Posts Tagged ‘ California Overtime ’
California Overtime at the Car Wash: Are Inspection Numbers for Real?
November 2nd, 2009. By AbiK
By now you’ve read the news about the California Labor Commissioner imposing close to $1 million in fines after a statewide investigation of the California carwash industry.
The investigation went as follows:
42 investigators
did
230 car wash inspections
netting
141 citations
for
103 car wash businesses
The citations issued total $916,711.
Ok, great. There’s some progress. But here’s the part I’m having a hard time swallowing (as reported at Reuters; the bold is mine)…
Investigators found 49 businesses that failed to provide workers’ compensation coverage for their employees. Citations issued totaled $240,000 and businesses without workers’ compensation
A Fair and Just Legal System Also Needs Moderation
October 9th, 2009. By Hunter West
Important as it is for citizens to have legal recourse to sue in order to right a wrong, do you sometimes wonder if things are getting a bit out of hand?
Case in point: in 2002 a detective with the New York Police Department (NYPD) accidentally shot himself in the knees while sitting on a chair and trying to holster his revolver. The following year he retired on a three-quarters disability pension and is now employed as a court officer in South Carolina making $24,000 annually.
He also sued the City of New York and last November was awarded $4.5 million in damages by a jury.
For accidentally shooting himself in the knee. For that kind money maybe we should all do that.
Obviously, the former NYPD man found himself a talented lawyer who presumably argued that the revolver, issued by the department, was faulty. As the NYPD is an agent of the City, the Big Apple would be on the hook.
Keep in mind that if we are injured, or victimized in concert with a situation or event through no fault of our own, we should have the right to seek compensation.
Case in point: the scores of women who have unknowingly put themselves in harm’s way by simply subscribing to Yaz birth control. They believed Yaz (and Yasmin) to be a safe and effective oral contraceptive, only to find out the hard way about risks for life-threatening blood clots and thrombosis. Women—painfully young, healthy women—have died.
And then there are the thousands of California workers who are robbed of their right to claim,
Jack in the Box workers most likely get Jack in Overtime Lawsuits
October 5th, 2009. By AbiK
Hey, these are tough times. Just about every business is feeling the pinch and some, like a collection of Jack in the Box franchises owned by Roseville, California developer Abe Alizadeh, are feeling so pinched that they’re filing for bankruptcy protection. “Protection” is a key word here—and it’s the word folks like Patricia Morgan are focusing in on because it’s the word that’ll keep the likes of her and potentially 5,300 former co-workers of hers out of any settlement for unpaid overtime, unpaid hourly wages, and compensation for being required to work during rest breaks and unpaid lunch periods.
Morgan was fired from her job at Jack in the Box in 2008. As reported in the Sacramento Bee, it seems Morgan may have been having an “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” moment over the working conditions on the overnight shifts at Jack in the Box. Only thing is, she got canned before she perhaps was fed up enough to just walk on her own.
Ah, but then the truth (alleged!) came out and it seems there was a root cause for Morgan’s disenchantment with her working conditions. They sucked. Things like having to attend to
Steve Poizner: CA has “extreme labor laws”…huh?
September 28th, 2009. By AbiK
That was a quote taken from potential California gubernatorial candidate (and state Insurance Commissioner) Steve Poizner at the California Republican State Convention on Sept. 26th, as reported on in the Los Angeles Times.
Extreme? How you ask? Well, Poizner seems to think that having California labor laws that require overtime pay to kick in after 8 hours are worked in a given day is a bit extreme. He points out that “almost every other state” only requires overtime to kick in after a full 40-hour week has been worked.
Here’s the part I find interesting though—I’ll let you read the excerpt first:
Third part of my plan is to align our labor laws with the rest of the country. Now, I’ve been an employer; a lot of you have hired folks, a lot of you care about workers just as much as anybody. Why does California have to have extreme labor laws that make us stick out like a sore thumb?
Week Adjourned: 6.26.09
June 26th, 2009. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
Quiet Company…loud ex-employees? Seems some former Northwestern Mutual (NML) employees missed the “Shhhh!” memo when they worked there. The Milwaukee-based life insurance giant has been slapped with a $200 million class action lawsuit by former employees who allege NML violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and California’s overtime and minimum wage laws. Their complaint also states that NML “intentionally and repeatedly” misclassified sales employees as independent contractors: independent contractors are exempt from federal and state wage and hour laws, while full-time employees are not.
Any of this sound familiar? It should. NML was sued on similar allegations in Pennsylvania in 2008. That time around NML won the lawsuit, which resulted in their being able to maintain their financial representatives as ‘independent contractors.’ According to media reports, NML has about 7,000 “financial representatives nationwide.” Be interesting to see if history does repeat itself here.
Fill ‘er kinda up? If you’ve been running out of gas sooner than expected—and I’m referring to propane here, check your cylinder. If it’s from Blue Rhino and AmeriGas, you might be interested to know that they are facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that they reduced the amount of propane provided in tanks sold as ‘full’ without telling their customers.
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