Wage & Hour Counsel : Wage & Hour Lawyer & Attorney : Littler Mendelson Law Firm : Employment Law, Labor Relations

On August 31, 2010, just in time for Labor Day, New York Governor David Paterson signed into law the “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights” (“Bill of Rights”), which grants certain employment protections to household domestic workers such as nannies, caregivers and housekeepers. The Bill of Rights, which takes effect on November 29, 2010, is the first of its kind in the nation and amends New York Labor Law, in addition to other statutes, to entitle domestic workers to receive overtime pay, one day of rest per week or overtime pay when they work on their day of rest, and three days of paid time off after one year of employment. To learn more about the law and its implications for employers, please continue reading Littler's ASAP, "New York Enacts Bill of Rights for Domestic Workers," by Stephen A. Fuchs.

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The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics (7th Cir. 2009), in which that court held that an oral complaint of a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is not considered protected conduct under the Act’s anti-retaliation provision. Continue reading about this development at Littler's D.C. Employment Law Update blog.

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In Barbosa v. IMPCO Technologies, Inc., the California Court of Appeals for the Fourth District held that terminating an employee for exercising his statutory right to overtime wages out of a reasonable, good faith belief of entitlement to it, (notwithstanding the subsequent discovery that he was wrong), was contrary to California public policy.

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In the case of Kasten v. Saint Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently considered the question of whether verbal complaints may constitute protected activity under the FLSA. In this case, the plaintiff alleged that he verbally complained to his supervisors and the company’s human resources department about the legality of the location of the company’s time clocks. The plaintiff alleged that he told two supervisors and a human resources employee that the placement of the clocks was illegal because it prevented employees from being paid for time spent donning and doffing required protective gear.

The Seventh Circuit first affirmed the district court’s conclusion that internal, intra-company complaints may be protected activity for purposes of the anti-retaliation provision of the FLSA. The Court then turned to the question of whether verbal, intra-company complaints may be protected activity.

The Seventh Circuit held that because the FLSA prevents employees from being retaliated against for filing complaints, the statute could not be interpreted as intending to protect unwritten complaints. The court viewed the “natural understanding” of the phrase “file any complaint” to connote the use of a writing. Therefore, to constitute protected activity under the FLSA, the “complaint” must involve the submission of a writing to an employer, court, or administrative body. Notably, other courts have reached a different conclusion.

This blog entry was authored by Theresa Waugh.
 

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