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Recent Blog Posts
Uber Plaintiff Claims He Accepted Settlement Under Duress
The Uber driver that initiated a lawsuit against the ride-sharing company almost three years ago has come out against the $100 million class-action settlement to which he had previously agreed. The man now believes that the deal was misrepresented to him by his attorneys, and that he was forced to agree to its terms under duress and false pretenses. Still awaiting approval from a federal judge, the settlement would allow Uber to continue to classify its drivers—which the company calls “partners”—as independent contractors rather than employees.
Suit Sought Reimbursement for Mileage, Tips, and Expenses
Throughout the country and around the world, Uber drivers are classified by the company as independent contractors, as drivers are free to set their own schedules and areas of operation within the cities in which they are approved to drive. This means, however, that drivers are responsible for all tax reporting, as well as any and all expenses they may incur. The issue has been broached previously in cases involving accident liability and workers’ compensation, but the recent class-action suit was arguably the most widely covered by various news outlets.
Federal Court Rules Employers Cannot Pool Tips to Share With Support Staff
A decision in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals extended an existing U.S. Department of Labor rule regarding tip-pooling to establishments in which tipped employees already make minimum wage. How employers handle tips intended for bartenders and waitstaff has long been a source of contention, as gratuities often represent a significant portion of such employees’ income. While Illinois is not technically under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit, the ruling will still likely have implications as case law precedent.
FLSA Regulations on Tip Credits
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) permits employers to count tips to certain employees as a portion of those employees’ wages, helping to fulfill the employers’ obligations of paying minimum wage. The FLSA still requires an employer to pay tipped employees at $2.13 per hour, with the expectation that tips will comprise at least $5.12 per hour in addition. In Illinois, employers must pay tipped employees $4.95 per hour, and tips must bring the employees’ compensation to at least $8.50 per hour, the state minimum wage.
Medical Marijuana and the Right to Maintain a Drug-Free Workplace
With the state’s medical marijuana pilot program now into its fifth month of full-scale operation, employers around Illinois are now faced with tough decisions about the application of drug policies in the workplace. Many business owners are not even sure what the law permits them to do concerning workplace use of medical marijuana by legal, registered patients. The Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act does provide some useful guidelines, as you might expect, but the law, ultimately, leaves the decision up to you.
Who Are Registered Users?
Since the program began—officially in January 2014, but not in practice until November of last year—patients suffering from about three dozen specified medical conditions have been applying to participate. Qualifying conditions include HIV/AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, Parkinson’s disease, Crohn’s diseases, fibromyalgia and many more. Those who have been approved are permitted to purchase up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana every two weeks from state-sanctioned dispensaries, and, if they remain within the parameters set by the program, are exempt from prosecution for possession and use. Registered users are not immune from prosecution for behavior while impaired, such as driving under the influence.
Department of Labor: Michigan Restaurant Made Staff Pay to Work
Following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor, a federal judge in Michigan has ordered the owners of a breakfast restaurant to pay nearly a quarter of a million dollars in back wages and damages to more than 100 employees. The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division determined that the owners were responsible for a number of wage-related violations, including requiring tipped employees to contribute $2 per hour from their tips as a condition of continued employment.
“Requiring employees to hand over part of their tips to their employer poses a serious problem to workers who, in many cases, are already struggling to get by,” said Mary O’Rourke, a local Department of Labor official. “[It] also undercuts those employers that obey the law and pay their workers properly. She and other regulators hope the judgment serves as a “wake-up call” to those looking to take advantage of their workers.
Pay Close Attention to Your Promises Regarding Vacation
Most employers offer some form of paid time off or vacation days to their full-time employees. It is impossible for most workers to remain reasonably productive without being able to take a day or two to recharge, recreate, or even tend to other demands of life. In the state of Illinois, there is no law or statute that requires you, as an employer, to offer vacation or personal days, but if you choose to do so, it is important to apply your policy evenly to all eligible employees and to fully comply with any and all promises you have made to your team.
Policies and Contracts
Whether your vacation policy is listed in each employee’s contract or simply as part of a more general employee handbook, you need to understand exactly what you promising each worker. You have the right to decide how many days of vacation may be earned by an employee based on his or her length of service. It is also within your rights to determine that vacation time must be taken within a certain period of time or be forfeited. If you choose to establish such a policy, however, you will need to be sure to provide your employees the reasonable opportunity to take all earned vacation days.
Employee Recognition Means More Than Holiday Bonuses
When you own and run a business that requires a staff, you know exactly how much every employee means to your company. You could never achieve the same level of success on your own, and you realize that each workers brings to the table a unique set of skills and personality. Of course, as part of the equation, you offer your employees fair pay, possibly benefits, and more in exchange for their time and service, but do they truly know that they are appreciated? As 2015 draws to a close, there are some ways that you can ensure your team feels valued and truly cared for.
Employees Are People Too
While you may spend dozens of hours each week with certain team members, take a moment to think about how much you know about them. Do you know their spouses’ names or how old their children are? What are some of their personal time hobbies and interests? The more you get to know your staff, the more they will feel like part of your company’s family. There is no checklist of things to talk about and just asking questions to write down the answers feels cheap and insincere. Learn about your staff because you want to know them as individuals and as people, not just subordinates.
Does it Have to be in the Workplace to be Considered Sexual Harassment?
When people think of sexual harassment, images of a staid workplace in which men rule come to mind, but sexual harassment is not only an issue within the scope of employment. Issues of sexual harassment have come to light in recent years especially in organizations like the military and universities, but people—most often women—can also fall prey to sexual harassers in public places as well. One of these places that has most recently come to the fore is on public transportation. Last year, Chicago-area women called for ad campaigns to raise awareness of sexual harassment cases on public CTA trains. While being sexual harassed is definitely uncomfortable … But is it illegal?
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission defines sexual harassment under Title VII as applicable only in job places in which the employer employees 15 or more people. This can also include employment agencies, labor organizations, and federal, state, and local governments. Much has been written and said about the daily grind of many women’s’ commutes that include ubiquitous sexual harassment on public transit, though there are not yet laws in place, in Chicagoland or any other U.S. city, that expressly forbid and prohibit sexual harassment on public trains.
Study Highlights Gap Between Living and Minimum Wage
As stories of fast-food industry workers protesting for higher wages continue to hit headlines around the country, a recent study suggests that such demands may be founded on at least a kernel of truth. Claims have abounded for decades that the federal and state minimum wages could not produce a sufficient income on which to live and raise a family. Researchers have developed a method to quantify exactly what constitutes a living wage for a particular area of the country, and, comparing that to the minimum wage currently in place, establishing a dollar measurement of the gap between the two.
Cost of Living
Amy Glasmeier is a professor of economic geography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, better known as MIT. She and a team of researchers developed what they call the Living Wage Calculator designed to take into account various financial, governmental, and tax factors at work in an area to determine a fairly precise cost of living. Applying the calculator to the entire country, Glasmeier found serious discrepancies between the amount per hour required to live and raise a family and the minimum hourly wage in nearly every region of the nation.
Teen Takes Down Prof’s Theory of Irish Discrimination Myth
With the power of the internet and the determination to find answers, a Washington, D.C. girl challenged the work of a retired history professor regarding the prevalence of employment discrimination against Irish immigrants from the mid-19th century into the 20th century. What started with a Google search ultimately lead to the teen’s findings being published in the same journal that carried the historian’s thesis more than a decade ago.
An Urban Legend?
The professor, Richard Jensen, retired from the University of Illinois at Chicago, published a research project in 2002 that concluded that claims of victimhood for Irish Americans were overstated, and the that the now semi-iconic “No Irish Need Apply” signs rarely, if ever, graced the windows of establishments looking to hire help. In his research, Jensen found only a handful of examples of such blatant discrimination, either in shop windows or in printed want-ads. He determined that the myth of prejudice against the Irish was based on misperception and exaggeration, and perpetuated by popular drinking songs and lore.
Ridesharing Service Blurs the Line Between Employees and Contractors
As a business owner, you are most likely very aware that the misclassification of your workers as either employees or independent contractors can have a dramatic impact on your company. If done incorrectly, you could be facing serious fines and penalties imposed by the IRS. Rarely, however, do such concerns get played out on a national stage, but over the last few months, the ridesharing provider Uber has faced a large concerns regarding the employment status of its drivers.
In early June, the California Labor Commissioner’s Office found in favor of a former Uber driver who claimed that the San Francisco-based tech company owed her more than $4,000 for unreimbursed business expenses. The ruling, although limited to the driver’s case alone, essentially declared that she was employee of Uber, and therefore, eligible for the reimbursement. Uber maintains that those who drive for the company are independent contractors.
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