Long Island Employment Law Blog

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 employee’s regular hourly rate is…

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, however, is the difficulty in…

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 the terms and conditions of…

Long Island employment lawyer Peter J. Famighetti received a 10.0 rating from attorney review website AVVO. Famighetti joins his partner and fellow Long Island employment lawyer, Matthew Weinick, at the top of the attorney ratings on AVVO. AVVO is website which maintains attorney profiles and issues ratings to the lawyers on its site. According to…

Federal and state laws protect employees from discrimination and prohibit employers from making employment decisions based on factors such as race, gender, religion, national origin, disability, and age. These laws also protect employees against retaliation. In other words, employers are prohibited from subjecting employees to negative employment decisions, such as termination or demotion, because an…

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects several rights, including the freedom of speech. Indeed, the text of the Amendment reads “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.” Like most Constitutional rights, the freedom of speech is not limitless and the level of Constitutional protection speech may…

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits workplace discrimination. Title VII, however, prohibits only the types of discrimination identified in the statute, including race discrimination, sex discrimination, religious discrimination, and national origin discrimination. For nearly two decades, the prevailing view from the country’s federal courts, including New York’s federal appellate court (the Second…

Most employees in the United States are considered to be at-will employees. At-will employment status means that an employee can be terminated at any time, for any or no reason, as long as the reason is not discriminatory. It also allows employers the freedom to decide the terms of employment without specifying any benefits, if…

“Knowledgeable,” “experienced,” an attorney who represented his client “zealously”; these are just some of the comments from United States Magistrate Judge Henry Pitman in describing the “caliber” of Long Island employment lawyer Matthew Weinick’s work at a recent settlement conference held before the judge. On January 30, 2018, Judge Pitman issued an order approving the…

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on, among other reasons, the employee’s race, religion, national origin, and sex. Title VII also protects employees from retaliation by their employer for reporting or opposing the employer’s discriminatory actions. Before bringing an employment discrimination case, however, the employee…