Category: Articles

The struggle to help immigrant workers enforce their basic labor rights recently gained a major boost in California with the passage of new employment laws. Two laws are intended to help workers assert their rights by prohibiting retaliation, including threats of deportation. Another law makes it a crime for employers or their attorneys...

A common scenario: While conducting a public works project on a city road, city workers punctured a water pipeline that eventually flooded a home and caused structural damages and mold contamination. The family had to be relocated to a rental unit because the home was uninhabitable. The home also had to be...

In 2004, five employees of the restaurant, Chili's, filed sued their employer claiming that they were illegally denied meal and rest breaks. The employees said the restaurant regularly told them to take early lunches, often right after starting work, and the employees would keep working for up to ten hours without receiving...

The Difference May Mean Back Pay for Workers Classifying workers as ‘independent contractors' may keep labor costs down. However, this practice may be unlawful and harms the true employee. True independent contractors (ICs) are not employees and do not have the same rights and protections that employees enjoy....

Classifying workers as ‘independent contractors' (ICs) allows businesses to pass on the costs of running the business to workers. This ploy, however, did not fool the United States Court of Appeal when it ruled against FedEx Ground Package System, Inc. (FedEx) in one of the most important cases to come out in...