Rojgar Job News

Minnesota Enacts Criminal Penalties for Wage Law Violations Minnesota governor Tim Waltz recently signed legislation that imposes criminal penalties (including felony charges) on employers who engage in “wage theft.” Effective August 1, 2019 , employers will be guilty of a felony if they wrongfully withhold an employee’s pay by virtue of underpayment, misclassification, or refusing to pay an employee for mandatory breaks or overtime. To enforce this law, the Department of Labor and the Attorney General are vested with broad investigative powers, such as the right to issue subpoenas, seek testimony, and obtain documents regarding an alleged “wage theft”. Further, the Department is doubling the number of state investigators to conduct investigations regarding wage theft accusations. In conducting their investigations, investigators will be permitted, with a court order, to enter the place of business of an employer or any entity that licenses or regulates the...

It seems fairly simple: Do the same work, get the same pay. Despite the simplicity of the concept, courts continue to grapple with what this means in the context of the federal Equal Pay Act, which, since 1963, has prohibited employers from paying men and women different wages for the same or substantially similar work, with four limited exceptions: where the different rate of pay as between male and female employees is based on (1) seniority; (2) merit; (3) the quantity or quality of the employee’s work; or (4) “any other factor other than sex.” In 2009, an experienced female math teacher, Aileen Rizo, relocated from Maricopa County, Arizona to Fresno County, California to take a position as a math consultant to the County Office of Education. When she moved, Fresno County did not consider a salary range for the position or compare her to similarly situated math consultants to determine her salary, but instead took her final salary in Arizona – which has a very ...

Our colleague Jacob Davis at Squire Patton Boggs’  Sports Shorts blog discussed the recent ruling in the Equal Pay Act and Title VII case brought by members of the U.S. women’s national soccer team against U.S. Soccer alleging that they were discriminated against by being paid less than their male counterparts.  On Friday, May 1, 2020, Judge Gary Klausner of the United States District Court for the Central District of California granted partial summary judgment to U.S. Soccer in a pay equity class action lawsuit brought by members of the U.S. women’s national soccer team. In his ruling, Judge Klausner dismissed the U.S. women’s argument that U.S. Soccer systematically underpaid the women in relation to the earnings of the U.S. men’s national soccer team. This decision vitiated nearly $66 million in claimed damages on behalf of the women. Judge Klausner also dismissed a claim sounding in unsafe play as a result of training and playing on ...