“Judges rejected a bid from unpaid bloggers at the Huffington Post to revive a lawsuit against AOL that contends the company should pay them a third of the $315 million it spent last year to buy the news site.” [Alexander Kaufman, The Wrap] “The problem with plaintiffs’ argument is that it has no basis,” observed the Second Circuit. [Politico, earlier here, here, etc.]
Posts Tagged ‘wage and hour suits’
Labor and employment law roundup
- Maryland: “Montgomery County Police ‘Effects’ Bargaining Bludgeons Public Safety” [Trey Kovacs, CEI, earlier] Time to revisit “effects” bargaining for other employee groups too [Gazette]
- “A New Whistleblower Retaliation Statute Grows Up: Dodd-Frank is the new Sarbanes-Oxley” [Daniel Schwartz]
- Proposal for disclosure of “persuaders” would threaten many employers [Michael Lotito/The Hill, earlier]
- Judge greenlights union suit challenging new Indiana right to work law [RedState]
- “Discovery of Immigration-Status Denied in FLSA Case” [Workplace Prof]
- “Same Song, Umpteenth Verse – No Discrimination, Retaliation Worth $2 Million” [Fox/Employer’s Lawyer; Ithaca, N.Y.]
- NLRB on collision course with Indian tribal sovereignty [Fred Wszolek, Indian Country Today]
Gov. Brown starts vetoing
The California legislature this term chose to pass a raft of exceptionally bad legislation burdening business and employers, and Gov. Jerry Brown, perhaps mindful of the state’s ongoing poor economic performance, last week vetoed many of them [Ira Stoll, NY Sun; Steven Greenhut, City Journal] Among the vetoes: bills widening the rights of housekeepers’, babysitters’ and other domestic workers to sue their employers [earlier here, here]; greatly widening the survivors’ benefits paid for public safety workers [earlier, update]; unionizing grad student research assistants [Daily Californian] and an ostensible farmworker safety measure [Ruth Evans, Fresno Bee]
P.S. “Starts” isn’t really accurate, since, as David Boaz has pointed out, Gov. Brown cast some good vetoes last year.
Classic litigation headlines
Relating to not counting class members until they’re hatched: “Lawyer: 4 — not 3,000 — interns have joined class action suit against Hearst” [Andrew Beaujon, Poynter; Joe Lustig with more on court’s greenlighting of Hearst intern suit; more, Amy Traub and Desiree Busching at Wage Hour Law; lawyers trying similar action against Fox]
Annals of California wage and hour law
Why “we recently were forced to institute an HR policy in California that working through lunch is a firing offense.” [Coyote]
Labor and employment roundup
- “The extra UAW subsidies cost $26.5 billion… The Detroit auto bailout was, in fact, a UAW bailout.” [James Sherk and Todd Zywicki; Volokh]
- In 5-4 decision [Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham] Supreme Court rejects Department of Labor interpretation of independent contractor status [Trevor Burrus/Cato, SCOTUSBlog, Michael Fox]
- “The next battleground for the NLRB? Acting General Counsel Suggests At-Will Disclaimers May Violate NLRA” [Daniel Schwartz, earlier]
- Thoughts on labor law from David Henderson and from Jacob Levy at Bleeding Heart Libertarians; “Freeing Labor Markets by Reforming Union Laws” [Charles W. Baird, Downsizing The Federal Government]
- Aspiring Gotham cop: “Anti-gay Muslim cries bias” [NY Post]
- New York privacy law conceals misconduct in uniformed services [Tuccille, Reason]
- “The New Front in the Labor Wars Has Officially Opened in Michigan” [Shikha Dalmia]
“The new workplace revolution: wage and hour suits”
At Fortune, Jonathan Segal (Duane Morris) covers an employment-law trend much documented in these columns, though the “civil rights” construct is a bit of a distraction: the intersection of entrepreneurial lawyers, high damage possibilities, uncertain legal standards and widespread real or apparent noncompliance is enough to propel the Fair Labor Standards Act into its current prominence without any need for a discrimination angle.
Labor and employment law roundup
- Connecticut: “Medical Marijuana Bill Includes Restrictions For Employers” [Daniel Schwartz, my take earlier]
- More on Montgomery County Maryland police-disability scams [WaPo editorial, earlier] California cop-pension backlash [Greenhut]
- Highest rate of per capita EEOC charges is in Deep South [David Foley, Labor Related]
- Are unpaid internships immoral? Illegal? [David Henderson/Econlog, more]
- NLRB memo launches assault on common language found in personnel manuals [Daniel Schwartz]
- Year’s most embarrassingly awful dispute over whether employee misconduct was within scope of employment [Lowering the Bar, adult content]
- Ominously, Canadian Supreme Court has read labor union rights into the nation’s constitutional Charter, most recently in Fraser case [Workplace Prof on new book; CFLR; Roy Adams/SocialPolicy.org]
Labor and employment law roundup
- Gov. Walker’s public sector labor reforms popular with Wisconsin voters, and have saved taxpayers a fortune [Morrissey, Fund, Marquette poll (public favors new law by 50-43 margin] What would FDR say? [Dalmia, The Daily]
- “Why you should stop attending diversity training” [Suzanne Lucas, CBS MarketWatch, following up on our earlier post]
- The gang that couldn’t regulate straight: “Court rebuffs Labor Department on sales rep overtime” [Dan Fisher, Forbes] Lack of quorum trips up NLRB on “quickie”/ambush elections scheme [Workplace Prof]
- Not all claimed “gun rights” are authentic, some come at expense of the vital principle of at-will employment [Bainbridge]
- Brace yourself, legal academics at work on a Restatement of Employment Law [Michael Fox]
- “Why Delaware’s Proposed Workplace Privacy Act Is All Wrong” [Molly DiBianca]
- USA Today on lawyers’ role in growth of Social Security disability rolls [Ira Stoll]
Only 71 percent of West Coast restaurants found to violate wage/hour law
Jon Hyman is surprised the number isn’t 100 percent:
What’s amazing to me is that the percentage of non-compliant employers is only 71 percent. I remain convinced, as I’ve pointed out before, that I can walk into any company and find a wage and hour violation. The FLSA and its regulations are that complex, twisted, and anachronistic.