California’s Department of Industrial Relations has just dropped the hammer on Cheesecake Factory. The state agency is enforcing a recent law that holds businesses jointly liable for workplace violations experienced by contracted and subcontracted workers such as unpaid wages. The famed chain restaurant had used a cleaning services contractor that subcontracted out the work for overnight janitorial staff but an investigation launched by the state agency found that those workers were not paid properly as well as ...
Continue Reading →17 MAY
A Queen’s contractor has recently been charged with stealing nearly $10 million from city prevailing wage contracts. The company, Parkside, kept almost $2 million in wages from its workers and almost $8 million from the state by manipulating how the workers were compensated. Even though Parkside brought in $100 million in contracts for Manhattan projects in 2016 to 2017, they altered worker’s timesheets and falsified payroll numbers instead of fairly paying its employees.
The prevailing wage is the ...
Continue Reading →15 MAY
A spam text is nothing new, but did you know that if you receive one of these unsolicited messages you have protection and the right to monetary damages under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)? The TCPA provides protection against text messages sent to your mobile phone through the use of an auto-dialer when made without prior written consent. You do not even need to sign up for the Do-Not-Call list to be entitled to these protections. The TCPA provides ...
Continue Reading →20 APR
The state of New York has put out tough new legislation aiming to combat sexual harassment in the workplace. The new laws, approved by the New York State Legislature this past March and signed into law last week, cover a wide angle of issues from training and prevention to appropriate claim forms and investigation policies for when a sexual harassment complaint arises at work. After a sordid year of employees and individuals nationwide stepping forward to report ...
Continue Reading →19 MAR
Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP filed a lawsuit against ASM USA, Inc., a company which provides outsourced customer service solutions for luxury brands worldwide. The collective action lawsuit seeks to recover overtime compensation and other damages on behalf of Brand Ambassadors, Ecommerce Specialists and Customer Service Representatives (“Covered Employees”) who worked for the Company. The Complaint alleges that these employees were required to work more than 40 hours a week, but were not properly compensated for overtime pay.
To carry out ...
Continue Reading →15 MAR
This gender discrimination case, filed in 2016, alleged that the former prominent law firm of Chadbourne & Parke LLP willfully discriminated against the firm’s female partners by paying them less than their similarly situated male counterparts. The plaintiffs, Kerrie Campbell, Jaroslawa Johnson, and Mary Yelenick, brought this case under the Equal Pay Act and gender discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Law.
The legal battle recently came to an end between Chadbourne’s successor firm, Norton Rose Fulbright, ...
Continue Reading →1 MAR
On Feb 27, 2018, the District Judge accepted the Magistrate Judge’s decision to conditionally certify a collective action against Bar Louie. This will allow Plaintiffs to send notice of the lawsuit with an opportunity to opt-in to all current or former servers or bartenders employed by Bar Louie from August 26, 2013 to the present. Affected workers will have the option of participating in this lawsuit with the possibility of recovering potential owed wages.
The lawsuit which was filed back in ...
Continue Reading →10 JAN
The Beatrice Inn , a critically acclaimed high end “chop house” restaurant located in New York City, has just been hit with a class action lawsuit in order to help recover owed wages. The lawsuit alleges that the Beatrice Inn owes its employees minimum wages, overtime compensation, misappropriated tips, and other damages. Affected workers include captains, bartenders, barbacks, and other similarly situated non-managerial employees, commonly referred to as “tipped workers”. Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP, the employment law firm handling the ...
Continue Reading →7 DEC
The acclaimed chain Haru restaurants of New York have landed themselves in a bit of hot water after a recent wage lawsuit claims they have been paying tipped workers less than the full minimum wage in conjunction with other pay issues. These wage claims violate the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the New York Labor Law (“NYLL”), federal and state laws, designed to protect worker rights. Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP filed this class action lawsuit yesterday which intends ...
Continue Reading →6 DEC
Nearly 400 hard working New Yorkers in the construction industry are set to receive unpaid wages totaling over $1.2 million discovered through investigations started on January 1st of this year. Through a partnered effort between the District attorneys of all NYC, Westchester and Nassau Counties, this investigation has resulted in numerous indictments across several jurisdictions with nearly $700,000 already returned to affected workers. Governor Andrew Cuomo’s call for a crackdown in the industry was in response to ...
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