Workforce Bulletin

Recent discrimination lawsuits filed by former employees against Facebook and Twitter, serve as a reminder of the importance of having robust sexual harassment and equal employment opportunity policies in place. In Chia Hong v. Facebook, Inc., et al., which was filed on March 16, 2015 in the Superior Court of California in and for San Mateo County, former Facebook employee Chia Hong, who is Taiwanese, alleges that during her employment at Facebook she was discriminated against and harassed on the basis of her gender, race and nationality in violation of the California Fair ...

In a case emphasizing the importance of acting in good faith in the interactive process and how an employer can do it right, on February 13, 2015, the First Circuit denied the EEOC’s petition for a rehearing en banc of the court’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit brought against Kohl’s Department Stores, Inc. by a diabetic former employee who claimed that her erratic working hours were exacerbating her condition.  EEOC v. Kohl’s Dep’t Stores, Inc., 774 F.3d 127 (1st Cir. 2014), reh’g en banc denied (Feb. 13, 2015).

Pamela Manning, a former sales associate at Kohl’s, had type I ...

By: Amy B. Messigian

In a major blow to California employers who utilize a monthly commission scheme but pay biweekly or semimonthly salary to their commission sales employees, the California Supreme Court ruled earlier this week in Peabody v. Time Warner Cable, Inc. that a commission payment may be applied only to the pay period in which it is paid for the purposes of determining whether an employee is exempt from overtime.  Employers may not divide the commission payment across multiple pay periods in order to satisfy the minimum compensation threshold for meeting the exemption in any ...

The Administrative Review Board (“ARB”) on March 28, 2012 held that the whistleblower protection provisions of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (“CPSIA” or “Act”) are not limited to those who raise concerns only as to a “consumer product” as defined in the Act, but extends to any matter falling within the jurisdiction of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Saporito v. Publix Super Markets, Inc., ARB Case No. 10-073. The ARB has thereby significantly expanded the number of manufacturers, distributors and retailers whose employees ...