From the average American’s point of view, workplace harassment suits may be relegated to office environments--cubicle mazes filled with discrimination by cold-blooded corporate predators. However, harassment runs across all dimensions of American employment, from corporate settings, to manufacturing, to construction, and so on.  Lately, a hurricane of highly publicized lawsuits serve to expose an often ignored segment of American employment: television.  At the center of it all you will find the often regarded “nicest man on television.”

Paul Tarascio is a New York-based stage manager for live television. In January, the television professional filed a lawsuit against Jimmy Fallon, as well as many employees that work on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and NBC, claiming gender discrimination. Tarascio claims that he was replaced because Fallon prefers female stage managers. When he went to his superiors--and then to union officials--he said he was fired.

Because of the notoriety of the celebrities at the center of these types of shows, this area of law has garnered national attention.  The union-driven industry is high-powered, often ego and market driven, and moves at the speed of light. Hirings and firings are as routine on television as they are among NFL coaches. Because television is a gigantic—and extremely rich—industry, many employees may refrain from bringing an action against these networks and public figures because they fear the loss of opportunities in the industry and question whether they have the wherewithal to take on these financial giants.

A similar case involving a joke made by Jay Leno on his late night show has resulted in a lawsuit. While many of the specifics of both Leno’s and Fallon’s lawsuits are not known, the lawsuits brings to light the common misconception that celebrities are somehow exempt from State and Federal discrimination laws.  Discrimination on the basis of gender is just as illegal on a multi-million dollar television set as it is at your local Pizza Hut or any other employer in the country. The law makes no exception for the elite, nor should it.  Discrimination in any form is wrong and it is punishable by law.

If you feel you have been victimized at your place of work due to your gender or any other protected basis, then you have the right to seek counsel and assert your legal rights.  An experienced discrimination attorney can help you understand the complexities of Federal and New York workplace law as it relates to you. Call the law offices of Valli Kane & Vagnini, LLP now at (866) 441-2873 and get one of NY’s finest employment attorneys on your side.

As of February 1, the act requires that workers be notified of their wages annually. The WTPA Pay Rate form must include how much the employee is paid and when, the name and address of the employer, and allowances. The new form must be provided in English, and the employee’s primary language, if applicable. New York’s Labor Department provides translations in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Polish, and Haitian Creole. Failure to comply will result in fines up to $50 weekly.

Businesses have complained that the new paperwork burden will cost the state’s industry millions, and that the law will do little to curb shady work practices. The Wage Theft Protection Act is essentially, say critics, bureaucracy without function. However, the law may provide advantages to employers.  For example, the WTPA may prevent lawsuits from employees that sue over pay disputes.  As paperwork is a key component in all legal proceedings, this paperwork functions to protect employers in the event a dispute over pay turns into litigation.

Only time will tell if the WTPA changes the way New York does business for the better. America’s economic turmoil has been felt deeply in New York State. Entrepreneurs most often call for deregulation, citing that decreased laws and streamlined businesses will turn NY’s economy around. However, most would agree that employees need protection as well, and the WTPA’s goal is to provide that.

As the Wage Theft Protection Act forces your employers into documenting information relating to your wages, you may become aware that your employer has not been paying you properly or depriving you of certain rights relating to your pay.  If you are involved in a wage dispute in New York, then you may benefit by speaking to an employment lawyer. An expert employment attorney can help you understand the complexities of New York workplace law as it relates to you and will vigorously fight for your right to fair pay. Do not let yourself be victimized. Call the law offices of Valli Kane & Vagnini. LLP now at (866) 441-2873 and get one of NY’s most experienced and accomplished employment attorneys on your side.

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Carter Goodwin Woodson, a noted historian and pioneer in American Black History, selected February as the month that best represents Black History.  Historically, February is a month a great significance.  Most notably, February was chosen because two historical figures who had an enormous impact on the Black population were born in February.  Abraham Lincoln, our nation's 16th President was born on February 12, 1809 and Frederick Douglass, former slave and social reformist, was born on February 14, 1818.  In addition, there are a number of historical events that took place in the month of February which make it the month that best represents the movement.  We will be posting these additional facts each day during the month of February on our Facebook and Twitter pages.  Follow us to learn more...

As one of the most ubiquitous methods of business communication, email is frequently an issue as to privacy in the workplace. It is common for employees’ inboxes to fill up fast throughout the day, and it is common for employees to send several emails every day as part of their job duties. A few of these emails may be personal messages to and from your friends and family. You may also receive your share of unsolicited email (spam). You might forward information, a funny photo, or a good joke to a friend. Without your knowledge (because you barely looked at the email or you didn’t scroll down to look at the entire email), one of these emails contains sexual innuendo or improper language. Your friend not only gets the forwarded email, but so does your company’s IT department. The email is flagged for content and sent to your supervisor who will likely discipline or terminate you. Thinking your privacy has been violated, you find yourself on the defensive. However, much to your surprise, you find out, under federal and state law, there is little or no expectation to privacy in the workplace.

In most cases, actions taken against private employers for invasion of privacy have not been successful. Courts have held that:

• Employees have no legitimate expectation of privacy.
• Employers may have legitimate reasons for monitoring employee communications, such as:
  • Employers may have to protect against computer viruses.
  • Preventing workplace harassment and bullying.
  • Reviewing and archiving communications in the case of lawsuits against the company.

Employees who, for a variety of reasons, take legal action against an employer are likely to find the employer’s surveillance of the employee’s communications and actions to be used against them by the employer. This would be the same information that the employer claims they are required to monitor and archive in case someone brings a lawsuit against the company.

Though privacy in the workplace should not be expected, it does not change the fact that every United States citizen has a right to privacy under the fourth amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Also, there are state laws being considered and enacted all the time. Some of these laws under consideration are in response to rapidly changing communication and surveillance technologies.

With the rapid changes in the law and modern technology, legal issues regarding privacy in the workplace have become more complex. Also, employers have been known to use your lack of expectation of privacy in the workplace to intimidate, humiliate and to shield or hide workplace harassment. If you feel your employer has crossed the line when it comes to privacy in the workplace, you will need legal expertise to determine if you have an action. You should seek out an experienced employment law firm and set up a consultation immediately.

When you are pregnant, you may wonder when and how you are going to tell your employer. The fact is under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and other laws against discrimination, you do not have to tell your employer at all. If you can perform your work and do it well, and do not need special accommodations, your pregnancy is legally irrelevant.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act prohibits employers with more than 15 employees from discriminating against pregnant employees.It also includes local and state government employees, federal employees, employment agency employees and labor organization employees no matter how many employees they have.

Pregnancy Discrimination and Benefits Employers must provide the same benefits to all their employees whether they are pregnant or not. This includes health insurance, retirement and disability benefits. Medical conditions related to pregnancy must be covered identically to other medical conditions.Pregnancy Discrimination and Disability If a pregnant woman can do her job for a while due to a medical condition related to her pregnancy or childbirth, the employer must treat it like any other temporarily disabled employee. This means that the employer must make accommodations or provide disability leave.More Rules on Pregnancy Discrimination

• A potential employer may not ask a pregnant job candidate any questions they would not ask a candidate that was not pregnant.
• An employer may not discriminate against an employee who might get pregnant.
• An employer may not forbid a pregnant employee from doing a job for which she is fit and she wants to do.
• Jobs must be held open for pregnancy related absence for the same amount of time as for other sickness and disability.
• Employers cannot discriminate against an employee who has had an abortion or is considering getting an abortion.
• Female spouses of male employees must be provided the same level of medical benefits than the male spouses of female employees.
• Single women must be provided the same pregnancy related benefits as married women.
• Seniority, vacation, raises, promotions and other accrued benefits for pregnant women must be granted in the same way as those on leave for non-pregnancy reasons.

If you believe you may have been a victim of pregnancy discrimination due to pregnancy, childbirth or a pregnancy related medical condition, you should consult with an employment attorney as soon as possible. A reputable employment discrimination lawyer will listen to your situation and educate you on the pregnancy discrimination laws. If you have been a victim of pregnancy discrimination  an experienced employment attorney can help you recover any damages you have incurred.

Sexual Harassment and Employment Law

Sexual harassment falls under the federal employment discrimination laws. In many areas, it not only violates United States federal law, but state and local laws. Employers are obligated to take action to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace. If sexual harassment is reported to the employer, immediate action must be taken to deal with the situation. In addition, the employee reporting sexual harassment is legally protected from retaliation by the employer.

 What is Sexual Harassment?

Sexual harassment comes in many forms. Some of these forms include:

• Being directly asked for sex or sexual contact.
• Unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances. This can be requests for dates or requests for meeting outside of the workplace.
• Sexually charged speech.
• Physical contact of a sexual nature.
• Being required to function in a hostile work environment.
• Behavior deemed inappropriate to the workplace. This includes sexist and derogatory language and pornographic images in the workplace.
• Discriminatory and unfair treatment, including denial of opportunities and promotion, based on gender.

Should I Pursue a Sexual Harassment Lawsuit?

Individuals victimized by sexual harassment are often reluctant to pursue a lawsuit. They are often caught in the dilemma of fearing the potential of negative consequences of reporting sexual harassment, while knowing that action must be taken. Attorneys experienced in sexual harassment cases take great care in the way they treat clients that have been victims of harassment. Great attention will be given to the privacy of the client. And, if possible, the case will be pursued on a completely private basis through negotiations with the employer or through filings with agencies such as the EEOC which are charged with the responsibility of investigating claims of such harassment.

Whether it is sexual harassment or other forms of discrimination in the workplace, it is important to understand the rights and legal options of the worker.  If an employer has violated your rights, set up a no cost consultation with a law firm that is experienced in workplace discrimination.

Competition in the job market can be stiff

We are in an economy where jobs are at a premium. There are too many people competing for too few jobs. This puts the employers in the driver’s seat.  But whether you are on the West Coast or in New York, employment attorneys will tell you that this does not give the employers carte blanche in the way they treat job candidates.  There are laws that apply to the hiring process. These laws range from conduct of the interviewer to the basis of the decision to hire; from questions that an interviewer cannot ask to what can be considered in a hiring decision.

How Can Job Interview Questions be Illegal?

Have you ever been the victim of job discrimination?

Employers have broad latitude when it comes to the question they can ask a candidate during a job interview. However, starting in the 1960s, a series of federal employment laws have protected certain types of information. These laws shut down questions along the lines of race, religious beliefs, health, age, sexual orientation and marital status. In addition to federal law, New York State and local anti-discrimination laws lend additional protections to job candidates.

As objective as the law may try to be, New York employment attorneys will tell you that the law is far from perfect. Though an employer may not discriminate based on the color of your skin, they can discriminate based on the color of something like your tie or shoes. The employer cannot choose to hire or reject you on account of something like your religious beliefs, but they base their decision on your personality and disposition during the interview or even where you may have worked in the past. In other words, an employer can discriminate as long as they do not discriminate in an area where the law designates specific protections.

If You Have Been Discriminated Against, What Are Your Options?

So what do you do if you are asked legally out-of-bounds questions like – What is your age? Are you a Christian (Jew, Muslim, etc.) Are you planning to start a family? Are you disabled? One of your options is to tactfully point out to the interviewer that the question was illegal.  Once the interviewer is alerted, assume that the ball is in the employer’s court.  However, New York employment lawyers say that it is probably a good thing to know right up front that the company is not up to speed on employment issues or, worse yet, intentionally breaking the law.  It is certainly an indication that something worse may be around the corner if you do get hired!

Another option is to go ahead and answer the illegal question. You can answer it honestly, if you believe it will not harm you in any way.  A final option is to give a misleading answer if the question is clearly illegal.  The employer can hardly justify condemning you for lying in response to a question that violates your civil rights. No matter what you decide to do, make sure you take not of what transpires and if you feel you were not hired on account of your response, or lack thereof, you may have a claim against them for discrimination.

Finally, you may find your best option is to contact New York employment attorneys, Valli Kane & Vagnini, LLP, for a free consultation to determine if you have been discriminated against and what your legal rights are.

Starting early in the new millennium, around 2003, article after article appeared in business journals telling businesses to brace themselves. These articles warned employers that if they have been misclassifying employees, and not giving them all the pay they have earned, they should expect wage and hour lawsuits.  These articles, which appeared in high profile business journals such as the Wall Street Journal and Kiplinger’s, proved to be prophetic. Since 2003, wage and hour collective actions have exceeded employment discrimination class action lawsuits. One of the more common violations of wage and hour law is employers classifying an employee as “exempt” when in fact they are not. Exempt employees, as the name suggests, are not subject to certain wage and hour laws. When a salaried employee is misclassified as exempt, they are often unaware that they may be entitled to overtime pay.  Many time, the misclassification by the employer is a method of saving a bundle in overtime and “off the clock” pay.  While most states have a wage and hour law on the books, the federal law applied across the nation is known as the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Since the most visible impact of the FLSA has been on overtime, it is sometimes referred to as the “overtime law”.  Besides overtime and off the clock work, areas covered by the FLSA are minimum wage, child labor, and equal pay.

Excemptions to the FLSA

As discussed, some jobs are exempt from the FLSA.  Employees who legitimately fall into these exempt jobs are not entitled to minimum wage or overtime as long as the requirements for these exemptions are met.  Examples of jobs excluded from overtime rules are movie theater employees, agriculture employees, and certain commissioned retail sales positions.

There are at least three major exemptions to the overtime law under the FLSA, the Executive/Management, Professional and Administrative Exemptions. Traditionally, the positions falling into these categories are classified as exempt, salaried positions.  However, often they are not.  The exemption that creates the most legal controversy is the Executive/Management Exemption.  Many employers assume that if they classify an employee as management and that employee is salaried at a minimum of $23,600 per year, that employee is exempt. This is a misconception. In addition to the employee merely being classified as management, the employer has to demonstrate the employee is truly working in management and actually has authority and supervises at least two individuals. In fact, an employee is subject to a duties test to determine whether they fit into the exemption. This test involves meeting objective standards to determine if that employee is truly part of management and is not being passed off as management to avoid overtime pay and other FLSA requirements. If the test finds that an employee classified as management has primary duties not involving management, there has been a misclassification as a salary employee and that employee is not exempt from being governed by the FLSA. As such, such an employee would be entitled to be paid for any hours of worked performed over 40 in a work week at the rate of time and half.  Under the FLSA, the employee is also entitled to liquidated damages equaling the amount of overtime pay withheld from the employee, as well as interest and attorney’s fees.

If you think you have been misclassified or are owed overtime pay or minimum wage, you can contact the U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division or Valli Kane & Vagnini, LLP to learn what your rights are.

Downloads:

1. Panda Express Overtime Complaint
2. Court Order Conditionally Certifying Overtime Class
3. Notice to join Panda Express Lawsuit (English)
4. Notice to join Panda Express Lawsuit (Chinese)

Public Accommodations

Most people agree that public accommodations should be free from policies that discriminate. Texas has no statewide law prohibiting such discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, sexual orientation, or physical handicap. Some local governments have passed ordinances prohibiting discrimination in public places. This has resulted in confusion as to what is legal from one municipality to the next. Texas civil rights and discrimination attorneys claim this highlights the need for statewide legislation.

Discrimination in the Workplace

According to state law in Texas, civil rights in the workplace exist in many areas including employees’ race, age, gender, religion, national origin or disability. However, Texas civil rights and discrimination state law does not extent to sexual orientation. Texas civil rights and discrimination attorneys maintain that policies that favor non-discrimination are good business.

Discrimination in Education

According to Texas civil rights and discrimination laws there are no specific prohibitions stopping a public educational institution from discriminating on account of race, ethnicity, color, gender, disability, sexual orientation, disability, religion or national origin of the student or the parent of the student. There are laws in place prohibiting student on student harassment covered under bullying codes. However, there are no similar laws covering discrimination and harassment originating from employees of the educational institution.

Discrimination from Insurance Companies

Insurance companies are prohibited from discrimination because of race, ethnicity, color, gender, disability, marital status, disability, religion, geographic location or national origin. However, Texas civil rights and discrimination laws make no provision for the prohibition based on sexual orientation and sexual identity. This discrimination can take form of higher rates, refusal to insure, limited coverage, extent of coverage and nature of coverage.

Since in Texas, civil rights and discrimination protection does no extent to sexual orientation and transgender people when it comes to insurance coverage, many insurance companies deny coverage for procedures related to transgender and sexual orientation issues.  Many are refused coverage for procedures because of their transgender and sexual orientation status and are required to put off the procedure or pay for it out of pocket when it should have covered by the insurance premium to begin with.