Home-Care Workers Not Entitled to OT

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that home health-care workers are not entitled to overtime pay under federal law.

The opinion today by Justice Stephen Breyer upheld a Labor Department regulation that exempted the workers from the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Los Angeles Times reports.

“The court’s ruling is another blow to struggling, low-wage women,” says Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center.

Jun 11, 2007 8:00 PM CDT

Bill Would Boost Pay-Bias Claims

A former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is leading an effort to introduce legislation that will overturn a recent Supreme Court ruling on pay discrimination.

The court ruled on May 29 in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. that Title VII pay disparity complaints must be filed with the EEOC within 180 days of the original pay discrimination.

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who oversaw the EEOC in the late 1970s, has met with House and Senate staffers about drafting a new law to change the 180-day limit, Legal Times reports.

Jun 11, 2007 12:33 PM CDT

Big Labor Boutique Raids Orlando Rival

The nation’s biggest labor boutique has set up shop in Orlando, Florida, with six attorneys raided from the local office of a rival multistate employment firm. Littler Mendelson, headquartered in San Francisco, opened an Orlando office on June 1 staffed with six attorneys from Fisher & Phillips, which has offices…

Jun 5, 2007 9:25 PM CDT

Family-Status Bias Bill Passes Calif. Senate

“Familial status” would be protected from discrimination under a measure passed yesterday by the California Senate. The proposed law would bar employers from discriminating against workers who care for children, sick spouses or aging parents. The bill is one of the first in the country, the Los Angeles Times reports.…

Jun 1, 2007 7:14 PM CDT

Wal-Mart Class Action OK’d

The New Jersey Supreme Court is permitting Wal-Mart employees to pursue a class-action suit that claims they were forced to work off the clock. The court ruled yesterday in Iliadis v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (PDF) that a class action is superior to other methods as a way to adjudicate the…

Jun 1, 2007 3:19 PM CDT

GE Lawyer Claims Gender Bias

Jun 1, 2007 1:35 PM CDT

Ginsburg Removes the White Gloves

Justices read dissents from the bench in only a handful of cases each year. But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has done it twice this term, reading forceful dissents in decisions on abortion and pay discrimination. The collegial Ginsburg has gone years without delivering an oral dissent, the New York Times…

May 31, 2007 2:37 PM CDT

Pay-Bias Ruling Good News for Corporations

Business groups are applauding yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling that makes it easier for employers to defend pay discrimination suits brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The court held that the 180-day limit for filing a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission under Title VII begins running…

May 30, 2007 1:23 PM CDT

Equal Pay Case Fails Before High Court

The U.S. Supreme Court has limited workers’ ability to sue for equal pay violations in a 5-4 decision interpreting the statute of limitations. The court held today that the time for filing a pay discrimination complaint begins running with the original salary decision and there is not a new violation…

May 29, 2007 4:10 PM CDT

Court Interprets Statutes More than Constitution

Forty-one out of 73 cases accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court this term deal with statutory issues, a breakdown that is not all that unusual. More than half the court’s cases are statutory, according to an article in the New York Times. An example of a statutory case is a…

May 29, 2007 1:28 PM CDT

Employers Leery of EEOC Family-Bias Agenda

Employers fear the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will draft a new rule that will make it more difficult to defend claims of family responsibility discrimination. More than 100 lawsuits are pending that claim employers discriminated against workers because of their family care-giving responsibilities, according to the National Law Journal. Such…

May 29, 2007 12:48 PM CDT

Gov. Signs, Questions Okla. Anti-Immigrant Bill

An anti-immigrant bill signed by the Oklahoma state governor this week won’t be effective until Nov. 1, but is already raising concerns about how it will be enforced. Among those expressing such concerns, the Houston Chronicle reports: Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat. “State leaders should closely monitor the impact of…

May 10, 2007 9:29 PM CDT

Md. Has First Statewide ‘Living Wage’ Law

Maryland’s governor signed the nation’s first statewide “living wage” law this week, requiring state contractors to pay workers at least $8.50 per hour and $11.30 per hour in expensive urban areas. There are similar local ordinances elsewhere in the country, but worker rights advocates say this is the first statewide…

May 9, 2007 11:59 PM CDT

Blogging Liability Lessons from ‘The Office’

An employment lawyer is using her blog to speculate on what plaintiffs could recover for management gaffes portrayed on the hit NBC TV show The Office. Julie Elgar, a labor and employment lawyer with Ford & Harrison in Atlanta, has new recovery figures each week, according to the ABA Journal.…

May 4, 2007 6:58 PM CDT

Law Firm Lesson Not Learned in Law School

To Anthony Ciolli, not censoring the AutoAdmit Web site he worked on was a First Amendment issue, even though he reportedly admitted that sexist, racist and just plain rude comments posted there could sometimes be offensive. But it has also recently become an employment issue for the 23-year-old third-year law…

May 4, 2007 12:19 AM CDT