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The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was drafted in 1938 following the Industrial Revolution, a period of time when workers were notoriously mistreated and underpaid. Tired of being exploited by big businesses, workers united and formed labor unions to rally for their rights. Because of their diligence, there are many laws today which serve to protect the rights and ensure the safety of American workers.

One area which the FLSA mandates is the employment of young laborers. Previously, there was no age limit for working, and oftentimes young boys and girls would be forced to toil day and night to make a wage and help support their impoverished families.

Age Limits

The FLSA requires children to be of a certain age before they can be gainfully employed. The age requirements vary depending on the circumstances surrounding their employment.

To work a non-hazardous job in the agricultural sector, a worker to be at least 14 years old. Exceptions to this law include:

• When a child of 12 or 13 is working on a farm alongside their parents, or with their parents’ permission

• A child under the age of 12 that is working on their parents’ farm, or on a small farm with their parents’ permission

• A 10 or 11 year old may only work for a total of 8 weeks in a year as a hand-harvest laborer

To work a non-hazardous job in all other sectors of the workforce, the minimum age is 16, with the following exceptions:

• Child entertainers and actors

• Children partaking in newspaper delivery

• Children working on the construction of evergreen wreaths from their home

• Children aged 14 or 15 who are working a specified job that does not interfere with their school, health, or well-being. They cannot work in the manufacturing or mining industries.

The FLSA has different legislation for occupations that they believe to be particularly hazardous for children. Hazardous jobs are qualified as jobs that necessarily entail a certain level of risk. This is not a comprehensive list of all hazardous occupations, but examples of such jobs include:

• Mining

• Logging

• Operating power tools

• Wrecking and demolition

• Roofing operations

• Excavations

• Handling radioactive materials

In order to work at a particularly hazardous job, you must be at least 18 years of age, unless it is a hazardous occupation in the agricultural sector, for which you must be 16. Such jobs include:

• Operating a tractor

• Operating or assisting with machinery

• Working on scaffolding over 20 ft high

• Handling toxic agricultural chemicals

For more information on the laws restricting child labor, or for questions regarding the FLSA, contact the San Antonio employment lawyers of Melton & Kumler, LLP.

Joseph Devine

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When you have been injured in the workplace, unemployment benefits can help you pay for your medical expenses and time lost. In order to receive it, however, you have to file the right paperwork on time. Knowing exactly what forms to file and when is a complicated process and depends on where you work and the circumstances. Only an experienced Texas employment lawyer knows all the ins and outs of the system.

The first step to receiving your unemployment benefits is, of course, to file. There are usually time limits: in some cases, employees at the state government level (for example) only have ten days to file their claim! Although the window is usually on the order of a month for most people, the variation between different lines of work means you should consult a lawyer as soon as possible after your injury.

After your claim has been filed, your employer receives a notification. At this point your employer has a week to file an objection with the state if they wish to contest your claim. Your claim goes before a state-level unemployment determination agent. That person’s job is to determine whether or not you are eligible for unemployment. After they have produced an initial decision, you are notified of whether or not you have been awarded unemployment.

If your employer objects, you may need to take your case to a hearing. At your hearing, you and your employer will appear before an agent in a quasi-legal setting. You each may bring lawyers, evidence, and witnesses to build your case.

If you disagree with the state’s decision-either after the hearing or after your initial application-you can appeal it to a state board of review. Most of the time, the board of review agrees with the initial decision. If you find fault with their decision, in particular as evidence and facts are concerned, you can take your case to the court.

At every step of this process, you deserve the help of a lawyer. With an experienced unemployment lawyer at your side, your odds of receiving the benefits you need increase dramatically. To discuss your case directly with a lawyer, contact the Texas unemployment lawyers of the Ross Law Group today.

Joseph Devine

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“Ultimately, equal pay isn’t just an economic issue for millions of Americans and their families, it’s a question of who we are — and whether we’re truly living up to our fundamental ideals,” President Obama said as he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law on January 29, 2009. “Whether we’ll do our part, as generations before us, to ensure those words put on paper some 200 years ago really mean something — to breathe new life into them with a more enlightened understanding that is appropriate for our time.”

The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act removed several barriers that prevented successful pay discrimination claims. The Act is named after Lilly Ledbetter who worked as a production supervisor at a Goodyear plant in Alabama from 1979 until her retirement in 1998. Ledbetter received smaller pay increases than the male supervisors. That pay disparity grew throughout her 20 year employment. When Ledbetter retired, her compensation was 40% lower than the lowest paid male supervisor at the plant. She filed an EEOC charge in July 1998. Ledbetter eventually filed a pay discrimination lawsuit against Goodyear and was awarded more than $3.5 million. Goodyear asked the Court to set aside the jury’s verdict because Ledbetter’s pay discrimination claim was not filed within the 180 day charge-filing deadline. The Ledbetter case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court.

On May 29, 2007, the Supreme Court held that the charge filing deadline for pay discrimination claims begins to run on the date of the first allegedly discriminatory pay decision. The Supreme Court found that Ledbetter’s pay discrimination claim was untimely because she did not file her EEOC charge within 180 days of Goodyear’s first decision to pay her less than male supervisors. Justice Ginsburg writing for the dissent stated that “each paycheck less than the amount payable had the employer adhered to a nondiscriminatory compensation regime . . . constitutes a cognizable harm.” The dissent invited Congress to correct the Court’s Ledbetter decision, by writing “[o]nce again, the ball is in Congress’ court. As in 1991, the Legislature may act to correct this Court’s parsimonious reading of Title VII.”

Congress attempted to accept that invitation during the Bush presidency. But, the White House opposed the bill claiming that it would result in more lawsuits. The Obama administration and the new Congress felt differently about the Ledbetter decision. They believed the Ledbetter decision was unrealistic in its assumption that employees immediately know about pay discrimination. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act of 2009 became law on January 29, 2009. President Obama said, “It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign – the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act – we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness.” The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act changed pay discrimination claims in the following ways:

• The Act amended Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act which means that employees can sue for pay discrimination on the basis of gender, race, national origin, religion, age, and disability.
• The statute of limitations for pay discrimination claims starts over each time the employee receives a paycheck, benefits or other compensation that is impacted by a discriminatory compensation decision.
• Any action that affects compensation (i.e., a performance review, denial of raise request, stock option award, etc.) can trigger a pay discrimination claim and a new statute of limitations.
• In addition to the other statutory remedies, a prevailing employee can receive “back pay for up to two years preceding the filing of the charge.”
• The Act protects individuals “affected” by a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice. The word “affected” greatly expands who can sue for pay discrimination.
• The Act is retroactive to May 28, 2007.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is still relatively new and its impact is not clear. However, recent pay discrimination decisions provide insight into how the courts will interpret the Act.

Courts are recognizing that the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act expanded the definition of “compensation decision.” In Mikula v. Allegheny County, the Third Circuit held that denying an employee’s request for a pay increase is a “compensation decision” and the statute of limitation will restart with each paycheck the employee receives after the denial of a pay increase. And, in Tomlinson v. El Paso Corporation, the Court held that a decision that affects the accrual of pension benefits is a “compensation decision.”  

Courts also are holding that the claim must concern compensation to take advantage of the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The Court in Rowland v. CertainTeed Corporation stated that “the Ledbetter Act does not help Plaintiff here because she pressed no discriminatory compensation claim with respect to her failure to promote.” Similarly, the Court in Richards v. Johnson & Johnson stated that “[w]hile the Act certainly contains expansive language . . . [it] does not save otherwise untimely claims outside the discriminatory compensation context.” The District Court in Leach v. Baylor College of Medicine ruled that “[t]he Fair Pay Act of 2009 only affects the Ledbetter decision with respect to the timeliness of discriminatory compensation claims. . . . The rules set out in Ledbetter . . . cannot breathe new life . . . into disparate treatment cases involving discrete acts other than pay.”

Finally, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act not only provides more opportunities to sue for pay discrimination, but it resuscitated many previously time-barred pay discrimination claims. In fact, both Mikula and Tomlinson involved pay discrimination claims that were time-barred prior to the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and reinstated after the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, in restarting the statute of limitations with each paycheck or benefit accrual, gives employees a real opportunity to combat pay discrimination. And, there is pay discrimination. Women still earn only 77% of what their comparable male counterparts earn. And, college educated African-Americans and Hispanics are paid less than similarly educated Caucasians, 78% and 75% respectively. The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act makes pay discrimination claims a real legal risk for employers which was not the case previously. Perhaps, that risk will help to close the pay disparities that are all too prevalent today. As President Obama said, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act “is an important step – a simple fix to ensure fundamental fairness for American workers.”

Shalanda Ballard is an employment defense attorney who has practiced in all facets of employment litigation. Ms. Ballard was named in the National Register’s Who’s Who and in Law & Politics Magazine as a Rising Star. She has spoken at continuing legal education conferences and employment law seminars. Ms. Ballard writes an Employee Rights blog at http://www.employeerightsblog.net

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Team Building exercises can and have the reverse effect that is intended if someone gets hurt.

Workers Compensation pays for on the job injuries in all 50 states but there is considerable gray area when it comes to volunteered events and “after-work hours” team building activities.

Some states, such as California, specify that claims arising out of voluntary recreational activities are not covered unless the employee was directly or indirectly required to participate in the activity by the employer.

Discrimination and harassment claims can also arise from within the employee ranks if they are feeling pressured to do an activity that violates their “personal space” in their minds. There can and usually is in these social activities a component of humiliation (someone usually loses) that brings in a whole host of employment practices claims.

The key as always is having people on the team that are attentive and sensitive to what is actually going on with all the participants during the activity. A more holistic approach of having more of a body – mind – and spirit approach to the activities goals will help in prevention of adverse claims in this “Pop Culture Management” technique that is widely used in companies.

The reality of someone getting hurt and the company having a workers compensation claim has lasting economic impacts. In the state of California workers compensation claims adversely affect your pricing with a surcharge for workers compensation insurance for 3 years.

The lesson to be learned in the group event and or team building exercise might well be learned by the management team versus the participants.

R. Glenn Matsen, CEO, MBA, CPCU, ARM, CLU, ChFC has over 30 years of risk management experience in providing insurance solutions for the small business owners needs. His website contains detailed information on Tech Insurance and Technology Professional Liability Insurance.

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In the event of harassment or some other situation at work, there is the possibility that a person may be made to quit due to the great amount of stress and awful feelings that come with working in such an inhospitable environment. In this situation, constructive discharge occurs. Constructive discharge is the situation in which “an employer makes the conditions of work so intolerable that the employee quits.” This can occur in a harassment situation or in an area where an employer wants an employee to leave but doesn’t want to fire the employee.

Most of the time when there is a claim of constructive discharge, that claim is not filed by itself. In most situations, there is generally a secondary claim or another claim to go with the constructive discharge claim. Usually, the claim is used in a secondary status in order to convert what appears to be the employee quitting into a form of discharge or termination exercised by the employer.

This claim is commonly used in harassment situations, particularly when the harassment is a “hostile work environment claim.” For example, Miranda works at a company that has done nothing to curb the sexist remarks made by her co-workers. The harassment is severe, pervasive, and ongoing. Because of this, the conditions of Miranda’s employment have been altered and so Miranda quits her job. The conditions of her workplace may have constituted a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Now, because Miranda has quit, she may have a claim for constructive discharge as well.

Miranda leaving her job voluntarily does not necessarily constitute constructive discharge. In order for the claim to be valid, the harassment must have been so “severe or pervasive” that a “reasonable employee in her situation would quit work rather than stay.” In other words, the harassment of the workplace must be in excess of the minimums required under Title VII.

If Miranda’s situation before she quit her job was above the minimums of Title VII, then she has a case of constructive discharge. Having this claim gives rise to the claim of “discriminatory discharge in violation of Title VII” on top of her other claim for sexual harassment. Because of this additional claim, a person in a similar situation would be in a position to receive greater remedies than having just a sexual harassment claim alone. One of the biggest advantages is that addition of back pay to the total damages that are possible.

The Houston employment attorneys of the Ross Law Group are committed to punishing those who interfere with an individual’s right to do his or her job while at work.

Joseph Devine

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