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Were Employees Required to Sign Tax Refunds Over to Employer?

An employee has filed a class action lawsuit in a San Francisco federal court claiming that his employer required foreign employees to sign over their federal and state tax refund checks to the company. The lawsuit was filed by Gopi Vedachalam, a citizen of India, against Tata American International Corp., which is a U.S. subsidiary […]

Bias Charge Filings Drop Slightly

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has reported that discrimination charge filings in 2005 were down in all bias categories, and dropped by 5 percent overall. The EEOC received 75,428 charges for the fiscal year 2005 (which ended Sept. 30) and recovered almost $380 million in monetary relief through enforcement actions and litigation. The […]

Labor Union Numbers Remain Steady

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released figures showing that in 2005, 12.5 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, the same percentage as in 2004. Note that while the percentage remained steady, the actual number of union members increased by 213,000. Union membership was at a peak […]

Employment Law Tip: Warding Off Workplace Violence

In late January, a former U.S. postal worker went on a shooting rampage at a mail processing plant in the town of Goleta near Santa Barbara. The ex-employee killed five, wounded another, and then turned the gun on herself. She reportedly had been placed on medical leave from her job in 2003 for psychological reasons–at […]

DOL Collected $166 Million for Employees in 2005

Last year, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division collected $166 million in back wages on behalf of 241,000 employees for employer violations of laws enforced by the division. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal wage-and- hour law, the division recovered a total of $134.2 million, including $119.4 million for […]