Wage and Hour Defense Blog

California law has specific requirements regarding the payment of final wages to terminated employees. The failure to comply with those requirements can require an employer to pay an individual up to 30 days of pay – known as “waiting time” penalties. As “waiting time” claims are often pursued in the context of class actions, where plaintiffs seek up to 30 days of pay for each former employee, it is critical that employers understand when final wages must be paid. And that deadline is different depending up whether the company has terminated the employment or the employee has ...

In bringing meal and rest period claims on behalf of their clients, the plaintiffs’ bar has long argued that merely because there was an alleged meal or rest period violation, there were also “derivative” statutory violations entitling their clients to additional penalties.  By arguing that an employer is also on the hook for such penalties, plaintiffs’ attorneys argue that the potential exposure is greater.  And with greater potential exposure, employers will be more inclined to settle – or so the rationale goes.

These purported “derivative” violations have come in ...

As employers with operations in California had feared, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed AB 51, which effectively outlaws mandatory arbitration agreements with employees – a new version of a bill that prior Governor Jerry Brown had vetoed repeatedly while he was in office.

The bill not only prohibits mandatory arbitration agreements, but it also outlaws arbitration agreements in which employees must take an affirmative action to escape arbitration, such as opting out.

And as the statute is written in broad terms that extend to waivers of statutory “procedures,” it appears to ...

Our colleague Jeffrey H. Ruzal at Epstein Becker Green has recently published a post on the Hospitality Labor and Employment Law blog that will be of interest to our readers: “U.S. DOL Announces Proposed New Rule on Tip Credits and Pooling."

Following is an excerpt:

The proposed rulemaking will codify the DOL’s recent guidance that an employer may take a tip credit for any amount of time an employee in a tip-earning occupation performs related non-tipped duties that are performed contemporaneously with, or within a reasonable time immediately before or after ...