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Walt Disney Co. will pay $2 million to settle a race discrimination lawsuit brought by a former employee of KLOS-FM, a Disney-owned radio station in Los Angeles. The suit followed a radio promotion in which “Black Hoes”—black, plastic gardening tools—were given away as gag prizes. Judy Goodwin, a former African-American employee, claimed she suffered daily […]
Cal/OSHA has issued an updated fact sheet outlining changes in its respirator regulations. The rules apply to all workplace respirator use except for tuberculosis protection. The fact sheet outlines the specific elements of a comprehensive, written program for respirator use that must be implemented by employers. As spelled out in the fact sheet, such a […]
The Mondrian Hotel and its Sky Bar, a hangout for a hip Hollywood clientele, agreed to pay $1.08 million to settle a suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a group of mostly minority bellmen who claimed they were fired because they looked “too ethnic.” The workers were allegedly replaced with […]
In continued fallout from a tragic 1999 fire at the Toscore finery in Martinez, the company has agreed to pay $4 million to settle a lawsuit for emotional injuries suffered by a subcontractor’s employee. Alfred “Chip” Simoni witnessed other workers burn to death while working on the refinery tower. He was unable to return to […]
Yet another dramatic punitive damage award shows how juries can render potentially devastating employment-related verdicts. We previously reported on a pending lawsuit by 21 African-American workers at Northern California Wonder Bread bakeries for race discrimination. Now the verdict is in, and a San Francisco jury has awarded $11 million in compensatory damages and a whopping […]
The proposed San Francisco ordinance protecting applicants and employees from discrimination based on weight and height, which we recently covered, has been formally approved and is now in effect. The law applies to every employer in the city with six or more workers. It also covers all employers—no matter where they’re located—who have contracts with […]
In the March 1998 issue of California Employer Advisor, we reviewed a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal focusing on alleged secret genetic testing of employees at the University of California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The court held that the workers could sue the lab for violating their privacy rights. Now the lab has […]
A former Los Angeles police officer sued the city for improperly disclosing his personnel files in the course of a lawsuit accusing him of sexual misconduct with an underage police Explorer Scout. The court ruled that even if Los Angeles failed to follow the strict laws limiting disclosure of police personnel files, the officer had […]
In a confidential settlement, a Los Angeles bottled water distributor agreed to resolve a class action lawsuit by paying $4 million to workers who said they were not paid overtime because they were improperly designated as exempt outside sales employees. The workers claimed they were actually delivery drivers, despite their job title of “route sales […]
The Industrial Welfare Commission has adopted several important new rules that will have a significant impact on California employers. One big change requires you to pay employees for an additional hour if they work through a break or meal period. The story also outlines the IWC’s new requirements for adopting and repealing alternative workweeks to […]