California Dept. of Industrial Relations Creates Wage Theft Crime Unit

Posted on Mon, Mar 05, 2012

The state Labor Commissioner announced the creation of a Criminal Investigation Unit (CIU) to target employers who perpetrate “wage theft.”

Generally, “wage theft” is a phrase used to refer to infractions of the California Labor Code involving the payment of wages to workers. Wage theft might refer to employers who fail to pay for all hours worked, fail to pay nonexempt employees overtime, fail to pay minimum wage or fail to properly classify workers as employees and report them to the various state and federal agencies.

According to Labor Commissioner Julie Su, the new criminal unit “will be tasked with leveling the playing field for California employers by raising the stakes for those who underpay, underbid and under-report in violation of the law.”

Read More

Tags: employee rights, CA min wage, California labor board, California labor laws overtime, California overtime pay, employees rights, Equal pay for equal work, exempt employee, fair labor, nonexempt employee, overtime pay laws, Salary requirements, wage theft prevention, California Labor Code, HR Allen Consulting Services, unfair labor practices, wage and hour

California Court Of Appeal Provides Roadmap On The Proper Classification Of Independent Contractor

Posted on Mon, Jan 23, 2012

Insurance agents and other types of salespeople with the discretion to determine when, how, and whether to sell a company’s products may properly be classified as independent contractors, according to the California Court of Appeal’s recent holding in Arnold v. Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company — the first California decision to detail the circumstances under which insurance agents, and potentially other types of salespeople, may be classified as independent contractors. The Arnold court utilized California’s Borello “control test” -- a test similar to other control tests used in jurisdictions around the country -- to determine whether the plaintiff was correctly classified as an independent contractor. The court’s analysis provides a checklist of relevant factors for employers to consider when determining whether a particular worker should be classified as an independent contractor or an employee, as well as a roadmap for summary judgment in cases where the independent contractor status is challenged.

Read More

Tags: California Labor Code, independent contractors, class action

California's New Wage Disclosure Notice and the Wage Theft Prevention Act of 2011

Posted on Fri, Jan 06, 2012

UPDATE: On January 3, 2012, the Labor Commissioner changed the FAQs on this notice requirement to clarify that the notice does not need to be given to current employees except under certain circumstances. The Labor Commissioner did so by simply deleting the following sentence formerly in the answer to FAQ 2: “The notice should be given to all current employees and then to all new employees at the time of hire.”

Read More

Tags: California Labor Code, California Employment laws 2012, New CA Employment Laws 2012, New California Employment Laws 2012, wage and hour, 2012 California Laws

What Is the Duty to "Provide" a Meal Period? Oral Argument Before the California Supreme Court in Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court

Posted on Fri, Nov 11, 2011

The long awaited oral argument in the seminal meal and rest break decision involving Brinker Restaurant finally occurred today. Before a packed courtroom, lawyers for a hopeful class of waiters and waitresses and the representatives of California employers battled it out before the seven justices of the California Supreme Court.

At issue are critical issues of interpretation that plague California businesses daily, and have sparked literally thousands of lawsuits, most brought as class actions seeking to recover the one hour “premium pay” owed for every missed meal or rest period.

  • What does it mean to “provide” an uninterrupted 30 minute off-duty meal period—is it sufficient to make that meal period “available” to the employees and allow the employee to decide whether to take that time off, or must the employer “ensure” that the employee in fact did no work for 30 minutes?

  • When must that meal period be taken to be legally compliant—could Brinker require employees to take that meal period within the first two hours of their shifts so they would be available to service customers during busy periods?

  • “Must a meal period be provided every five hours? If an employee takes an early meal period after the second hour, would the employee be entitled to two meal periods in one eight-hour shift?”

  • Must a rest period be offered within the first four hours of a shift, or could Brinker delay the rest period until after 4 hours had been worked?

  • Must that rest period be offered before the meal period is made available?


What Does It Mean to “Provide” a Meal Period?

Counsel for the employees, Kimberly Kralowec, argued that California law protects employees by requiring affirmative steps to be taken by the employers to ensure that work stops for the required 30 minutes for meal periods. She was immediately pummeled with questions by most of the justices regarding this position, particularly the practical effect on both employees and employers. A majority of the court seemed inclined to interpret the statutes and wage orders to give employees the flexibility to decide whether to work through meal periods.

Justice Goodwin Liu asked plaintiffs’ counsel, “isn’t the hallmark of a meal period that the employer suspends control? Shouldn’t the employee be allowed to work if he wants?” When plaintiffs’ counsel responded, “no, the employee can’t work; the employer exercises control over the employee to prevent the employee from working,” Justice Liu followed up by asking “isn’t this coercive? Isn’t the most worker-friendly interpretation that the employee can do what he or she wants?” Plaintiffs’ attorney disagreed.

Justice Kennard similarly inquired “how does the employer enforce that standard? Isn’t that tantamount to an “ensure” standard? Why not give the employee the flexibility?” Justice Baxter asked how it could be “protective” of the employee to require the employer to discipline or terminate the employee if that employee disregards the employer’s instructions and works during a meal period? Justice Werdegar skeptically asked plaintiffs’ counsel, “you’re saying in order to protect the employee, if the employee freely chooses to work he should be disciplined?” Plaintiffs’ counsel responded, “yes,” because the off-duty meal period is mandatory, the employer is in control and therefore should discipline the employee if he or she works during the meal. This standard, Ms. Kralowec contended, is the same as with overtime, where an employee can be fired for working without authorization but still must be paid.

Defense counsel Rex Heinke argued that an employer has an affirmative duty to provide an opportunity to take a 30-minute meal period relieved of all duty, but agreed with Justice Kennard that the statutory language provides some flexibility because the employee decides whether to take that time as an off-duty period.

When Must a Meal Period Be Provided?

Another issue raised by this appeal is?when?the employer must provide a meal period—in the middle of the shift or anytime within the shift? Brinker employees did not necessarily wait until the middle of their shifts to take a meal period and thus might work more than five hours before receiving a second meal period or ending their shifts. Plaintiffs contended that Labor Code section 512 requires employees to be provided a meal before the end of the fifth hour and at least once every five hour “work period.”

Justice Kennard interpreted the plaintiffs’ argument as providing no flexibility on this issue, summarizing that “after five hours you stop work.” She read a long passage from a Labor Commissioner’s hearing in which restaurant workers, truck drivers, nurses and other employees objected to being forced to take meal breaks by the end of the fifth hour. She thus seemed sympathetic to Brinker’s position that meal periods can be offered anytime within the shift.

Brinker’s attorney argued that the wage order does not say that an employee earns a meal period for each consecutive five hours of work. The statute says only that those employees working “more than 10 hours per day” are entitled to two meal periods, and that plaintiffs’ interpretation renders the language requiring a second meal after ten hours a day “mere surplusage.” The Industrial Welfare Commission, moreover, specifies that rest periods shall, insofar as practicable, be offered in the middle of the work period, but makes no similar requirement for meal periods, except in the wage order governing the entertainment industry. To the extent the Wage Orders require meal periods for every five hours of consecutive work, even if the Wage Order would give employees “greater protections”—that interpretation conflicts with the Labor Code and should be disregarded, according to Brinker’s attorneys.

Justice Liu, however, differed with that interpretation, contending that the language of the Wage Order instead means that after any work period of five hours—including one taken after a 30-minute meal—gives the employee the right to a meal period, even a second meal period in an 8- or 9-hour day. For instance, if the employee started work at 8 a.m., took a meal period from noon to 12:30 p.m., and then worked until 6 p.m., he would be entitled to a second meal because he worked more than 5 hours after lunch. Mr. Heinke responded that the commission that issued the wage orders specifically deleted language that would have so required, and adopted the words “per day” to specify the obligation as to provide one meal period per day unless the employee worked 10 or more hours in that day. Since the other justices did not offer an opinion, it is unclear which way the court will go on this issue.

Rest Periods

The parties’ positions were just as much at war with respect to the interpretation of the employer’s obligation to authorize and permit rest periods. Plaintiffs in their briefs characterized the court of appeal’s ruling as entitling an employee working an eight hour shift to only one rest break because the first rest break would be granted only “after” the first four hours of work. Brinker retorted that the appellate court found that such an employee would be entitled to two rest breaks in one eight-hour period.

In oral argument before the California Supreme Court plaintiffs focused on their contention that Brinker’s policies discouraged or impeded employees from taking rest breaks. Brinker never paid the one hour’s wage to any employees, never conducted a compliance audit, and did nothing to determine or monitor compliance, they argued. Plaintiffs claimed that Brinker’s policies impeded, frustrated or dissuaded employees from taking rest breaks because their tips were not pooled, so they would lose tips when they took rest breaks. Justice Corrigan inquired whether plaintiffs were arguing that the employer “must” use a tip-pooling policy, and plaintiffs’ counsel responded, no, but the court erred in not allowing plaintiffs as a class to challenge the practice of penalizing employees who took rest breaks. Justice Liu seemed incredulous, asking why can’t the employer structure tips as it chooses, and how is this unlawful? Plaintiffs responded that Brinker’s practice of denying tip pooling created a “coercive atmosphere” that in their view violated the Labor Code and the Wage Orders.

Class Certification

Equally important given the flood of class actions being brought, the California Supreme Court has been asked to decide some difficult and important issues involving the standards for certifying classes alleging missed meal and rest periods, particularly what evidence can establish liability on a class-wide basis:

  • Did individual issues predominate over common issues, thereby precluding class certification?

  • Could Brinker’s meal policy coupled with records of workers’ shift lengths establish violations of Labor Code section 226.7, supplemented with representative employee evidence and survey/expert testimony—even assuming that meal periods only had to be “made available” to employees?

  • Could plaintiffs establish liability for rest period violations through common corporate policies, corporate time records, representative employee testimony and/or survey evidence?

  • Did plaintiffs’ expert survey and statistical evidence prove common issues sufficient to support class certification?

  • Did the appellate court reweigh the evidence in overturning class certification?


The trial court certified a class back in 2006, finding that a common legal question of whether Brinker must force employees to take meal breaks predominated despite the individualized questions Brinker raised to defend against a finding of liability. The appellate court reversed, and plaintiffs now seek to reinstate that class.

Unfortunately, the parties did not have sufficient time to address these issues in oral argument. Plaintiffs’ counsel did argue that class certification was appropriate based on what he characterized as common issues regarding Brinker’s asserted policies or practices to dissuade, impede or discourage taking rest breaks. Justice Liu asked how rest periods could be susceptible to class treatment when the employer is not required to keep records showing that they were in fact taken, particularly without a written policy that proved that rest periods were denied or impeded. Justice Werdegar followed with her own question that suggested that she agreed that at least this issue was amenable to class certification. Justice Liu returned to this issue by challenging plaintiffs’ counsel as having no basis to show that Brinker acted unlawfully if it allowed each waiter to keep his/her own tips rather than pooling them.

We now will await the court’s decision, due out by early February 2012.

By: Alison Hightower
Read More

Tags: Meal and Rest Periods, State Wage and Hours Laws, rest break, meal break, Uncategorized, California, California Labor Code, California Supreme Court

New California Employment Laws 2012 pt.1

Posted on Thu, Nov 10, 2011

A new tidal wave of employment laws is about to flood the shores of California. On January 1, 2012, multiple new laws will take effect in California, and they will have a significant impact on the employment practices of companies with California operations. 

Read More

Tags: employees, California, California Labor Code, Employee Benefits, employee bonus, employee gifts, computer professionals, HR Allen Consulting Services, Human Resource, Discrimination in the Workplace, discrimination, Employers, Federal Contractors, Human Resources, California Employment laws 2012, New CA Employment Laws 2012, New California Employment Laws 2012

New California Employment Laws 2012 pt.2

Posted on Thu, Nov 10, 2011

The previous blog covered several of the most important new employment laws for 2012 that could affect your day-to-day operations. Today's blog discusses additional employment related legislation for 2012 that may affect your business, including Workers' Compensation Legislation. Many of the new laws discussed in this edition relate to specific industries.

Read More

Tags: employees, California, California Labor Code, Employee Benefits, employee bonus, employee gifts, computer professionals, HR Allen Consulting Services, Human Resource, Discrimination in the Workplace, discrimination, Employers, Federal Contractors, Human Resources, California Employment laws 2012, New CA Employment Laws 2012, New California Employment Laws 2012

Golden State Update

Posted on Thu, Nov 10, 2011

Golden State Update.
Read More

Tags: State Wage and Hours Laws, Attorneys, Fees', Indemnification, Uncategorized, California, California Labor Code