New York Employment Attorneys Blog

In August 2011, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York ruled that four Caucasian flight engineers can pursue their employment discrimination claims in New York, against a Japanese air cargo carrier.

"In [the case of] Baker v. Nippon Cargo Airlines, 09-CV-3374 (RRM), four former flight engineers sued for discrimination, based on national origin, race, and age, when they were fired, while their younger, Japanese counterparts were offered new opportunities when Nippon Cargo Airlines changed its equipment."

The Court held that the case should remain under New York jurisdiction due to three of the Plaintiffs having a New York choice of law provision in their written employment agreements which preserves jurisdiction for any suits arising from the employment based on the agreement. While none of the Plaintiffs live in New York, their employment is based at the NCA hub at the John F. Kennedy International Airport located in Queens, New York.

In response to Defendants' objection to jurisdiction being held in New York, the Court states: "Surely, [D]efendants cannot be suggesting that [P]laintiffs' primary place of employment, where they 'spent most of their working hours' is in the air, and that therefore, there is no physical location that can serve as a proper forum for the litigation of plaintiffs' employment discrimination claims."

The Plaintiffs were flight engineers who had flown 747-Cargo planes for at least seven years prior to being terminated from employment. The Plaintiff's sue under federal, state and city anti-discrimination laws, including Title VII, ADEA, Sec. 1981, NYS & NYC Human Rights Law and will now be able to litigate this matter in New York Courts.

When enacted, the Fair Labor Standards Act established minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments. Overtime pay at a rate no less than one and one-half times an employee's regular rate of pay, is required after 40 hours of work per workweek. Currently, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, but many states also have minimum wage that are higher.

Kinder Morgan and its subsidiary, Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP, one of the largest pipeline transportation and energy companies in North America, just agreed to pay $830,422 in back wages to 4,659 current and former employees, resolving a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor. The companies are also permanently enjoined from future violations of the FLSA.

The case was brought before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas and a consent judgement has just been filed, but still requires judicial approval. The lawsuit came following an investigation led by the Houston District Office of the department's Wage and Hour divisions which found systemic FLSA violations at 11 Kinder Morgan locations in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, North Dakota, and Texas.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis, said "the Labor Department will hold employers accountable when they do not properly pay their workers. The FLSA requires that hours be counted and overtime pay calculated accurately and in a transparent process. Today's settlement agreement provides back wages, but it will also help ensure that Kinder Morgan complies with the law in the future."

Strip club operator Scores Holding Co. Inc. agreed to settle a collective class action filed on behalf of dancers, servers and bartenders. Under the terms of the proposed settlement, which still requires court approval, the company would create a $450,000 fund to settle the claims of 83 plaintiffs who opted in to the FLSA collective action.

Plaintiffs alleged that the company was stealing tips through a system called "diamond dollars," which allows costumers to tip workers in 'play' money. According to the Plaintiffs, it was not possible to cash these diamond dollars at all times and the company deduced and retained a portion of the tips. Plaintiffs also alleged that the company failed to pay its workers the statutory minimum wage for all hours they clocked, failed them to pay at a proper overtime rate for all hours they worked in excess of 40 hours, and failed to keep accurate and adequate records of wages, hours worked, and deductions taken from wages.

In a recent decision, the Supreme Court held that not only are written complaints protected under the FLSA retaliation provision, but also oral complaints. The decision, split 6-2 in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., prohibits employers from discharging employees because the employee filed a complaint, written or otherwise.

The decision highlights the controversy surrounding the word "filed." The Supreme Court decided that, when the FLSA was enacted, it was intended to include any complaints filed in any manner, due in large part to the high illiteracy rates of those most affected by FLSA violations.

In what has become a seemingly weekly occurrence, another New York City restaurant has been accused of wage and hour violations, as well as allegations of tip misappropriation.

The lawsuit, filed in Federal Court, Southern District of New York, alleges that the restaurant failed to pay proper overtime to it's employees throughout the chains New York City locations. The lawsuit alleges that the chain violated a rarely used provision of wage and hour law, called the "spread of hours" pay, which requires tipped employees to receive at least one hour at full minimum wage for all hours worked over ten hours in a given day.

The lawsuit could have a potentially huge impact on both the chain, which operates eight locations in the New York City area and is currently expanding, as well as raising awareness of this law for tipped employees across the state.

The suit, if given class action status, could swell with numerous current and past employees being eligible to be class members.

Check out our site for more information on wage and hour laws, and find out if your employer is in compliance with the State and Federal guidelines for overtime and pay: FLSA/Wage and Hour Cases.

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 number of former cooks and wait staff of New York City restaurant and bar B Bar have come forward to file a lawsuit against their employer, claiming that the restaurant did not follow standards for paying employees overtime.

The restaurant, owned by prominent restaurant and club owner Eric Goode, is a fixture for the hip New York set, frequently drawing celebrities. Goode, who owns a number of other restaurants including locations at the Maritime and Bowery hotels, is named as an individual defendant in this case.

This seems to be a particularly bad year for FLSA violations at restaurants in New York. Is this the work of a beefed up Department of Labor, with more investigators as promised by President Obama? Or are restaurant workers, who historically have worked for low wages and tips, starting to flex their legal rights as more and more suits hit? In either case, it is a promising sign for employees working the restaurant industry, and for the rights of hourly workers everywhere who are routinely denied overtime pay.