"This & That" Tuesday: Political Activity, Off-the-Clock Work

 

May 19, 2015

 

Here is the latest issue of “This & That” Tuesday. I hope you find it to be informative and useful.

 

Announcements

You can always check out my website for upcoming speaking engagements that are guaranteed to be of value to business owners or for a list of topics that I can speak on at Chambers, Clubs, Business Associations, etc. More details about the events, topics and Human Resources 4U, in general, can be found on my website.

 

Upcoming Events

June 2, 2015

Understanding and Building a Disciplinary Process

Compliance Key

Webinar

Information can be found on my website.

 

June 4, 2015

East SGV CPA Group

2015 Labor Law Update

Information can be found on my website.

 

June 9, 2015

South Pasadena Rotary Club

The New Paid Sick Leave Act

Information can be found on my website.

 

July 15, 2015

West Inland Empire Employer Advisory Council

Coaching to Improve Performance

Information can be found on my website.

 

California Law Protects Employee Political Activity
Social and political activists increasingly use social media to pressure employers to take action against executives for engaging in non-work related activities.

 

Employers planning to take action against employees for engaging in political activity outside of work once again may find themselves between the proverbial rock and hard place. For California law (which goes beyond the NLRB requirements) protects employees’ right to engage in political activity outside of work, even political activity that offends the employer or its constituents.

 

California Labor Codes prevent private sector employers from controlling an employee’s political activities outside of work. Either from making, adopting, or enforcing any rule, regulation, or policy that forbids or restricts employees from participating in politics or becoming candidates for public office or coercing/influencing an employee’s political activity by threatening discharge or loss of employment.

 

All California employees, even high-ranking officials, have the right to engage in political activities outside of work. Therefore, employers should refrain from taking any negative action against an employee based on his or her political conduct or affiliation outside of the workplace.

 

If employers find themselves in a position of having an employee take a political position contrary to what the employer would like they may try to negotiate the employee’s resignation. Termination for unpopular political beliefs is not an option for California employers. In the case of high-ranking management, it may be a good idea to draft employment contracts to address such situations, as they appear to be becoming more common.

 

Finally, employers should always continue to manage employees’ performance and effectiveness in their jobs, even if they are more cautious about acting on employees’ conduct outside the workplace especially if the outside conduct is impacting their work performance.

 

Off-the-Clock Claims Settled for $1.35 Million

Construction laborers who started and ended their day performing uncompensated loading and unloading of their employers’ trucks agreed to settle their off-the-clock claims for $950,000, plus $285,000 in attorneys’ fees, $60,000 for costs and miscellaneous other amounts. 

 

Three employees said that about 25 laborers were required to call or log onto the dispatch system operated by Ghilotti Brothers Construction Inc. (GBI) each night to find out when they were required to arrive at a job site. The dispatch system did not specify, however, when the plaintiffs were expected to arrive at the GBI loading area to load equipment onto work trucks and transport it to each job site. The arrival time varied each day from one-and-a-half to three hours early.

 

At the end of the shift, the workers returned from the job site to GBI’s loading area to unload equipment and sometimes wash trucks and equipment. Only the time at the job site, not at the loading area, was compensated.

 

In addition to claiming that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state law was violated by this off-the-clock work, the plaintiffs maintained that state law was violated because they regularly worked more than four hours without being afforded a rest period of at least 10 minutes during which they were relieved of all duties. And they regularly were denied meal breaks of 30 minutes when they worked more than five hours and a second meal break after another five hours of work.

 

When workers complained, they said, they were given fewer shifts and sometimes were denied any shifts in the days or weeks following a complaint.

 

False pay records were given to the plaintiffs, U.S. citizens of Mexican descent whose primary language is Spanish. These records reflected only the hours they worked on the job site, not total hours worked.

 

Employees were also required to sign a misleading form prior to receiving their weekly paycheck. It was a so-called safety sheet, which falsely stated that they had received all required meal and rest breaks for the week. The form was written only in English.

 

Factoids

• 18% of workers are very confident about living well in retirement, up from 13% in 2013.

 

Immigrants

• 40 million of which about 12 million are undocumented
• 21% of Inc. 500 fastest growing companies’ CEOs are immigrants
• Immigrants start business 2x more than native-born citizens
• 50% growth in immigrant businesses from 1996 to 2011
• -10% growth for native born citizens during same period
• Immigrant owned businesses paid $126 billion in annual wages to employees

   

Quote of the Blog

“There is no stigma attached to recognizing a bad decision in time to install a better one.”

~Lawrence J. Peter~