Real Life Employment Law
Nearly every day, executives and managers, and the in-house counsel and Human Resources professionals who work with them, are confronted with unanticipated questions regarding the workforce. Just when they think they have "seen it all," along comes a new and often stranger scenario involving an odd twist to an area they thought they fully understood. These individuals often find themselves back at square one when trying to construct an appropriate response and devise a creative solution to the problem presented. Sometimes these "Quirky Questions" can be resolved easily; other times, they implicate practical and legal issues that are not immediately apparent.
This Quirky Employment Questions Blog addresses unanticipated questions regarding the workforce.
We encourage you to submit your thoughts and reactions to the questions presented. We also encourage you to submit questions that you would like to see addressed, subject to these guidelines.
Stephen D. Bell
Michael Droke
Joseph W. Hammell
Sarah Andrews Herman
Ryan E. Mick
William J. Miller
Melissa Raphan
Gregory M. Saylin
Gabrielle Wirth
David C. SingerBLOG CONTACT INFO
E: Wirth.Gabrielle@dorsey.com
P: 714.800.1455
Quirky Question # 107: I keep hearing about companies getting hit with class action lawsuits under California’s tough wage and hour laws. As I understand it, when a company treats its employees the same under a single policy, it is much more likely to have a class action certified against it. Our company’s policy is to treat as exempt from...
Quirky Question # 89: Our company develops software and is based in California with another location in Arizona. On occasion, our software developers in Arizona come to our California facility to perform some work. Two of our Arizona based developers have recently complained that while they are in California they should be paid overtime for the work done at our...
Quirky Question # 86: We run an insurance company. Some members of our workforce are employees; some are independent contractors. Admittedly, some of our independent contractors have held this status for some time. We don’t pay our independent contractors overtime for their efforts – we really don’t even know how many hours they put in. I’ve heard some rumors that...
Quirky Question # 60: We are having trouble managing exempt employees’ paid time off (PTO). Our current policy allows new employees to begin earning PTO right away, with the potential to earn up to 120 hours of PTO per calendar year. PTO that is earned but not used is paid out or carried over at the end of each calendar...
Quirky Question # 48: The regular business hours for our IT Help Desk are 8:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Obviously, people sometimes need IT support outside those hours, and the four non-exempt employees who staff the Help Desk are issued BlackBerries to respond to e-mails and calls outside of regular business hours. These employees were very happy...
Quirky Question # 28: Our company has a manufacturing facility that has several product assembly lines. Most of our production employees are required to wear basic smocks, hardhats, safety glasses, earplugs and gloves. When the employees enter the building prior to their shift, they retrieve and put on their gear, then walk to their assigned production area. At the end...
Quirky Question # 25: We own and operate glass container manufacturing plants around the country, including Seattle. One of our employees resides in Pennsylvania, and regularly travels around the country to work as a foreman on glass furnace rebuilds. This particular employee began working for us in the 1980s and worked exclusively for us for about five years. Under the...
Quirky Question # 19: Our company provides automobiles and vans to some of our employees who have to conduct product installations or repairs at customers’ work sites. Some times these work sites are closer to the employees’ homes than is our central office; some times they are farther away. Figuring that the distances roughly balance out between the shorter and...
Erica ChenErica is an associate in the Costa Mesa office of Dorsey & Whitney and a member of the firm’s Labor and Employ...
Jack SullivanJack is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor & Employment group, where he focuses his practice on employment adv...
Ieva AubinAs an employment and business immigration attorney, ...
Michael DrokeMike started his career as a client, not a lawyer...
Matt DurhamMatt defends employers in Utah and throughout the ...
Aaron GoldsteinAaron is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor & Employ...
Josh HughesJosh’s experience spans trial and appellate advoc...
Jillian KornblattJillian is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor & Employ...
Laura LestradeLaura began practicing at Dorsey in 1992 and has s...
Ryan MickFor more than a decade, Ryan has counseled corpo...
Nick PappasNick litigates and counsels with respect to com...
Melissa RaphanMelissa is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor and Employ...
Gabrielle WirthEmployers turn to Gabrielle for guidance on how they...
