American workers are the backbone of this country. Employees spend hours working over a burning hot grill, waiting tables, working on assembly lines, delivering packages in time for the holidays, and a multitude of other tasks required to keep our economy going. And despite all this, they are frequently taken advantage of by greedy companies. It is because our...
Continue ReadingTo protect employee safety and wellbeing, employers are legally required to give their workers break periods for meals and rest time during the course of a work day. Sometimes, though, you may not need or want a break. You might think it’s more efficient for you to waive your lunch break, for instance, and finish your work early. So,...
Continue ReadingYou just got home from a long day at work when the phone rings. It’s your manager and he “hates” to bug you, but someone just called in sick. He needs you to cover their shift that night. You tell him that you’re dead tired after working all day. He tells you to take a nap for an hour...
Continue ReadingCalifornia Meal And Rest Break Requirements For Employees Although employees in California are protected by some of the strongest employment laws in the U.S., workers here also experience some of the highest rates of employer wage theft in the country. One of the most easily overlooked ways that employers steal from their workers? Violating their rights to meal and...
Continue ReadingYou’re an associate at a wealth management firm in Sacramento, where, for the past couple of months, your manager has been making increasingly inappropriate comments about your appearance and body. You tried to tell your manager that these comments make you uncomfortable, but he laughed off your concerns. You go to speak to HR, saying that you’re considering filing...
Continue ReadingAround 40 percent of American workers face limitations in their career development and earning power due to an employer’s non-compete agreement. Often under the guise of safeguarding a company’s protected information, these contracts restrict when and where employees can find work in their chosen industry, trapping workers in undesirable jobs and preventing them from making a competitive living wage. ...
Continue ReadingAcross America, almost 30 million workers have signed non-compete agreements as a condition of their employment. The purpose of these agreements is to protect trade secrets, confidential customer information, or intellectual property from competitors. They do this typically by placing restrictions on when and where certain high-level or technically skilled employees can retain work. But in the past few...
Continue ReadingOn November 4, 2022, thousands of employees at Twitter were dismayed to log into their company email only to learn that their jobs had suddenly been eliminated. Just days after purchasing the popular social media company, billionaire and new CEO Elon Musk caused an uproar by initiating major layoffs that eliminated over half of Twitter’s workforce with little warning. ...
Continue ReadingCertain California workers can look forward to a pay bump in the coming year, thanks to new legislation recently approved by the governor. Out of hundreds of bills debated by lawmakers in the fall 2023 session, two initiatives to increase minimum wage pay for Californians in the healthcare and fast food industries were among those finally signed into law...
Continue ReadingBetween new COVID-19 variants, nationwide strikes in major industries, rolling layoffs, and the acceleration of generative AI-induced wonder (or panic) — the past year has brought a number of changes and challenges to workers across the U.S. While these events garnered headlines, though, New York workplaces saw some important changes closer to home in 2023. Over the past calendar...
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