Bay Area Employment Lawyer Blog

For years, the battle over arbitration clauses and agreements has raged on in courts and legislatures throughout the country. The latest development in arbitration in employment in California came on Thursday in California when Governor Newsom signed AB 51. The governor’s approval of AB 51 is a victory employees throughout California- it effectively prohibits employers…

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court killed one of the few remaining mechanisms for employees to get some measure of justice for the illegal acts of their employers – class arbitrations. The National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) was enacted in 1935 to protect the right of workers to band together and engage in collective action…

Three Laotian correctional guards were subject to racial and national origin discrimination and harassment. They filed a civil lawsuit for discrimination under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, and also filed claims under California’s Workers’ Compensation Act. Ly v. County of Fresno (October 12, 2017). This sounds like the beginning of a very typical…

May 1 is International Workers’ Day, or May Day, and is a day to celebrate laborers and workers. It also commemorates workers who were killed while on strike protesting for an eight-hour work day in Chicago during what is known as the Haymarket affair. Just in time for May Day, yesterday the California Supreme Court…

When you think about it, how could a jury fail to convict a man who sexually assaulted 60 ( yes, that is SIXTY, or sixty, or OMG s-i-x-t-y) women, almost all of whose stories are eerily similar? That is, he gave them alcohol and drugs, such as Quaaludes, and then sexually assaulted them. Guilty, guilty,…

There are so many thoughts, legal theories and emotions swirling around and within me, as a 35-year lawyer (here, I mean practicing law for 35 years, not 35 years of age!) watching the #metoo movement unfold. First, social norms are so well ingrained that we, as a society, often do not question what should be…

This Ninth Circuit case addressed a typical “good ol’ boy” attitude at work: a male co-worker accused of anything – here rape of the Plaintiff co-worker – is treated with empathy and kindness. The female co-worker, who made this very serious accusation, is simply not treated as well: no support; no kindness; no concern. In…

Last month, we discussed the new changes to the Equal Pay Act that will prohibit employers from relying on an applicant’s prior salary to determine how much to pay the applicant. As happens at this time of the year, the governor signs a number of pieces of legislation, many of which impact employees. Today we…

Wage disparities between men and women continue to be a significant problem even today. In 2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that female full-time wage and salary workers only made 88% of what their male counterparts made. (https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/womensearnings_california.htm) So, for every $100 a man earns, his female counterpart only earns $88. Recently, two tech…

Recently the U.S. Justice Department submitted a brief in Zarda v. Altitude Express arguing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does not protect workers from discrimination based on their sexual orientation. Donald Zarda was a skydiving instructor who sued his employer for discriminating against him based on his sexual orientation in violation of…