› $580,975,000 verdict in consumer fraud case
May 21st, 2010 by Kurt Niland
Pharmaceutical drug manufacturer Novartis must pay $3.3 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages for systemically discriminating against thousands of female employees, a federal jury in Manhattan ruled on Wednesday.
April 26th, 2010 by Wendi Lewis
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has opened the door for millions of women who claim retail discount giant Wal-Mart discriminated against female employees. A class-action lawsuit originally filed in 2001 claims the retailer paid its female employees less than male employees doing the same job, and gave fewer promotions to women employees. The class-action could involve more than 1 million women.
April 26th, 2010 by Kurt Niland
A federal appeals court dealt Wal-Mart a huge blow today when it ruled that the largest sex-discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history may proceed as a class action. The lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2001 by a group of six female Wal-Mart employees, could potentially affect more than 1.5 million women throughout the country, a 2001 estimate found.
July 8th, 2009 by Kurt Niland
Three former Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company employees who filed a $200-million class-action lawsuit against the company claim they were deprived of minimum wages and overtime pay. The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in federal court in San Diego, alleging Northwest Mutual misclassified them and hundreds of other employees as independent contractors to save money.
June 19th, 2009 by Kurt Niland
Hurricane Katrina, a powerful storm surge, and a system of inadequate levies teamed up in 2005 to create an unprecedented level of disaster in the United States. In the wake that followed, New Orleans (along with many other coastal communities in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama) resembled a sea of destruction. New Orleans relied heavily on day laborers to clean up, repair, and rebuild. Sadly, however, recent surveys found that 80% of the Hispanic workers had been cheated out of compensation.
June 18th, 2009 by Kurt Niland
The Times Union of Saratoga, New York, published an editorial calling attention to a bill that has stalled in the New York legislature as the state’s Senate fights over which party leads the chamber. The Farmworkers Omnibus Labor Standards Bill seeks to secure some of the most basic labor rights to migrant laborers and other agricultural workers – rights that have protected workers in other industries since the Fair Labor Standards Act established a 40-hour work week and a minimum wage more than 70 years ago.
May 28th, 2009 by Kurt Niland
A Nashville car wash company has reached a settlement with three employees who claim they weren’t paid for several hours of work. The minimum-wage employees sued Shur-Brite Hi Speed Car Wash, alleging the company’s owners clocked them in and out throughout the day, depending on how busy their work shifts were. The agreed settlement for $130,000 will be distributed among 120 employees, who, like the plaintiffs, weren’t being paid for hours spent on the job.
May 19th, 2009 by Kurt Niland
Build-A-Bear-Workshop Inc. is listed on Fortune’s 2009 list of the “100 Best Companies to Work for,” but the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division disagrees — at least where the company’s youngest employees are concerned. The government agency cited the St. Louis-based company for violations of child labor provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act and ordered it to pay $25,600 in civil penalties.
May 6th, 2009 by Kurt Niland
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and hour Division has ordered a Suwanee, Georgia-based demolition company to pay a steep penalty for violating child labor laws after a teenage employee died on the work site. The teenager, an employee of Demon Demo Inc., was working on a demolition site at Macy’s in the Gwinnett Place Mall when he fell from the third story of the building. The boy had been tossing debris off the building when he fell.
May 5th, 2009 by Kurt Niland
The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, under which the Fair Labor Standards Act came into existence in 1938 as part of a nationwide effort to protect working class citizens from corporate exploitation and abuse, may be on the mend after an long era of being little more than a bureaucratic entity.
