Rarely when faced with an employee’s opposition to discrimination or other unlawful activity do employers fire the employee by telling them, “I am firing you because of your opposition to my unlawful activity.” Employers are usually subtler when they want to stop employees from speaking up. For example, they may change an employee’s job duties,[1] place a negative letter in…
Now that the pandemic seems to be winding down, many employers are considering if it is the right time to ask their employees to return to work. But with COVID laws and regulations still in effect, as well as existing disability, discrimination, and whistleblower laws, the answer to this question is complicated. At we understand that protecting your health at…
As of today, July 4, 2021, fast-food workers in New York City are free from at-will employment, one of the oldest and least worker-friendly rules in employment law. At-will employment means that an employer can discharge workers at will “for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all.”[1] This rule generally applies to all private employees in America…
a national public interest law firm with a focus on game-changing employment discrimination cases, seek a Mandarin-speaking litigation fellow for its Asian American Litigation and Finance Practice Group to start immediately. The Fellow will focus on representing plaintiffs in individual and class action employment discrimination matters, sexual assault cases, Title IX lawsuits, qui tam and whistleblower matters, wage and hour…
The EEO-1 survey is an incomparable source of data on employee diversity at U.S. corporations. The survey is conducted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and requires private employers with over 100 employees to collect race and gender data on their employees on an annual basis. The data collection includes, among other data points, a breakdown of how many racial and ethnic…
We are workers’ rights lawyers pursuing a Private Attorney General Act enforcement action against Aurora Santa Rosa and Signature Healthcare for California Labor Code violations occurring from April 2016 to the present. In this whistleblower lawsuit, our client, Plaintiff Teresa Brooke, is seeking an award of monetary penalties on behalf of Aurora/Signature employees and the State of California. In addition, she seeks what is…
A ground-breaking lawsuit against Cisco tests this novel question. On June 30, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (“DFEH”) filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of a Dalit Indian (“untouchable” caste) engineer who alleges that he was discriminated against by high-caste Indian supervisors and coworkers.[1] The suit alleges that Cisco management was on notice of this discrimination…
As the recent murders of innocent African American civilians like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others remind us, the United States has a long way to go in its struggle for racial justice. While current efforts against racial inequality are rightfully focused on police brutality, race discrimination in employment has a long and ignominious history in this…
Fired? Laid off? I’m sure you have so many things running through your mind right now. Here are a few things to consider when reviewing your severance agreement. DON’T be pressured to respond or sign immediately. Your employer must give you time to review the agreement. I frequently hear of employers trying to pressure or bully employees into signing severance agreements…
The past few weeks brought mixed results for plaintiffs at the Supreme Court. Although the Court surprisingly extended Title VII’s protections based on gender identity and sexual orientation in Bostock v. Clayton County, the Court wrapped up its term by extending the so-called “ministerial exception”—which exempts certain employees of religious institutions from employment protections—to a seemingly broader swathe of employees. What…