New York Employment Attorneys Blog

In 1992 playwright David Mamet shocked and surprised theatergoers with the premiere of his play, Oleanna. Now, as the play returns to Broadway after 17 years, a new production is set to reignite the discussion and debate stemming from the intense and emotional play.

The play centers around two individuals, a professor and one of his students. Through the course of the play, the student accuses her professor of sexual harassment and abuse of his power of his role as a professor.

This groundbreaking work came at a time when America was dealing with the fallout of the Anita Hill case in Washington, DC, extending the debate to the stage. However new then, sexual harassment remains a constant problem in our society, showing how far we still need to work to overcome it.

For a limited time, the Broadway play will feature a "talkback" series, inviting prominent sexual harassment lawyers, HR professionals, politicians and business figures to discuss the role of sexual harassment in the workplace with audiences. This stands to be an enlightening and stimulating opportunity for all that wish to join in the conversation.

Check out a video from The Harman Firm below on college sexual harassment:

On September 25, 2009, the House heard oral arguments in favor of the passing of the Employee Non Discrimination Act. The ENDA would be an important step in amending current employment law to include protection for LGBT employees throughout the country. The bill is aimed at ending discrimination against employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The arguments for passage included testimony from workers whose employment had been adversely affected by their sexual orientation or gender identity. One state worker in Georgia recalled being let go when she informed her supervisor that she was planning to have gender transition surgery.

This bill is extremely necessary in that currently there is a lapse in any protections for individuals. No federal law currently exists which would protect people from termination or harassment in the work place based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. Rather, individuals must rely on a patchwork of local and state laws to have their rights adequately represented.

The ENDA would function alongside the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and further amendments to help shore up the rights of employees in the workplace. We here at the Harman Firm urge quick action on the ENDA, and help protect the rights of workers everywhere.

On September 23, the House approved an extension of unemployment benefits for those collecting in states with an unemployment rate over 8.75%. This extension will apply to 27 states and the District of Columbia, and come at a time when many states unemployment roles are swelling while coffers are dwindling.

At the same time, Senator Max Bacchus from Montana is looking at ways to fund programs in the remaining states, not just the states with an employment rate near 9 percent. The remaining 23 states with lower rates of unemployment would seem to be left out of this current extension, forcing these states to figure out novel ways to cope with increasing unemployment.

The rise in unemployment throughout the country has been straining the budgets of states everywhere are recovery efforts are slow to trickle back down to hiring. Despite rosy pictures of economic outlooks from economists, this upturn has failed to result in substantial job hiring across the board, causing many to wonder what good is coming out of a recession if there are no jobs. This jobless recovery is a troubling paradox and a symbol of the recovery efforts so far.

We here at The Harman Firm sympathize with all workers who have been out of work and continue to look for suitable employment.

A Queens businessman who runs a number of operations throughout the city has been accused by workers of employing mob like tactics against his employees. Tony Luo, who operates taxi and bus services, is accused by former workers of beating employees with walkie talkies, a misdemeanor charge he is currently facing. As well, Luo is accused of forcing employees to pay protection money, as well as intimidating employees with violence.

A number of employees took to the streets in Flushing to protest their unfair treatment. The workers claim that they are being taken advantage of because many of them are illegally in the country, putting them in a vulnerable position and with few options to turn to.

According to a report by the Daily News- Drivers blast hell on wheels- , one driver paid over $20,000 to get a job as a bus driver working for Luo, only to be harassed and hit up for more money by Luo's associates demanding protection money.

These are troubling accusations by these workers. Many of these workers are undocumented, compounding the problems faced by workers in a similar situation who are struggling to get by and start new lives in the United States. Illegal immigrants have very few options and people to turn to when their employers take advantage and threaten them, showing the precarious situation many of these workers are in.

In a resounding victory for equal rights activists in America, Chai R. Feldblum has been nominated for the position of EEOC Commissioner. President Obama nominated the Georgetown Law professor to sit on the commission given her diverse and unique experience in working with equal rights issues.

Feldblum is a noted gay activist, heading up programs including the American Civil Liberty Union's AIDS project. Most notably, she had a role in drafting the American's With Disabilities Act of 1990.

The EEOC is led by 5 commissioners, which oversee the operation of the organization. The addition of Feldblum is a step in the right direction for the Obama administration, which had come under fire recently for its distancing itself from the gay rights community. With Feldblum acting as a commissioner, gay rights activists can hope to see that further advancement will be made towards eradicating work place harassment.

Currently, few states and municipalities offer the same sorts of protections afforded to harassment based on gender or nationality. Hopefully, with the Obama administration and Feldblum we can one day ensure that no worker will be harassed based on their sexual orientation.

A new trend has emerged among the recently and long term unemployed in the New York Metropolitan area. Spurred by the loss of jobs, and the search for new ones, job clubs have been popping up all over the area, giving job searches a community to call home.

The New York Times detailed the rise of these clubs in a recent article- Meeting to Mingle, Résumés in Tow. These clubs help seekers find conversation and community, as well as serve as an important resource for the members. The article details how an out of work attorney knew that his firm needed an accountant desperately, and helped raise awareness of the position amongst the members of his club.

The clubs can be found catering to all groups, some tailored towards Christian or Jewish professionals, some exclusively for women, as well as a job club that caters to out of work executives.

These clubs are an innovative way of dealing with the effects of losing ones job. While interesting, we hope that these do not become fixtures of the marketplace.

In a startling report issued in early September, the United States Department of Labor released the results of their inquiries into the use of child labor in manufacturing and other areas. The results are staggering- the report had found that child is used throughout the word to produced a number of products and goods.

According to the report, child labor is rampant in the harvesting of many agricultural products such as coffee, cotton, sugarcane and rubber, while "69 percent of child labor worldwide is in agriculture". This is a staggering proportion of children being forced to work to produce goods for our consumption.

Children are often put in much more precarious positions throughout the world, including being use to mine for gold in Burkina Faso and Peru. The report can be found here- . I encourage all of our readers to pay mind to this list and take into consideration the human costs of goods and products we so routinely ignore. While child labor may be legal abroad, we should do as much as we can do rally against such cruel practices and ensure rights for workers everywhere.

Check out this article- Facebook Breaks- detailing a proposal to allow users a ten minute "Facebook" break each day to check up on the goings on of the popular social networking site. This shows the perils of needing the internet to accomplish anything these days, and the distractions that come along with them.
This apparently comes on the heels of some reports claiming that the poplar site is draining production and causing economic sluggishness in Great Brittain.

What do you think? Should employers give workers time each day to check on Facebook? Will employees continue to do so with or without the break?

Or, should employees who spend too much time on Facebook be fired?

A 12 person Texas jury has returned a whopping almost one million dollar verdict against a company that had discriminated against a manager based on his age.

The company. Host International, is responsible for food and beverage services at El Paso International Airport in Texas. Host international had acquired Delaware North, the service company that had held the contract before being bought out.

Frank Montalvano, age 57, had been the longtime Delaware North Food and Beverage manager. After being told his salary was going to be cut because large salaries are for young employees, he was eventually terminated.

Montalvano brought the claims of age discrimination, and in a 4 day trial was awarded $992,000 in damages based on the discriminatory behavior of Host International and their treatment of him.

U.S District Judge Denny Chin, of the Southern District of New York, is set to be appointed to 2nd Circuit of Appeals. The move comes from the White House, nominating Chin to take over the seat left vacant by Justice Sotamayor who has just been confirmed by the US Supreme Court.

This is excellent news for Judge Chin, another achievement in his long record of service. Judge Chin was born in Hong Kong, before coming to America at a young age. Following graduation from Fordham Law School, Chin was a plaintiff side attorney handling employment law cases.

Chin has been known for his compassion and judicial restraint in many of his decisions in his tenure as a judge. However, Chin received much notoriety for his highest profile case while in the Southern District of New York- overseeing the Bernard Madoff case.

Chin was widely applauded for refusing to allow Madoff out on bail, and for throwing the book at the swindler by giving him the maximum allowable sentence, calling the crime horrific and had taken "a great human toll".

All in the legal community should applaud the decision to promote Judge Chin to the 2nd Circuit of Appeals, having proven himself in and outside of the courtroom. We here at the Harman Firm look forward to his continued success.

The United States Department of Labor released a report sometime last week detailing new efforts to ramp up enforcement of employers who have been violating laws protecting workers from wage and hour violations.

This comes as a welcome move as it seems to be more and more employers are partaking in this illegal practice, cheating workers everywhere out of money that is rightfully owed to them. In New York City alone, there has been dozens of reports in the previous months of nonpayment, failure to pay overtime, and failures to pay minimum wage.

The department of labor is hiring over 250 new investigators to process these claims of violations. This comes after interviews with nearly 4,000 workers resulted in the discovery of violations in almost every field in sector.

While this is good news for employees everywhere, it marks the beginning of the end of a long period of time where workers were routinely taken advantage of and cheated out of proper wages and rights. Hopefully, this will be a turning point in the battle against unfair labor practices and a victory for the rights of low income workers everywhere.

The New York Times, on September 5- In Unemployment Report, Signs of a Jobless Recovery- took a look at the breakdown of numbers surrounding the current discussion of the economy. The results are mixed- unemployment continues to nag at the economy, teetering near 10 percent. At the same time, economists are seeing strong signs that the American economy is pulling out of recession and beginning to expand.

This recovery, while positive, is stated to be weaker than hoped, frightening many companies from aggressive maneuvers and holding off on large scale hiring. This factor continues to stall the progress of getting individuals back to work, and seeing improvements in unemployment rolls.

This to many appears to what can be called a "jobless recovery"- a situation wherein the economy and other indicators improve and show signs of turnaround, as well as averting a full blown depression. But the continuing unease with the market does not afford for much hiring, deepening unemployment and putting the economy in a precarious position.

While posing problems for job hunters, this also poses a political dilemma for the current Obama administration which has sank billions of dollars into helping companies recover from the brink of insolvency. Now these same companies are back on their feet, but terminated employees are still out of jobs and out of luck as companies are hiring conservatively, if not still thinning the herds of employees.

Creating jobs seems to be one of the most struggling areas in the picture of overall economic recovery, and something on which states and government should focus stimulus efforts on. With credit and banking industries mostly stabilized, we need to focus on getting American's back to work and to spur more economic development in order to move beyond the last two years of recession.

On September 2, 2009, the New York Times published an outstanding editorial concerning the Federal Government's treatment of Civil Rights- Reviving Civil Rights. Detailing the lapses in Civil Rights enforcement under President Bush and the setbacks the administration had created for equal rights and opportunity, it goes on to describe the current need for an overhaul in the US regarding Civil Rights.

While we have come a long way as a country since the 1960's Civil Rights movement, there is a persistent and nagging need to overhaul some of these laws to address new problems in our society. One such problem is vote suppression and irregularities, and the need to update the rights of prisoners as more and more individuals are incarcerated for an ever expanding list of criminal charges.

Check out the article and the recommendations, and let us know what you think about them. Are these changes necessary to protect individuals in our society? Or are we adding bloat to bills that already offer protections?

A new study released this week showed some troubling signs for low-income workers. The survey, whose results were published in the New York Times- Low Wage Workers Are Often Cheated, Study Says, found over a 1,000 workers making a median of 10 dollars an hour, found that these workers were extremely likely to have been taken advantage of by their employers. This included working off the clock, not getting proper time off for breaks and meals, as well as not being compensated or granted overtime. On average, this cost workers over 50 dollars from their take home pay, a net loss of around 15% of their total wages. As well, it found that these workers were often pressured unfairly to not take workers compensation when they would be injured on the job, denying them compensation and adequate time off to deal with these injuries sustained. It is terrible that these trends still persist, as laws to protect workers against these violations seem to go unheeded and under-enforced. States should work to inform workers more completely of their rights as employees, and ensure that this vulnerable group has protection against such abuses.