Unfortunately it isn’t just in carwashes and coffee shops that workers are being cheated out of their wages. In an effort to minimize expenditures, it is becoming more and more commonplace for companies to scrimp on spending anywhere they can. It starts with missing breaks and meal times. According to Federal and State law, if you work an eight hour shift you are entitled to two 15 minute breaks away from work, and one half hour meal break. When your boss stops allowing these, they must pay you for this time and there are penalties for making you work through them.

Additionally, restaurants and construction jobs are ripe for underpayment. Workers are continually being paid less than the minimum wage, now $8.00 an hour in California, and timesheets are reflecting part-time rather than full-time hours. This is no less than stealing money right out of your pocket.

Further, many of these bosses are especially discriminatory to immigrant workers. Threatened with deportation, employees are too scared to report these illegal tactics to the labor commission for fear of being fired or losing their work visa, or worse deportation. According to whistle-blowing laws, you are protected if you report suspected illegal activity of your employer from being retaliated against in any manner. This means they cannot fire you, deport you, take away your visa, or hold your wages if you report them.

If you are a victim of any of these illegal employment practices, there is hope. The Law Offices of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg have experience at winning back these lost wages for workers just like you. Call them today at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation in California regarding your legal rights and how one of our experienced employment lawyers may be able to help you.

In a recent class action verdict by the San Diego Superior Court, Starbucks was ordered to give back over $105 million in shared tips that were taken from baristas since the year 2000. It seems that as Starbucks’ stock fell in the market, Supervisors began a new scheme of pooling tips and dividing them amongst the baristas and themselves. This was blatantly against the rule as these managers were already compensated above and beyond the low-waged baristas who used those tips to enhance their minimal wages to make a decent paycheck.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs hoped that the verdict would send a message to all employers that regardless of whether or not they are a large corporation, every company must follow the labor code which was enacted to protect the lowest level workers in the service industry.

This verdict comes among a recent trend of large companies trying to increase profits and cut spending by reducing or short-changing their low-to-minimum wage workers. The labor law and the recent court rulings are clear; this is not an acceptable way to manage a company. While this verdict is solely for the baristas of Starbucks between the year 2000 and when the trial started, it shows that the law is on your side if you find that you are being cheated of your rightful wages. Call the Law Offices of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg in California at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation regarding your legal rights and how one of our experienced employment lawyers may be able to help you.

What is this glass ceiling? It is simply the imaginary line that minorities and women can’t seem to cross to get into the top positions at a company. While they may be just as qualified, they can’t seem to get promoted, or get the pay and recognition of their male white colleagues. Additionally, many get pushed into taking non-executive roles in administration or lateral moves that prevent a higher pay raise.

While more women and minorities are becoming better educated, and better represented in the workforce, they are still not rising to the top positions. According to a UC Davis study done in October of 2007, ‘[a]bout half of California businesses do not have female executives, only 3 percent have women CEOs, and business women’s progress in the state has been ‘negligible’. ‘The study examined 400 of the largest publicly traded companies with headquarters in California, with the smallest company pulling in $128 million a year.’ With these kinds of statistics in the large companies in California, the problem is even more widespread when looking to smaller companies as well.

The problem isn’t limited to women alone though. Many of the men who advance to top positions are White-Anglo Saxons. ‘[M]inorities seeking success in the workplace regularly encounter a variety of roadblocks…’ many of their successes are ‘attributed to affirmative action or luck, and not skill and talent as with their white peers. To overcome these obstacles, minorities often find they must perform above and beyond what is expected in order to get the same treatment of others that have lower levels of performance, and still many continue to earn significantly less than their white peers.’

Many times this glass ceiling affects the entire office where you work. If you and others at your California place of work are not being promoted due to your race, ethnicity, or gender, call the Law Offices of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation regarding your legal rights and how the law may be able to help you.

The attorneys at the Law Offices of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg have over 50 years combined experience defending the rights of families, working mothers and fathers, and those who have experienced wrongful termination, discrimination and harassment due to a medical disability and pregnancy. Under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (‘FMLA’), you may be entitled to job security for a reasonable amount of time due to a medical condition of your own, your family member or even to care for a new child. Additionally, some employers may provide even more compensation or time off for these situations. It is important to know your company’s policy and to be given all of your legal rights.

However, not all employers support the FMLA or even know about it, but that does not mean that you are not entitled to all of the support that the law provides. The experienced and knowledgeable attorneys at Law Offices of David H. Greenberg will handle every aspect of your case, from the free initial consultation to a full trial if needed. Our trained attorneys are experienced in and out of the courtroom, and know how to work to get you the best possible outcome for your case. We take cases on a contingency fee which means that you pay nothing up front. The lawyers at Law Offices of David H. Greenberg are concerned with getting your case heard and settled, and we only get paid if you do. If you are employed in California and you feel that your employer has not given you the appropriate reasonable accommodation or family medical leave, call the Law Offices of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation regarding your legal rights and how the law may be able to help you.

Pregnancy Discrimination is still an unfortunate problem in today’s workplace and being discriminated against for pregnancy in California is no exception. Whether it is because an employer does not want to have their employee miss workdays or because they are concerned that the woman will not be able to do her job effectively, it is discrimination the same as any other type of illegal discrimination. What does this mean for you? It means that an employer cannot refuse to hire you because you are pregnant as long as you can ably perform the functions of your job. Additionally, they cannot discriminate based on where you are in the term of your pregnancy, your future plans to become pregnant or prejudices ‘of co-workers, clients and customers.’

Additionally, if you are pregnant on the job, you may not be fired simply because you find certain tasks difficult due to your pregnancy. It must be treated like any other medical condition that is a disability, in which case, you are to be reasonably accommodated to be able to effectively complete your work.

How do you know if you are being discriminated against? An employer may not ask if you are or plan to become pregnant in your job interview. Additionally, while you are on pregnancy leave, your job must be held for you for a reasonable amount of time the same as any other medical disability leave. If you are being discriminated against in California, or you have been discriminated against due to your pregnancy or pregnancy leave, please call the Law Offices of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation regarding your legal rights and how the law may be able to help you.

The attorneys of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg have extensive experience in protecting your rights in your workplace and beyond. Many times, it is the unfortunate occurrence that you have not only suffered discrimination, harassment, or had to report on your employer to an outside agency, but then you find yourself the victim of retaliation. Retaliation in legal terms is much like it is when you learned it as a child; the employer feels wronged and so they purposefully wrong you back. Obviously, it is a little more complicated than that. But the basic problem is that employers will sometimes make worklife harder for you once you ask for Family and Medical Leave, or if you have reported a superior for sexual harassment or any other number of employment claims.

So what do you do if you find yourself the victim of retaliation in California? Call the Law Offices of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg. Our experienced and aggressive attorneys will fight for your case and ensure that you are compensated and that your employer does not win for retaliating against you. Whether it is inside the courtroom in front of a jury, or negotiating a settlement, our highly regarded attorneys will fight for your case. With experience in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, and many other areas of California, our attorneys are familiar with the courts where you will have your case heard.

If you have been the victim of workplace retaliation, call the Law Offices of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation regarding your legal rights and how the law may be able to help you.

In a recent Los Angeles case, a courier was wrongfully fired for taking time off to care for his sick family and received compensatory damages from his former employer under the protection of the Family and Medical Leave Act. The courier, called into work late one day to say that his wife had been hospitalized and that he and his young child were sick. His boss said he was calling ‘too late’ and used ‘profanity’ against the courier. He covered the shift, but the next day, when the courier called again to say he still could not make it to work, the employer immediately went to human resources to see how to fire him. When the human resources department learned that the reason Darjee, the courier, could not make it into work was due to his wife’s premature delivery of their baby and his and his child’s own sickness, she consulted with the employer regarding the federal law–the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. Under this law, if you meet the qualifications you are entitled to take time off to care for your family.

However, company policy at that time did not allow Darjee to take the Family Medical Leave because he had only been with the current company for 10 months, two months shy of the minimum amount of time needed. However, he had worked for much longer under a subsidiary of the company that was bought within the 12 month period. The jury found and the court upheld that the employer had to count these earlier months as part of his employment time with the company according to the federal law.

Ultimately, the jury awarded $150,000 in compensatory damages to Darjee. They emphasized that once the employer learned of the Family and Medical Leave situation, and that Darjee was still providing reasonable notice as to his absences, that his firing was retaliatory and wrong. Additionally, he should have been offered to take the Family and Medical Leave time that he needed to be with his wife during her recovery. If you or someone you know has received similar treatment and you believe you were wrongfully terminated or that you did not receive the appropriate request for Family and Medical Leave in the State of California, please call the Law Offices of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation regarding your legal rights and how the law may be able to help you.

Sexual Harassment can be prominent but unreported in the workplace today. Many times it is because your harasser, or you, assumes that it is just you being ‘sensitive’ and not that you have become the victim of a legally protected violation of a right to work without interference and fear. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has listed these helpful suggestions as to what sexual harassment can look like if you are unsure:

• The harasser can be anyone, such as a supervisor, a client, a co-worker, a teacher or professor, a student, a friend, or a stranger.
• The victim does not have to be the person directly harassed but can be anyone who finds the behavior offensive and is affected by it.
• While adverse effects on the victim are common, this does not have to be the case for the behavior to be unlawful.
• The victim can be male or female. The harasser can be male or female.
• The harasser does not have to be of the opposite sex.
• The harasser may be completely unaware that his or her behavior is offensive or constitutes sexual harassment or may be completely unaware that his or her actions could be unlawful.

Additionally, sexual harassment is more common than you might believe. The Equal Rights Advocates reports that ‘A Cornell Law Review article entitled ‘Exacerbating the Exasperated: Title VII Liability of Employers for Sexual Harassment’ reported that between 40% to 90% of women in the United States workforce have been the victims of some form of sexual harassment on the job. As even conservative Ninth Circuit Judge Kozinski recognized: ‘It is a sobering revelation that every woman–every woman–who has spent time in the workforce in the last two decades can tell at least one story about being the object of sexual harassment.’

If you find yourself the victim of sexual harassment at your workplace in California, call the Law Offices of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation regarding your legal rights and how the law may be able to help you.

Quote taken from http://www.equalrights.org/professional/sexhar/work/workplac.asp

In California, the Department of Industrial Relations has provided in depth charts to determine whether you qualify for overtime pay at the standard rate of time and a half, or to a lesser degree, and in some cases, not at all. Depending on your job, you may either be considered to be an exempt employee (one who does not receive the typical overtime pay schedule) or a non-exempt employee (those who receive hourly wages and overtime pay at the standard amount). It is important to know which qualification you fall under as this determines the amount of overtime you are rightfully owed.

A non-exempt employee is simply any employee who does not fall into one of the enumerated exemptions determined by the Department. To see if you qualify as an exempt employee, start by identifying if your job places you in any of the below categories:

• Executive, Administrative and Professional employees
• Employees in the computer software field who are paid on an hourly basis and meet all of the other requirements set forth in the Orders
• Employees directly employed by the State or any political subdivision thereof, including any city, county or special district.
• Outside Salespersons
• Any individual who is the parent, spouse, child, or legally adopted child of the employer
• Any individual participating in a national service program, such as AmeriCorps.
• Drivers whose hours are regulated by the U.S Department of Transportation Code of Federal Regulation, Title 49, Sections 395.1 to 395.13, Hours of Service of Drivers
• Drivers whose hours are regulated by Title 13 of the California Code of Regulations, subchapter 6.5, section 1200 et seq.
• Employees covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement if the agreement expressly provides for the wages, hours of work, and working conditions, and if the agreement provides premium wage rates for all overtime hours worked and a regular hourly rate of pay for those employees of not less than 30% more than the state minimum wage.
• Employees (except minors) whose earnings exceed one and one-half times the minimum wage and more than half their compensation represents commissions
• Student nurses in a school accredited by the California Board of Registered Nursing or by the Board of Vocational Nurse and Psychiatric Technician Examiners
• Employees who have entered into a collective bargaining agreement under the Railway Labor Act
• Taxicab drivers
• Airline employees who work over 40 but not more than 60 hours during the workweek due to a temporary modification in their normal work schedule not required by the employer and arranged at the request of the employee
• Full-time carnival ride operators employed by a traveling carnival
• Crew members employed on a commercial fishing boat Fish and Game Code Section7920 et seq.
• Professional Actors
• Employees whose duties are exclusively those of a motion picture projectionist
• An announcer, news editor, or chief engineer employed by a radio or television station in a city or town with a population of 25,000 or less
• Any employee who is engaged in work that is primarily intellectual, managerial, or creative, and which requires exercise of discretion and independent judgment, and for which the remuneration is not less than two times the monthly State minimum wage for full time employment
• Sheepherders
• Irrigators
• Employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement if the agreement provides premium wage rates for overtime work and a cash wage rate of at least $1.00 per hour more than the state minimum wage.
• Personal attendants
• Any person under the age of 18 who is employed as a babysitter for a minor child of the employer in the employer’s home.

Each of these categories has different outcomes of being exempt. Some change the overtime wage distribution, some completely allow no overtime pay based on reasons of salary and work done during the workweek that outweighs the need for overtime pay. However, if you believe that you are owed wages either due to not being paid minimum wage, overtime pay, or you are a non-exempt employee, please call for the Law Offices of Law Offices of David H. Greenberg at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation in California on how the law may protect your rights.

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_OvertimeExemptions.htm

In California, the Department of Industrial Relations has provided in depth charts to determine whether you qualify for overtime pay at the standard rate of time and a half, or to a lesser degree, and in some cases, not at all. Depending on your job, you may either be considered to be an exempt employee (one who does not receive the typical overtime pay schedule) or a non-exempt employee (those who receive hourly wages and overtime pay at the standard amount). It is important to know which qualification you fall under as this determines the amount of overtime you are rightfully owed.

A non-exempt employee is simply any employee who does not fall into one of the enumerated exemptions determined by the Department. To see if you qualify as an exempt employee, start by identifying if your job places you in any of the below categories:

• Executive, Administrative and Professional employees
• Employees in the computer software field who are paid on an hourly basis and meet all of the other requirements set forth in the Orders
• Employees directly employed by the State or any political subdivision thereof, including any city, county or special district.
• Outside Salespersons
• Any individual who is the parent, spouse, child, or legally adopted child of the employer
• Any individual participating in a national service program, such as AmeriCorps.
• Drivers whose hours are regulated by the U.S Department of Transportation Code of Federal Regulation, Title 49, Sections 395.1 to 395.13, Hours of Service of Drivers
• Drivers whose hours are regulated by Title 13 of the California Code of Regulations, subchapter 6.5, section 1200 et seq.
• Employees covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement if the agreement expressly provides for the wages, hours of work, and working conditions, and if the agreement provides premium wage rates for all overtime hours worked and a regular hourly rate of pay for those employees of not less than 30% more than the state minimum wage.
• Employees (except minors) whose earnings exceed one and one-half times the minimum wage and more than half their compensation represents commissions
• Student nurses in a school accredited by the California Board of Registered Nursing or by the Board of Vocational Nurse and Psychiatric Technician Examiners
• Employees who have entered into a collective bargaining agreement under the Railway Labor Act
• Taxicab drivers
• Airline employees who work over 40 but not more than 60 hours during the workweek due to a temporary modification in their normal work schedule not required by the employer and arranged at the request of the employee
• Full-time carnival ride operators employed by a traveling carnival
• Crew members employed on a commercial fishing boat Fish and Game Code Section7920 et seq.
• Professional Actors
• Employees whose duties are exclusively those of a motion picture projectionist
• An announcer, news editor, or chief engineer employed by a radio or television station in a city or town with a population of 25,000 or less
• Any employee who is engaged in work that is primarily intellectual, managerial, or creative, and which requires exercise of discretion and independent judgment, and for which the remuneration is not less than two times the monthly State minimum wage for full time employment
• Sheepherders
• Irrigators
• Employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement if the agreement provides premium wage rates for overtime work and a cash wage rate of at least $1.00 per hour more than the state minimum wage.
• Personal attendants
• Any person under the age of 18 who is employed as a babysitter for a minor child of the employer in the employer’s home.

Each of these categories has different outcomes of being exempt. Some change the overtime wage distribution, some completely allow no overtime pay based on reasons of salary and work done during the workweek that outweighs the need for overtime pay. However, if you believe that you are owed wages either due to not being paid minimum wage, overtime pay, or you are a non-exempt employee, please call for the Law Offices of Greenberg and Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation in California on how the law may protect your rights.

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_OvertimeExemptions.htm