On February 23, 2004, the City of San Francisco established a minimum hourly wage for the employees pursuant to Administrative Code section 12R (the Minimum Wage Ordinance or MWO). Under MWO section 12R.4, San Francisco employers shall pay to employees no less than the minimum wage for each hour worked…
The California courts have long recognized that fact that direct evidence of discrimination or retaliation at workplace is rarely available. Employers whose mindset and who actions are discriminatory will rarely admit it to other or to themselves and will of course almost never openly tell an employee: “I am terminating…
Under California Labor Code and a number of orders of the Industrial Welfare Commission, almost all employees (with few exceptions), who work for over 5 hours are entitled to a meal break of at least 30 minutes. The only way the employer may be relieved from this obligation is that…
In 1994, the California legislature enacted Civil Code section 51.9 to address the relationship between providers of professional services and their clients. The statute sets out a non-exclusive list of such providers, which includes physicians, psychiatrists, dentists, attorneys, real estate agents, accountants, bankers, building contractors, executors, trustees, landlords, and teacher;…
Under California law, an employer is not liable for harassment or workplace discrimination committed by the victim’s worker if the employer did not know or had no reason to know that the unlawful conduct took place. This means that to protect yourself during employment and to make sure that you…
One of employers’ favorite ways of retaliating against employees or creating a paper trail for terminating a worker who complains about harassment or discrimination or who demands to have the opportunity to exercise his disability rights at workplace, is by engaging in a campaign of issuing negative performance reviews. This…
It is not uncommon for an employer to unlawfully retaliate against an employee not through a single, major act, such as suspension, demotion or termination of employment, but through series of less obvious acts that tend to negatively affect the victim employee’s performance, motivation and cause him or her a…
It is a common practice for many employers, especially the larger employers, such as the software companies in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, to offer a severance package to the employees who are about to be laid off due to downsizing or restructuring. The amount of severance depends on several…
It is common for an employer to offer severance to an employee who is being terminated or laid-off. The size of the severance usually depends on the circumstances of the worker’s termination and the length of his or her employment. While severance is completely discretionary and there is no law…
The main challenge of proving discrimination and discriminatory discharge at workplace is showing that the reason an employee was discharged is because of his/her belonging to one or more of the protected classes of employees because of his/her gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, disability, familial status, political affiliation, etc. It…