New York Employment Attorneys Blog

A theory is gaining ground in employment law, challenging employers defense against claims of discrimination and retaliation. In many legal cases, a common defense against claims of retaliation and harassment is to show that the harasser and the person carrying out the purported retaliatory act were separate an unrelated.

However, the "Cats Paw" theory posits that in many of these cases, the individual carrying out the action is under the influence or control of the harasser or instigator of the employees claims. While it is often hard to establish this link, this theory is seeing an uptick in usage, as more workers find themselves retaliated against by their employers. This is useful for employees who have been subjected an unlawful employment action or in retaliation, but the action was carried out by a different individual.

Worried about your boss finding those pictures from last weekend? Laid off after faking sick?
A proposed law in Germany would prohibit these embarrassing lapses and decisions. The law proposed would block employers from "friending" prospective employees, and from making any employment decisions based on private postings on social networks and the larger web.

The law also includes a prohibition on employers reading employee emails, and monitoring employees using surveillance cameras in private areas of a building. These measures move to strengthen employees rights in Germany from increasingly snooping bosses and managers.

What's your take? Have you been called out for something on Facebook at work?

Following up on President Obama's decision to drastically increase the number of employees investigating Department of Labor claims, a new report claims that a large number of health care workers have not received proper payment for their work. Among the claims is that numerous hospitals have failed to pay nurses and administrative staff overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 hours a week. These violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act have sadly often gone unreported, causing workers to not receive fair compensation, and to push workers to work excessively burdensome shifts.

According to the Department of Labor, in New York alone, "fewer than 36 percent of health care employers investigated by its Albany office were in compliance with Federal wage and hour laws". This figure is appallingly low, especially given that these are the people that are routinely trusted with our health and well-being. To not only make these individuals work in violation of the law and withhold their pay is not only egregious, it is outright dangerous.

Further, the investigations have revealed that many nurses and hospital staff members have been forced to go without their required meal periods, also in violation of New York and Federal laws. The New York Times found nurses who claimed that "If you brought your lunch from home or got food in the cafeteria and took it to the nursing unit, you would be interrupted by phone calls, by physicians and family members...", demonstrating that these nurses rarely had their required break periods.

The Time's findings is shocking given that these employees are charged with the saftey and health of the patients, but not surprising given trends in the employment sector lately. Employers will often take advantage of those most at risk-- in this case nurses who are deeply concerned for the health of patients, and bank on employees not speaking up for fear of their jobs.

A meat cook at the upscale restaurant JoJo, owned by Chef Jean Georges Vongreitchen, has accused a fellow cook of repeated sexual advances and harassment. The cook would send the female chef pictures of his genitals, and repeatedly ask her out on dates.

Once the Chef refused to go out with the man, he allegedly began threatening her in the kitchen and started a campaign to sabotage her work performance. She alleges that he threw garbage in her preparations, would ruin dished by turning off burners while she was cooking, and more all in an attempt to get her fired for poor performance.

While a representative for the company had denied the allegations to the New York Post, these claims are not surprising given the male dominated kitchens that are found in many restaurants, allowing such illegal and demeaning behavior to take place.

Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois signed a bill into law last week which bans
the practice of requiring employees to go through pre-employment credit
checks as a condition for a job. As individual's credit ratings have
taken severe hits during this prolonged recession, bills such as this one,
which prevent any credit related hurdles from thwarting job seekers are a
step in the right direction.

The bill does provide some exceptions, especially for workers in the
finance and banking industry as they are directly responsible for personal
financial information, as well as exemptions for individuals who are a
personally responsible for a company's financial transactions and those
with access to a companies business accounts.

We at the Harman Firm believe that obstacles to employment, such as credit
checks, should not be used as a determinate in hiring individuals except
in limited ways. All individuals should compete for jobs without worrying
about how their credit score make negatively impact them.

On July 21, President Obama signed the Dodd Frank Act (full name: Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act..phew), into law. This sweeping reform law is an attempt to curb the financial practices that helped lead up to America's worst financial crisis since the onset of the Great Depression.

While the bulk of the act is designed to curb risky and illegal practices, the bill also contains important provisions regarding employees of these firms. Most importantly, the Dodd Frank Act creates whistle blower protections for employees who complain and raise issues with violations under this new act.

The act, which contains a section on "SEC Bounties", which rewards individuals monetarily for new information that is provided to them that leads to or contributes to an investigation. Contained within that provision is a section that greatly expands the rights of financial and security industry whistle blowers. The Dodd Frank act builds upon the protections of the Sarbanne-Oxley act, which generally protects employees from being retaliated against in certain instances regard fraud in public traded companies, to include a new host of protections for workers bringing violations of Federal finance laws to light.

This provision is a definite win for these individuals faced between whistle blowing about these violations that can undermine the American economy. No individual should be put a position where they fear for their job for complaining about such grievous illegal conduct.