GTM Sportswear agrees to pay more than $97,000 in back wages to 133 employees following Labor Department investigation of sportswear company

Wage and Hour Division (WHD)

Press Releases

U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division Release Number: 13-73-KAN MANHATTAN, Kan. -- It’s Greek to Me Inc., which operates as GTM Sportswear in Manhattan, has agreed to pay 133 workers a total of $97,762 in back wages following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. The investigation found violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime and record-keeping provisions when inside sales representatives were found to be improperly classified as exempt from overtime requirements. “One of the most common violations in the sales industry is improperly classifying workers as being exempt from overtime,” said Patricia Preston, the division’s district director in Kansas City, Mo. “The criteria for exemption from overtime are very specific to ensure workers are properly compensated for all hours worked. Simply paying someone a salary does not automatically make them exempt. The department is committed to ensuring workers receive their lawful compensation and to maintaining a level playing field where all employers play by the same rules.” The investigation determined that GTM Sportswear failed to pay employees overtime compensation at time and one-half their regular rates of pay for hours worked beyond 40 in a week. Instead, employees were paid fixed salaries each week, without regard to the number of hours worked. Record-keeping violations were also cited during the investigation when the employer failed to keep time records for the employees improperly classified as exempt. The violations affected employees from GTM Sportswear’s headquarters facility in Manhattan. GTM Sportswear customizes apparel with screen printing, embroidery and other personalization that is sold nationwide. The FLSA provides an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay requirements for individuals employed in bona fide executive, administrative, professional and outside sales positions, as well as certain computer employees. To qualify for exemption, employees generally must meet certain tests regarding their job duties and be paid on a salary basis at not less than $455 per week. Job titles do not determine exempt status. For an exemption to apply, an employee’s specific job duties and salary must meet all the requirements of the department’s regulations. The FLSA requires that covered, nonexempt employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour for all hours worked, plus time and one-half their regular rates, including commissions, bonuses and incentive pay, for hours worked beyond 40 per week. Employers also are required to maintain accurate time and payroll records. For More Information Contact us at: http://beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com/

US Department of Labor reaches settlement with contractor on failure to report injuries and fatalities under Defense Base Act

News Release

OWCP News Release: [01/31/2013]
Contact Name: Adriano Llosa
Phone Number: (202) 693-693-4686
Release Number: 13-0189-NAT

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs today announced a $75,000 settlement with The Sandi Group/Corporate Bank Financial Services for failure to report in a timely manner on the injuries and deaths of 30 employees in Iraq between 2003 and 2005.

Under the Defense Base Act, a company must report any injury or death to OWCP's Division of Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation within 10 days, and any knowing and willful failure to report subjects the employer to a civil penalty. In the settlement, The Sandi Group agreed not only to pay the $75,000 fine but that future violations would result in greater penalties.

"Timely reporting of work-related injuries, illnesses and fatalities are vitally important to protect the interests of injured workers and their families," said Gary A. Steinberg, acting director of OWCP. "In the case of injuries and illnesses, this enables timely medical treatment, payment of compensation benefits and, when possible, return to work, and for fatalities, timely issuance of death benefits for eligible survivors. The Labor Department is committed to administering the provisions of the Defense Base Act, which provide necessary medical care and compensation benefits that hold workers and families together during moments of hardship."

The Sandi Group, a Washington, D.C.-based company, employed workers that provided security and other services in support of U.S. operations in Iraq.

The Defense Base Act provides workers' compensation protection to civilian employees working outside the United States on U.S. military bases or under a contract with the U.S. government for public work or for national defense. 

The mission of OWCP's Division of Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation is to minimize the impact of employment-related injuries, illnesses and deaths on employees and their families by ensuring that workers' compensation benefits are provided promptly and properly under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, the Defense Base Act, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and the Non-appropriated Fund Instrumentalities Act. For more information, visit.

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UNIONS SUFFER SHARP DECLINE IN MEMBERSHIP

BY SAM HANANEL 


ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Union membership plummeted last year to the lowest level since the 1930s as cash-strapped state and local governments shed workers and unions had difficulty organizing new members in the private sector despite signs of an improving economy.

Government figures released Wednesday showed union membership declined from 11.8 percent to 11.3 percent of the workforce, another blow to a labor movement already stretched thin by battles in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and other states to curb bargaining rights and weaken union clout.

Overall membership fell by about 400,000 workers to 14.4 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than half the loss, about 234,000, came from government workers, including teachers, firefighters and public administrators.

But unions also saw losses in the private sector even as the economy created 1.8 million new jobs in 2012. That membership rate fell from 6.9 percent to 6.6 percent, a troubling sign for the future of organized labor, as job growth generally has taken place at nonunion companies.

"To employers, it's going to look like the labor movement is ready for a knockout punch," said Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. "You can't be a movement and get smaller."

Union membership was 13.2 percent in 1935 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act. Labor's ranks peaked in the 1950s, when about 1 of every 3 workers was in a union. By 1983, roughly 20 percent of U.S. workers were union members.

Losses in the public sector are hitting unions particularly hard because that has been one of the few areas where membership had grown over the past two decades. About 51 percent of union members work in government, where the rate of union membership is 37 percent, more than five times higher than in the private sector.

Until recently, there had been little resistance to unions organizing government workers. But that began to change when Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin signed a law in 2011 eliminating most union rights for government workers. The state lost about 46,000 union members last year, the vast majority in the public sector.

The recession that began in 2008 also led to much deeper cuts in state and local government than any previous recession, according to a report this month from the Nelson Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York at Albany. Since August 2008, state government employment has declined by 135,000, while local government employment fell by 546,000.

Teachers unions were among the hardest hit, with the ranks of unionized public school teachers and educators falling by 123,000 last year. Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, accused politicians who cut public education funding of "inflicting tremendous harm to our nation's 50 million students and risking our children's future."

Despite the steady membership decline, unions remain a potent political force because of the money they spend helping union-friendly candidates seeking public office. Unions spent more than $400 million during the 2012 election cycle to support President Barack Obama's re-election, keep a Democratic majority in the Senate and aid other state and local candidates.

But as more governors and state lawmakers target unions, labor leaders have been forced to spend more money fighting political skirmishes and less on organizing new members.

"Organizing is very expensive, and it gets fought now in the public sector as well as in the private sector," said Barry Hirsch, a labor economist at Georgia State University.

Dwindling membership means unions carry far less influence than they used to in setting a benchmark for wages and benefits that might be followed at nonunion companies. Unions are already gearing up to defeat Republican governors in Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, where they fear more anti-union measures could crop up soon.

Union officials blame membership losses on the lingering effects of the recession, as well as GOP governors and state lawmakers who have sought to weaken union rights.

"Our still-struggling economy, weak laws and political as well as ideological assaults have taken a toll on union membership and in the process have also imperiled economic security and good, middle-class jobs," said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

In Indiana, where a new right-to-work law took effect last March, the state lost about 56,000 union members. The law prohibits unions from requiring workers to pay union fees, even if they benefit from a collective bargaining agreement. Michigan lawmakers approved a similar measure in December.

Another problem for unions is an aging membership that is not being replaced by younger members. By age, the union membership rate was highest among workers age 55 to 64 (14.9 percent) and lowest among those 16 to 24 (4.2 percent).

In New York, the state with the highest union density, nearly one-quarter of the workforce belonged to a union. North Carolina had the lowest at 2.9 percent.

Among full-time wage and salary workers, union members in 2012 had median weekly earnings of $943, while those who were not union members earned $742.

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Unemployment Discrimination Banned By New York Council Bill

Arthur Delaney

Huffington Post

The New York City Council passed a bill Wednesday that would ban businesses from discriminating against unemployed job applicants.

The measure would stop employers from considering an applicant's employment status and also prohibit job ads that specify applicants must be currently employed. According to its sponsors, it will help the long-term jobless get back to work.

"We cannot –- and will not -- allow New Yorkers who are qualified and ready to work have the door of opportunity slammed in their faces," Council Speaker Christine Quinn said in a statement earlier on Wednesday.

Job ads specifying that the unemployed need not apply first came to national attention in 2010. Staffing firms that have posted ads requiring applicants to be currently employed have told HuffPost that businesses consider people with jobs to be more desirable candidates than people without jobs.

"The practice deepens the hardship of those struggling to return to the workforce, and exacerbates the crisis levels of long-term unemployment that New Yorkers -- and Americans across the country -- continue to face," Christine Owens, director of the National Employment Law Project, said in a statement.

A 2012 survey of hiring managers found that jobless candidates were viewed as less qualified even if they had the same resume as currently employed candidates. The problem may be especially bad for people out of work for long periods of time.

New Jersey and Oregon passed laws in recent years banning job ads that discourage the unemployed from sending in their resumes. And in 2011, President Barack Obama proposed banning discrimination against the jobless, but the measure stalled in Congress.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has vowed to veto the law, saying it would hurt small businesses, but Wednesday's 44-4 vote suggests the council can easily override the veto (it needs only 34 votes to do so).

The New York bill would still allow employers to consider job applicants' employment status so long as there's a "substantially job-related reason" to do so, according to a description of the legislation. The measure would give workers who feel they've been discriminated against based on job status the right to file a complaint with the city's Human Rights Commission.

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McVeigh v. Recology San Francisco

Plaintiff claiming retaliation under the whistleblower provision of the California False Claims Act need not show that a CFCA action based on plaintiff’s disclosures would have been successful. It is sufficient to show that there was probable cause for plaintiff to believe the facts disclosed constituted a CFCA violation. Labor Code whistleblower provision prohibits employer from retaliating against plaintiff for disclosing wrongdoing by fellow employees or by the employer.

     

McVeigh v. Recology San Francisco - filed January 31, 2013, First District, Div. Three

     Cite as A131833

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NLRB Office of General Counsel finds NY bus strike not unlawful

Office of Public Affairs
202-273-1991
publicinfo@nlrb.gov
www.nlrb.gov

The NLRB Office of General Counsel has found that a strike by union bus operators against a group of New York school bus companies does not violate the National Labor Relations Act because the union has a primary labor dispute with the employers.

In a charge filed with the NLRB Brooklyn office on January 16, the group of 20 bus companies alleged that a strike called by Local 1181-1061 of the Amalgamated Transit Union was unlawful because the union’s primary dispute was with the New York Department of Education, which contracts with the bus companies for service to area schools. The NLRA prohibits unions from striking secondary employers in order to pressure the employer with whom they have a dispute.

In an Advice Memorandum issued today, however, the Office of General Counsel found that the bus companies, which maintained collective bargaining agreements with the union for many years before they expired in December, are primary employers in the labor dispute, along with the Department of Education. “It is well established that more than one employer may be a primary employer” under the NLRA, the memo explained.

Accordingly, the Regional Office will dismiss the charge alleging an illegal secondary strike.

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Oprah's Network Hit with Sex Discrimination Lawsuit

Seattlepi.com

By Sadie Gennis, TV GUIDE

Oprah Winfrey's network OWN is being sued by a former employee on the grounds of sex and pregnancy discrimination, The Hollywood Reporter reports. Watch Super Bowl ads before the big game Carolyn Hommel filed suit against OWN on Friday, claiming that she was replaced when she was forced to take medical leave while pregnant. Hommel was hired in 2010 as senior director of scheduling and acquisitions at the network. According to Hommel, she was on track to become vice president, but during her leave, her duties were given to a temporary employee. When she returned to the office, Hommel also claims that she was excluded from numerous meetings. A month after giving birth, on March 19, 2012, Hommel was fired. After receiving encouragement, she applied for the vice president job, but Hommel claims that her former boss Michael Garner's performance review misrepresented her duties, making her seem under-qualified for the vice president position.

Surprisingly sexy TV characters. According to Hommel, these actions were a result of her pregnancy and ensuing medical leave. She is seeking unspecified damages. View original Oprah's Network Hit with Sex Discrimination Lawsuit at TVGuide.com

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