— Employee Rights Category Archives — Page 7 of 10 — Dallas Employment Lawyer Blog Published by Dallas, Texas Employment Lawyers

The Twitter Showdown: Layoffs and the Law

November 28, 2022 | Deontae Wherry

Twitter’s new CEO, Elon Musk, cannot stay out of the courtroom. Just a few months ago, Twitter sued Mr. Musk after he attempted to walk away from purchasing the company despite the parties reaching an agreement. The court set Twitter’s lawsuit for trial in October 2022. Weeks prior to the trial, Mr. Musk unexpectedly agreed to proceed with his original offer to purchase Twitter.

When Mr. Musk officially acquired Twitter, he immediately terminated the company’s top executives. Mr. Musk did not stop there; subsequently, he randomly laid off several employees without notice. As a result, these employees are suing Twitter for not giving proper notice regarding their layoff. Less than a month into Mr. Musk’s leadership of Twitter, Mr. Musk and his company are back in the courtroom. One would think that an experienced executive would consult an attorney prior to unreasonably exposing his company to potential liability, but not Mr. Musk who seems to make impulsive decisions.

The employees’ lawsuit alleges that Twitter violated the WARN Act when Mr. Musk announced that he would be reducing Twitter’s global workforce. It was speculated that the layoff could affect 50% of Twitter’s workforce. Since this lawsuit, Twitter has taken measures to reduce its potential liability under the WARN Act.

Welcome to the Era of Salary Transparency

November 10, 2022 | Haylie Davis

Have you heard it’s “taboo” to talk about your salary? Us too. Well, that is out the window now. Welcome to the era of salary transparency. Yes, we know it can be awkward to talk about salary, but with new laws on the horizon, it may be a little easier to figure out how much your co-workers are getting paid.

Recently, the New York City Council passed a law requiring employers in New York City with four or more employees to list the minimum and maximum salary on all job posting including ads, promotions, and transfer opportunities. This law applies to any position that can or will be performed, in whole or in part, in New York City. This affects remote listings, meaning any job that could conceivably be done in New York City must follow this.

So why did the New York City Council deem this necessary? They passed this law to try and fight against big pay gaps, specifically between genders as well as between majority and minority racial groups. Let’s be honest, pay matters. It affects where you work and how long you decide to stay there.

What are my options if my employer forces me into court far from home?

August 18, 2022 | Robert J. Wiley

Summary: This article discusses some strategies, including different contract clauses, that employers might use to try to control where you can sue them, or to try to sue you in a far-away place.

If you are in a legal dispute with your employer, where the lawsuit is filed can make a big difference. That affects who the judge is or who might be on the jury. Exactly where a lawsuit can be filed depends on the nature of the legal claims in it. However, two basic principles generally apply. If there are multiple permissible options of where to file suit, the party filing suit gets to choose where to file suit. However, the location must be somewhere that has “personal jurisdiction” over the defendant—i.e., the defendant has to have sufficient connections to the location for it to be legally “fair” to sue them there. This article, however, explores ways that employers may try to get around these basic principles through contracts containing “forum selection” or “venue selection” clauses.

While Texas is an at-will state and sometimes you may have next to nothing in writing from your employer that controls the terms and conditions of your employment, your employer might force you to sign things like a non-compete or an arbitration agreement as a condition of employment. Those may contain language trying to force any disputes to be heard somewhere specific to get around the usual rules for where they should be heard.[1] This can potentially result in situations where you, a Texas employee, are either sued or have your lawsuit moved to a location far from you or even out of state. This might also result in non-Texas employees being sued or forced to only sue in Texas.

The Truth Will Not Hurt You!

August 12, 2022 | Deontae Wherry

Searching for a job in today’s job market can be a tedious and competitive process. Employers are adding more requisites and qualifications to job postings in an attempt to attract the best candidate. That, in turn, requires candidates to find ways to better market themselves, including sometimes exaggerating their skills and qualifications on their resume and application or misrepresenting why they left their last employer. Let me warn you—don’t misrepresent your qualifications or the reason you left your employer. If a job is meant for you, the job will be for you.

How can a misstatement on an application affect you in an employment case?

For purposes of this article, employers will use any information that will undermine the employee’s credibility. Put simply, one of the employer’s objectives is to show that employee is not trustworthy. One way to do that is by looking to an employee’s application to determine if the employee misrepresented his or her experiences, qualifications, or previous job history. If you intentionally mispresent information on your application or your resume, the company will also use your misrepresentation against you as an after-acquired evidence defense. The best way to avoid helping an employer build one of its defenses is by being truthful.

Tuesdays should be the New Monday

June 23, 2022 | Paige Melendez

The newest shockwave to hit employment customs is the murmurs of a four-day workweek. In fact, Iceland recently declared their experiment with the four-day workweek a success. Belgian workers won the right to a four-day workweek in February, and the United Kingdom has set up a trial run that began this month with about 70 companies volunteering. Further, other countries are looking at the European peninsula to see how their experiment goes to consider instituting the shortened workweek. So, how could we get a four-day workweek in the United States?

The first way is obvious but unlikely. Either the House or Senate would have to draft a bill that mandated a four-day workweek for all businesses. Then, the bill would go to the opposite chamber of Congress before a final agreed upon draft was sent and signed by the President. The chance of a bill of this magnitude, with the potential to cause ripples throughout all levels of industry and business, wading through the stagnant pond of Congress is low, so we turn to a second method.

The second method has a greater likelihood, and it involves rallying all your coworkers during lunch to discuss how much you want to only work for four days. If multiple people agree, then you can be designated as a spokesperson for the group and approach your boss on their behalf to ask that a four-day workweek be considered for multiple reasons like everyone hates Monday anyways, Tuesday is the new Monday, and no one actually works on Friday. Be sure to also mention that a four-day workweek has been linked to boosted worker morale and productivity in the workplace, which would in turn help businesses. The positive of this method is that under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, approaching your boss like this is considered protected speech about the terms and conditions of employment.

A false dawn for unions in 2022?

June 16, 2022 | Robert J. Wiley

Summary: This article touches on some of the complex issues surrounding the apparent boom in unionization—will this be a sea change or just temporary? What are the implications of recent union victories in major multinational companies?

There have been high-profile union victories in the news lately for the employees of major multinational companies, particularly Amazon and Starbucks. The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”), which oversees union elections and investigates “unfair labor practice” claims, has also gone to bat recently against those same companies for numerous allegedly unlawful tactics they engaged in during union elections. It could be that unions are on the verge of a renaissance in the face of the “great resignation” causing a shift in the power dynamics between employees and employers. Indeed, unions are more popular with the public now than they have been in generations.

Is 2022 just a blip, or the sign of something more? What are the implications of, and obstacles to, an increase in unionization? This article will briefly touch on these complex topics.

Job Burnout is Real. Just Ask Facebook.

June 9, 2022 | Rob Wiley, P.C.

Earlier this month, Sheryl Sandberg announced her resignation from Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Inc. Her departure was a surprise to many people. Ms. Sandberg was the Chief Operating Officer of one of the biggest and most powerful companies in the world. She was the primary reason why Facebook scaled from a company with $153 million in revenue and 500 employees in 2007 to its current size, with more than 77,000 employees.

This past week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ms. Sandberg decided to leave Meta after a years-long process of battling job burnout. She felt like she had become a punching bag for the company’s problems and that she was targeted in a way that would not happen to a man, according to the Journal. This caused Ms. Sandberg to become disconnected from the business and less visible publicly.

In a way, Ms. Sandberg’s departure shouldn’t have been surprising. The writing was on the wall. Job burnout is real and it’s becoming more prevalent. It can happen to anyone at any level, like Ms. Sandberg, who earned $35.2 million in 2021 and has a net worth of $1.6 billion.

The limits of the duty to preserve evidence in Texas

April 14, 2022 | Robert J. Wiley

This article gives a brief overview of when and to whom a duty to preserve evidence applies under Texas law, and discusses why it is usually important to clearly put your employer on notice as soon as possible if you have a legal claim against it.

Many times when someone first hires a lawyer to pursue an employment claim, they ask about getting information or evidence from the employer. Despite how the media present things, there generally is no legal requirement for an employer to turn over any information whatsoever to a current or former employee, even under threat of a lawsuit. Texas rules generally allows so-called “pre-suit discovery” in limited circumstances, like to preserve information or testimony that might otherwise be lost (for example, by the death of a witness).

Usually then, an employee has to file suit and then conduct formal discovery to actually get information from their employer related to their claims. If, by that time, that evidence is conveniently gone, what a plaintiff might be left with is only seeking remedies after the fact for “spoliation,” or the unlawful destruction of evidence. Courts may penalize a party that destroys evidence in various ways, such as by instructing a jury to conclude that the destroyed evidence was exactly what the other party says it was, assessing monetary penalties, or even dismissing legal claims brought by the responsible party. Generally, the more unreasonably the party that destroyed evidence behaved, the worse the penalties.

It’s My Spouse, I’m Leaving

April 8, 2022 | Deontae Wherry

In 1993, Congress passed the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) which provides employees the right take medical leave for (1) the birth of a child or to bond with a child, (2) the placement of a child for adoption or foster care, (3) a serious health condition that prevents the employee from his or her job, and (4) the care of the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent who has a serious health condition. In this article, I will focus on the definition of “spouse”, the expanded definition, and highlight FMLA’s key provisions.

“Spouse” was initially based upon the traditional definition of marriage being between a husband and a wife. Put simply, a spouse was only a person who was married to a person of the opposite sex. As society continued to change, this impacted many employees’ ability to care for their significant other or spouse. For example, employers were not required to return the employee to his/her position and could retaliate against them if the employee requested medical leave to care for a person of the same sex with a serious health condition because this was not a FMLA qualifying reason.

After the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) expanded the definition of spouse to include same sex marriage. While this appeared as a victory for same-sex marriages, it had its own limitations because it only recognized same-sex marriages for employees that lived in states that recognized same sex marriages. This affected employees in states like Texas where same-sex marriages were not recognized.

Ramadan 2022 is Here: Do I Qualify for a Religious Accommodation?

March 31, 2022 | Rob Wiley, P.C.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan is observed by 1.6 billion people around the world. Practicing Muslims will be fasting from dawn until dusk (approximately 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.) beginning on April 2, 2022 and ending on May 2, 2022. Fasting means no food or liquid of any kind. Yes, that includes water! Ramadan is meant to be a time of spiritual discipline – of deep contemplation of one’s relationship with God, extra prayer, increased charity and generosity, and intense study of the Quran. It is a joyous month meant to be shared and celebrated with loved ones.

Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars – or duties – of Islam, along with the testimony of faith, prayer, charitable giving, and making a pilgrimage to Mecca. The practice of fasting is intended to be a reminder of human frailty and dependence on God for sustenance. It reduces the distractions of life to allow time to focus on our relationship with God. Importantly, it provides an example of the hunger and thirst the poor experience, which is intended to encourage empathy for and charity to the less fortunate.

During Ramadan, it is not unusual for Muslims to be up past midnight for prayer and then get up around 5 a.m. to eat the first meal of the day, which must last until sunset. This means lots of high-protein food and drinking as much water as possible until dawn, after which we cannot eat or drink anything. At dawn, Muslims will perform their first prayer of the day, followed by four additional mandatory prayers throughout the day and an optional late-night prayer, which is typically only preformed during Ramadan. Many Muslims, myself included, are typically more devoted to their prayers during this month and try to set time aside throughout their day to timely complete each of the five scheduled daily prayers. For me, that means blocking time on my work calendar to ensure I am not scheduled for meetings or appointments during the various prayer times that fall within work hours.