Quirky Question # 222, Seats in the Workplace
Question: We are a retail store. An employee in the warehouse requested an assigned chair to sit on when he is between tasks. Must we comply with this request in our California locations?
Question: We are a retail store. An employee in the warehouse requested an assigned chair to sit on when he is between tasks. Must we comply with this request in our California locations?
Question: We have a part-time employee in San Francisco, CA who works Monday to Friday 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. as support for our sole salesperson in the Bay Area. She has recently requested to alter her schedule to work only 3 days a week. I know there was a new San Francisco law about flexible schedules but we only...
Question: I have always understood that California employers that misclassify workers as independent contractors face potential liability, including compensatory damages, penalties and attorney’s fees. I recently heard a news broadcast that mentioned there were cases suggesting that recent court decisions have approved the use of independent contractors in California. Is that true and what are the takeaways?
Sullivan v. Oracle Corporation, et al. June 30, 2011, in Sullivan v. Oracle Corporation, et al., the California Supreme Court decided three certified questions from the Ninth Circuit regarding work performed in the State of California by non-residents for California based employers. Three plaintiffs worked as “Instructors” for Oracle Corporation from 2001 to 2004. As Instructors, Plaintiffs’ job was to...
Question: I work for a California retail employer. We have tried to stay in line with the state’s myriad wage and hour laws. We’ve audited the exempt status of questionably classified employees. We’ve reviewed and revised our meal and rest break policies. We’ve overhauled our overtime procedures. So far, we’ve avoided becoming a defendant in class action lawsuit. But now...
Question: We have an employee who has missed a lot of work because of various non-work related injuries, a fall off a motorcycle, a ski injury and various sore back claims. We would like to give him a questionnaire asking questions about his ability to perform his job duties. What laws do we need to worry about?
Question: Our company is located in California. We have language in our handbook that says all our employees are “at-will.” Our existing handbook also includes provisions setting out the conditions under which we will lay people off and what benefits they would be entitled to if that were necessary. This was put in place five years ago. Given the current...
Question: We are a nationwide company with offices and employees in nearly every state. One of our primary growth areas is California. We understand that California courts are generally inhospitable to post-employment restrictive covenants, including non-competes. But, we are trying to have uniform policies throughout our organization. Consequently, we still have confidentiality and non-compete language in our employees’ contracts, even...
Quirky Question #154 One of our manufacturing employees, call him Jim, was fairly seriously injured in an accident on the production floor. Jim applied for workers’ compensation and was examined by a doctor. The doctor let us know that in his opinion, Jim would no longer be able to perform his job, since it required a significant amount of lifting...
Quirky Question #153 Our company has independent-contractor consultants in many states. Our headquarters is in Minnesota. We know that we could be sued in any of the states where we have independent contractors, and that many of those states apply their own legal tests to determine whether an individual is an independent contractor or employee. To get a little predictability,...