Employers in New York cannot willfully turn their backs to the state’s minimum wage and overtime laws and expect to get away with it. Courts or the Department of Labor are likely to impose hefty fines or penalties. Today’s employment law blog discusses the penalties employers on Long Island and…
Unpaid wage and overtime lawsuits are often brought as class actions or collective actions. This way, many employees can band together and use the power of numbers to take on powerful corporations. But, on May 21, 2018, The U.S. Supreme Court practically slammed its doors directly in employees’ faces while…
Retaliation in the workplace is illegal. The law protects employees who speak up when they believe the employer discriminated against them because of a protected characteristic such as race, gender, age, disability, religion, or national origin. Employers cannot try to “get back” at the employee by negatively affecting his or…
The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects, among other rights, the freedom of speech. An unsettled area of employment law in New York has been the question of how much protection does the First Amendment provide to public sector employees like police officers. Today’s Long Island employment law…
For the fourth consecutive year, Long Island employment lawyer Matt Weinick has been asked to return to Hofstra Law School to teach the Foundational Lawyering Skills class. Weinick will be designated as a Special Instructor to teach second year law students, commonly referred to as “2L’s.” According to Hofstra Law…
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia has been dominating the news. What, if anything, can the Russia investigation teach us about employment law? Today’s Long Island employment law blog discusses the one clear answer — tell the truth. The presidency may be…
In 2017, the #MeToo movement trended across social media and in the news. Generated from reports of rampant sexual harassment over the course of many years in Hollywood, the social media hashtag #MeToo became popular as a way for victims to come forward with their stories and for others to…
The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the New York State Labor Law (“NYLL”) require employers to pay employees overtime whenever they work over 40 hours in a workweek. The overtime pay rate, under both laws, is 1.5 times the regular rate of pay. So, for example, if an…
Some employment contracts contain arbitration clauses requiring legal disputes to be resolved through arbitration as opposed to a court proceeding. Arbitration differs from a court proceeding in several ways. For example, arbitration is generally less formal, less expensive, and quicker than a typical court proceeding. A significant drawback to arbitration,…
The National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) grants several rights to a wide array of employees in the private sector regardless of whether or not the employee is part of a union. For example, the NLRA allows covered employees to join as a group in an effort to address and improve…