Long Island Employment Law Blog

From the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the civil rights lawyers at Famighetti & Weinick PLLC, have predicted that constitutional challenges to government covid-19 regulations would likely fail. Our videos and blogs have outlined some of our reasoning and earlier this month, partner Matt Weinick published an article further discussing the role of a 1905…

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits workplace discrimination. Title VII, however, prohibits only the types of discrimination identified in the statute, including race discrimination, religious discrimination, national origin discrimination, and sex discrimination. Title VII does not explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status. Accordingly, for years, scholars and…

With covid-19 not giving up, employment lawyers across the country, including our Long Island employment lawyers at Famighetti & Weinick PLLC, are facing questions about how the new pandemic will affect essential workers and non-essential workers who go back to work as the country adjusts to “the new normal” and the economy reopens. In one…

Early on in the coronavirus pandemic, we posted content about the constitutionality of social distancing and business shutdown orders. At the time, the issues were new and had not been recently tested in court. With protests about such orders’ constitutionality becoming more prevalent and with the orders being tested in court, it is time to…

When the coronavirus pandemic started taking hold in the New York region, government moved to shutdown businesses to help control the spread of the virus. New York State Governor Cuomo instituted the Pause program which required all non-essential businesses in New York to close. But, essential businesses were allowed to stay open. Almost immediately, employment…

As the country begins to re-open from the coronavirus shutdown, governments and employers are working to implement procedures to protect workers, patrons, and citizens generally, from the continued threat of covid-19. Face masks and temperature checks are likely to be universally accepted requirements for businesses and workplaces. But, antibody testing is also becoming widespread and…

Today’s Long Island employment law blog discusses the primary beneficiary test which is used to determine whether an individual is an employee for purposes of being covered by minimum wage and overtime laws. As the prevalence of lawsuits concerning improper payment of wages has continued to rise over the past few years, one area of…

Causation is part of every employment discrimination case. Causation means that there is a link between the employment action and a discriminatory reason. For example, if a worker is fired because the worker was caught stealing from the employer, the decision to terminate the worker is legitimate, not discriminatory. But, if the employer terminates a…

One of the hottest topics in the pre-pandemic world of employment law was whether gig drivers and workers are employees or independent contractors. The term gig worker applies to a variety of work arrangements, but is increasingly used to describe workers who provide services for online ride sharing businesses such as Uber and Lyft and…

At Famighetti & Weinick PLLC, our Long Island employment lawyers are fielding calls from employees worried about a number of different coronavirus related employment issues. One serious issue we are seeing is health care workers’ concerns about working when the best protective equipment may not be available or may not be being provided by the…