Articles Posted in employee rights

New York recently joined the growing number of states that allow employers to pay workers with payroll debit cards. Instead of a paper check or direct deposit into a banking account, wages are placed on a payroll card for the employee to use at his leisure. Prior to this new legislation, direct deposit was the…

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is taking a stance to protect transgender workers from employment discrimination.  Though there is currently no federal statute expressly prohibiting this type of discrimination, the EEOC has chosen to pursue these matters under the sex discrimination clause of Title VII. One recently decided case involved a transgender employee working for a…

A $188 million judgment for damages has Wal-Mart officials asking the United Supreme Court to step in. The dispute started with a Pennsylvania class action lawsuit, involving approximately 187,000 Wal-Mart employees who worked for the company between the years of 1998 and 2006. The employees alleged that they were forced to skip breaks or otherwise…

In Michigan this week, bipartisan legislation was signed protecting mothers who nurse their children in public from discrimination and prosecution. 45 states now have some form of law allowing women to breastfeed in public or private locations. The “Breastfeeding Anti-Discrimination Act” allows a woman to breastfeed a child in any public place. Public places include,…

The California Supreme Court defined some parameters of employment law regulations when it ruled in favor of an illegal immigrant/undocumented worker who sued an employer for an unlawful firing.  The employer tried to argue that the fact the worker was undocumented was a form of misconduct that justified the termination, but the Court was not swayed.…

An employee fired just days after coming back from medical leave, has won over $100,000 as well as attorneys’ fees and costs. By firing the employee, the employer violated the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) that says that you cannot fire an employee on FMLA leave without a legitimate reason. The timing of…