Job Search & Career Blog

Employment Law Suits in the USA

March 4th, 2008

Messy situation for job seekers : Employment is the new legal war zone in the US work force

In 2007, 85,000 people filed discrimination suits against employers in the US. A staggering total of 35% of private companies have been sued by an employee. Of those lawsuits, employers have won about 30%, maybe, including settlements.

Not many cases go all the way to trial, but 35% is an awful lot of legal work.

The problem, according to some employment experts, is that employers really don’t know the basics. Nor do they know how to keep records of things that can affect their ability to fight a lawsuit.

For example, wages covered under the requirements of the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act or other state laws, are an issue. The Act makes provisions for a minimum wage of $5.85 an hour, (pretty pitiful by international standards), and payment of overtime.

Some employers incorrectly classify these jobs, skimp on payments, and, not surprisingly, wind up with either a lawsuit or a class action against them.

It may be pure ignorance, or real cheapskate business, but the result is the same. The horrifying thing is that this is done with real employees, not the ‘hidden economy’ of cash payments to day labour.

Also getting hot is age discrimination, usually for the over 40s. This coincides with a workforce demographic showing a lot of older people either trying to get back into the workforce, or having got out of it, unable to find a job.

Again, the law prohibits discrimination on grounds of age, yet employers, who maybe can’t read or are too lazy to understand the law, set themselves up for lawsuits through their ignorance.

It’s a self inflicted injury, because this discrimination is being practiced against people who are far more likely to know their rights than junior workers.

Disputes and grievances are another area where employers aren’t doing too well. It seems that part of the problem is that even when they do have a legitimate defence, employers often don’t properly document their decisions, like firing someone.

This is pretty basic stuff, and even if management don’t have a clue, HR should. It requires a certain level of incompetence to get to law suit stage.

The news for US job seekers is very Catch 22:

You might get a job , and win a lawsuit, but you have to fight for something you should have had in the first place.

There’s a strong possibility that 1 in 3 employers will drop the ball with employee entitlements.

The obvious implication from the statistics and the kinds of lawsuits being filed is that these rip-offs and breaches of law are very common.

A job could be trouble, and 1 in 3 odds isn’t a good average.

Job seekers are advised to check out:

• Look at the organization, the level of professionalism in the hiring process, and the quality of information provided.
• Ask questions if anything about wages or entitlements isn’t mentioned. If they aren’t, the 1 in 3 equation looks likely.
• Any positives or negatives about the employer from whatever sources are available. (A cheapskate looking business usually is a cheapskate employer. The other employees are another clue. If they look like outworkers, miserable, or a bit dumb, look out.)
• Is the business profitable? If so, management might know what it’s doing.
• Any ethnic discrimination, no mix of groups? Classic malpractice if so.
• How many long term employees are there? If the place looks like a crèche, and there’s nobody who’s been there for more than a year, not good, unless it started recently.
• Does the place look like a junkyard, with badly maintained equipment? If so, it might be a deathtrap, and management is pretty low grade.

On the positive side, if all US employers were that dumb, the country would have gone out of business in 1777.

Just be careful.

Also of interest:
Networking And Discrimination

Sexual Harassment

Discrimination

Good Old Sexual Discrimination

Weight Discrimination

Age Discrimination

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 4:50 am and is filed under Jobs & Careers News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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