2018 Blog

While the Federal minimum wage of $7.25 hasn’t moved in nearly a decade, several states and cities have set their own higher minimum wages, and many of those are planning increases in 2019. In the District of Columbia the new minimum wage is $14.00 an hour. In Florida, the minimum wage is going up 21…

The “#MeToo” national wave of women’s sexual harassment complaints has left a noticeable mark on the workload of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Charges filed with the EEOC regarding sexual harassment by both men and women alleging workplace discrimination increased by 13.6 percent during fiscal year 2018, which ended on September 30, over the…

The Florida Supreme Court has agreed in a split decision, by a 4-3 vote, to decide the City of Miami Beach’s second appeal of a lower court’s decision declaring invalid the city’s proposed local minimum wage law. Florida Supreme Court Justices Barbara J. Pariente, R. Fred Lewis, Peggy A. Quince, and Jorge Labarga voted on…

Fifty years after Congress prohibited discrimination in the workplace on the basis of age, more than three-fourths of older American workers surveyed have reported that their age was an obstacle in getting a job. Six out of every 10 older workers have seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace, and 90 percent of those…

In a much awaited decision, the United States Supreme Court has decided, by a 5-to-4 vote, that employment agreements requiring out-of-court private arbitration of workplace wage disputes, and prohibiting group class lawsuits in court, are valid and enforceable. More than half of private-sector employers have mandatory arbitration procedures, and 30 percent of these include class…

In a major victory for gay rights advocates, an influential federal appeals court has decided that the principal federal law against employment discrimination protects gay as well as heterosexual employees. The federal Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, based in Manhattan, decided in the case of Zarda v. Altitude Express, Inc. on February 26 that…

Should restaurant wait staff and bartenders get to keep customer tips — or should the tips belong instead to their employers? Under current law the employees get to keep the tips, but under President Trump the United States Department of Labor (DOL) is considering a proposed new rule reversing existing practice. If a proposed new…