FAIR EMPLOYMENT & HOUSING DISCRIMINATION LAWS

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In order to win a discrimination lawsuit in California for failure to promote due to racial discrimination, an employee must demonstrate that: (1) the employee is a member of a protected class; (2) the employee applied for and was qualified for an open job; (3) the employee was rejected for that job; and (4) rather than filling the position the employer left it open or filled it with a worker outside the protected class at issue. An employee cannot successfully argue that he or she has a successful discrimination lawsuit based on the fact the employer lied about the reason that it actually fired the employee or failed to give the employee a raise or promotion.  Employment laws prohibit intentional discrimination committed against California employees, not lying. While evidence of the employer's lying might suggest it had cause to hide its true discriminatory reasons for why it actually decided not to hire or promote the employee, there still must be evidence supporting a rational inference that the alleged racial or age discrimination was the true cause of the employer's actions.

Disparate treatment and disparate impact discrimination claims are separate and distinct. Under California employment laws, Liability in a disparate-treatment case depends on whether the protected trait actually motivated the employer's decision to discriminate against the employee. By contrast, disparate-impact claims involve employment practices that are facially neutral in their treatment of different groups but that in fact fall more harshly on one group than another and the employer cannot justify the discrimination by business necessity. 


As with racial discrimination laws, an employee's allegations of employer retaliation under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act require that the employee prove: (1) the employee engaged in protected activity; (2) the employer subjected the employee to an adverse employment action such as demoting or firing the employee; and (3) a causal link existed between the protected activity and the employer's action exists.  In order for the employee to establish that the employer damaged the employee as a form of retaliation, the employee can show that the employer knew the employee made a complaint against the employer when the employer subjected the employee to demotion or termination.

The Truth About California Wage and Hour Class Action Lawsuit

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In California, many employers violate state employment laws. However, it is difficult for employees to find employment attorneys to represent them in these cases for many different reasons. The first reason why employees have a difficult time finding an attorney when a big company commits labor law violations is that the worker does not have the money to pay an attorney. The second reason why it is hard to find a California discrimination or wrongful termination attorney is because in some discrimination claims attorneys fees can go both ways and therefore it is not economically viable for attorneys to take the claims on a contingency basis. The final reason is that the damages in wrongful termination and discrimination lawsuits are difficult to prove. Often times, the employee is already working at a new job and therefore future lost wages are unavailable for the employee. As a result of these reasons, many employers get away with labor code violations, or do they?

California has very strict wage and hour laws. Often times, employees in the state seek an attorney because they think that their workplace rights have been violated. Perhaps a discrimination or wrongful termination violation. Many times, the employee is right: the employer fired the employee for some discriminatory reason such as pregnancy discrimination or race discrimination. Although the employee has a difficult time finding an attorney for the reasons described above, the employee may not know that his or her wage and hour violations were violated.

Under California overtime laws, employers must pay employees overtime compensation for all hours worked in excess of eight hours in a single workday and under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the California Labor Code employers must pay employees overtime compensation at one and a half times the employees regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of forty 40 hours in a single workweek. Often times, employers pay employees a salary and tell the employees that because they are paid a salary, they are not entitled to be paid overtime. The employees often take the employers word for it and work a lot of overtime hours without additional compensation.

Although employees may have difficulty finding an attorney to take their case for discrimination or harassment in the workplace, the employee will likely not have time finding an attorney to take their case on a contingency fee basis under a wage and hour legal theory. If plead correctly, the wage and hour claims do not give rise to two way attorneys fees and the benefits of litigating overtime claims in California are many. Meanwhile, in the wage and hour class action lawsuit, the employees still get to litigate their discrimination and harassment claims because the employer usually takes the employee's deposition and the employee gets a chance to explain how the employer's conduct was discriminatory. Although on the complaint discrimination is not named as the cause of action, at the end of the day wage and hour overtime class action attorneys enable employees to find attorneys that will help them fight back against big companies. The lawyers front all the litigation costs and the employees never pay the overtime attorneys unless the overtime lawyers win them money.

CALL CENTER WAGE & HOUR LAWS

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California employees are entitled, under the relevant wage and hour laws, to compensation for all hours worked. The law requires employers to pay employees overtime compensation at one and a half times the employees regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of eight hours in a single work day. Employees are also supposed to be paid overtime when they work more than forty hours in the same workweek. The failure to pay employees overtime pay in either of these scenarios is a violation of state and federal overtime laws.

Some companies hire call center employees that work at home as independent contractors, when in fact these virtual call center employees should be making compensation for all of the time they work. For instance, an employer may higher an employee and agree to pay that employee a certain rate for all of the time the employee is actually on the phone with the customers. As a result, the call center company is likely violating state wage and hour laws by failing to pay the virtual call center employees for all hours worked.

Despite the fact that many companies consider call center employees to be independent contractors, under California employment laws, it does not matter what the employer calls you or that the agreement actually calls you an independent contractor. Contact an employment law attorney at Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik today if you are working for a company from your home as a call center employee and you are not paid for all of the hours you work. You may be eligible to join or start a class action lawsuit to recover significant damages if you have a valid claim.

WAGE LAWS ON MANDATORY TRAINING TIME

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Under California wage and hour laws, employers are required to pay all non-exempt hourly employees for attending mandatory company meetings. This means that when workers in California are required to go to a meeting, regardless of whether or not the meeting is held in person at the company or another location, or even a webinar held over the Internet, the employee is entitled to compensation at the regular rate of pay if the meeting time falls within the first 8 hours of the workday and 40 hours within the workweek. However, if mandatory meeting time pushes employees past the 8 hour workday or 40 hour workweek, California employees are entitled to overtime pay for the time spent attending mandatory meetings.

California employees are also entitled to compensation for attending mandatory training. If your former or current employer makes you perform job training off-the-clock and without compensation, contact a California employee compensation lawyer today to learn about how to get reimbursed for training time.

In particular, training typically occurs in the computer industry. Often times, computer hardware engineers, code writers, ans other computer professionals and technicians work off the clock training for the job without compensation. This can add up to a lot of unpaid compensation if these computer employees are working off the clock training for the job several hours a week. However, it is not uncommon for these computer industry workers to perform job duties off the clock and without pay because computer positions require a high degree of skill and in order to complete the job to a satisfactory level, the computer professionals must undergo such training. Computer professionals that are training for a professional position with a computer company are non-exempt from overtime laws, meaning that these employees must be paid overtime compensation for all hours worked in excess of 8 in a workday, 40 in a workweek and in excess of 6 consecutive workdays in the same workweek.

The Sales Rep Overtime Saga Roars On: California Employment Law Firm Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik Files Lawsuit against Merck alleging Overtime Labor Code Violations

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If my contract is set for 10 hrs a day, and i work more then that without any paid extra hours, what should i do? - California Employment Law Questions & Answers - Justia Legal Answers

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