Workforce Bulletin

By:  Barry Guryan and Jeff Ruzal

In a highly publicized March 23, 2010 decision, Awuah v. Coverall N. Am., Inc., 707 F.Supp.2d 80 (D. Mass. 2010), U.S. District Judge William Young for the District of Massachusetts rocked the Massachusetts business community by ruling that a group of janitorial franchisees were improperly classified as independent contractors, and that they were instead “employees” of commercial cleaning franchisor Coverall who are entitled to statutory protection under Massachusetts’ Wage laws including, among others, minimum wage, overtime pay, meal ...

By Michael D. Thompson

From restaurants in New York to childcare providers in Arkansas to the garment industry in Southern California, Department of Labor investigators continue to uncover FLSA violations by conducting unannounced workplace inspections.

Accordingly, in January, we released our Wage and Hour Division Investigation Checklist for employers and have received terrific feedback with additional questions. Following up on your questions, we will be regularly posting FAQs as a regular feature of our Wage & Hour Defense Blog.

We previously blogged about how to prepare ...

By Michael Kun

As we have written before in this space,  the latest wave of class actions in California is one alleging that employers have not complied with obscure requirements requiring the provision of “suitable seating” to employees – and that employees are entitled to significant penalties as a result.

The “suitable seating” provisions are buried so deep in Wage Orders that most plaintiffs’ attorneys were not even aware of them until recently.  Importantly, they do not require all employers to provide seats to all employees.  Instead, they provide that employers ...

By Amy Traub and Desiree Busching

Just as designers must be cognizant of copycat fashions, employers must be cognizant of copycat lawsuits.  In February of this year, Xuedan “Diana” Wang filed a lawsuit against her former employer, Hearst Corporation, on behalf of herself and others similarly situated, alleging that the company violated federal and state wage and hour laws by failing to pay minimum wage and overtime to interns working for Harper’s Bazaar.  Wang had worked for Harper’s Bazaar during the fall of 2011.  Her lawsuit was filed in February 2012, only five months ...