Employment Law Navigator – Week in Review: September 2016

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Last week, it was reported that 10,000 Chipotle workers have joined the class action against the Tex Mex chain for unpaid wages, claiming Chipotle routinely made them work off the clock. That’s roughly one in five Chipotle employees who say they were forced to work for no pay. The suit, which was filed in 2014, alleges that Chipotle “routinely requires hourly-paid restaurant employees to punch out and then continue working until they are given permission to leave.” With 9,961 current and former workers jumping on board from nearly every state that Chipotle operates in, this is the largest wage theft lawsuit Chipotle has faced.
It is only the most recent of a wave of worker-related discrimination lawsuits targeting the Tex-Mex chain. In August, a jury awarded $500,000 to a former employee who claimed she was fired from a Washington D.C. Chipotle because she was pregnant. In February, a Cincinnati federal grand jury found that three female managers were “discriminated against and fired because of their gender” and ordered the company to pay the women $200,000 each.
Discrimination
  • This just in! Vanity Fair reported this morning that Fox News has offered a public apology and reached a $20 million settlement with former anchor Gretchen Carlson in her lawsuit alleging former boss Roger Ailes sexually harassed her. 
  • As we noted last week, the EEOC issued new enforcement guidance on retaliation claims brought under the anti-discrimination laws the EEOC enforces. 
  • The EEOC sued Motel 6, alleging the hotel chain unlawfully placed a pregnant employee on leave. 
  • A female lawyer sued her law firm for $100 million on behalf of herself and other female partners who she alleged made less than male partners even when they earn more client revenue. 
  • To settle a lawsuit for associational disability discrimination brought by the EEOC, a medical facility has agreed to pay $165,000 and conduct anti-discrimination training.
Technology
  • Tech firm Glint raised $27 million to build technology designed to help companies figure out why their employees are leaving.  
  • The Guardian examined how mathematical modeling used in screening applicants for everything from jobs to insurance is encoding human prejudice into automatic systems that increasingly manage our lives.
In Other Developments
  • The Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously held that the question of whether Minneapolis should raise its minimum wage to $15 could not appear on the ballot of Minneapolis voters in November.
  • The Washington Post reported that President Obama’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order will go into effect in October. A “pre-assessment process” to screen federal contractors begins in a couple of weeks.
  • The National Labor Relations Board held that charter schools are private corporations, not public schools, so employees wishing to unionize must organize as private employees under the National Labor Relations Act.
  • The National Labor Relations Board heard testimony from a representative of 1,200 Menards truckers who allege that Menards misclassified its drivers as independent contractors.
  • Settlements totaling more than $12 million were reached in back-pay lawsuits against transportation and hospitality companies that provide services at or near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

 

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DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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