people who tried to obtain public benefits but are believed to be illegal immigrants. House Bill 2008, which took effect last month, established new identity-verification requirements for [...] Arizona Republic: “An Arizona business felt the punitive impact of the Legal Arizona Workers Act for the first time Thursday when Golfland Entertainment Centers had its business license suspended for 10 days under the terms of a settlement reached with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. The agreement marks the first time that an [...] Arizona Business Gazette: Independent “Contractors who believe they have been the victims of employment discrimination have as much right to sue as employees, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court has ruled. The three-judge panel rejected arguments by the attorney for Yuma Regional Medical Center that only its workers are protected by the federal Rehabilitation [...] Phoenix New Times: “It isn’t every day that an administrative law judge issues a decision so juicy that it’s read all the way to the end — much less pored over with highlighters, schadenfreude, and the occasional ‘Oh, no he di’int!’ But Judge William G. Kocol’s recent decision in a National Labor Board [...] An insurance company that was paying monthly sick-leave benefits to a woman for depression terminated the benefits after it found postings on the woman’s Facebook page that showed her at a bar, partying and on vacation. The insurance company terminated the benefits because it said the Facebook postings showed she could work.
ABA Journal News: “The state Court of Appeals upheld a $5 million award of punitive damages to the then 18-year-old worker who was targeted by the fake law enforcement officer on the phone. The restaurant chain could have foreseen and prevented the incident by alerting and training employees, reports the Courier-Journal. In its [...] Wall St. Journal: “Age-discrimination claims against employers have skyrocketed in recent years. But a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June has made it harder for employees to win such cases. Here’s what’s happening in Washington in the wake of that ruling — and what you need to know if you believe you’ve been [...] Legal Blog Watch: “Further proving what your mother told you when you were five years old (“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”) is the case of Sindoni v. County of Tioga. In this bizarre case involving employees of the County of Tioga, N.Y., Sindoni, a senior [...] Digital Media Lawyer Blog: “Employers often wonder how far they have to go in preventing employees from committing crimes or torts on the Internet. In a recent decision, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals found that an employer is only required to prevent on the job misconduct that is foreseeable. But ‘employers have no [...] Wall St. Journal: “Companies Face Tougher Tests to Justify Monitoring Workers’ Personal Accounts; Rulings Hinge on ‘Expectation of Privacy’ – Big Brother is watching. That is the message corporations routinely send their employees about using email. But recent cases have shown that employees sometimes have more privacy rights than they might expect [...] Arizona Business Gazette: “Some new changes in federal law will require employers to provide free time off to workers in more situations. . . . companies that don’t alter their policies to comply could find themselves in hot water. Key to the issue is the Family Medical Leave Act, a 1993 federal law [...] Arizona Republic: “A former surgical technician at Banner Thunderbird Medical Center claims she was wrongly fired for blowing the whistle about unsanitary conditions in the hospital’s operating rooms. In a lawsuit against Banner, Susan Gipson of Peoria says the hospital ignored bugs in operating-room light fixtures, holes in operating room walls, rusty surgical [...] Phoenix Business Journal: “A Scottsdale furniture maker is the first business to be prosecuted under a state law that looks to punish employers who hire illegal immigrants. Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said Wednesday he was prosecuting Scottsdale Art Factory LLC under the Arizona Legal Workers Act. The law allows county prosecutors [...] Corporate Counsel: “You are familiar with the scenario: one of your employees leaves to go work for a competitor, but before he goes, he copies confidential information for use at his new job. While the scenario may not have changed much, the means of obtaining the information has. The days of photocopying documents [...] Digital Media Lawyer Blog: “Judge Jean Hamilton’s recent order in Lasco Foods, Inc. v. Hall and Shaw Sales, Marketing & Consulting, LLC, E.D. Missouri (October 26, 2009) held that an ex-employee who accesses information on a company-issued laptop for a purpose adverse to the company can be liable under the federal Stored Communications [...] |
|||||
|
Copyright © 2009-2010 C KEYTLaw, LLC - All Rights Reserved |
|||||
Recent Comments