Tag Archives: employees

Subway Franchise Facing Lawsuit for Unpaid Overtime

A toasted lawsuit

A former Subway employee has filed a lawsuit in Washington D.C. against his former employer for unpaid overtime wages. Erwin Zambrano Moya claims that his employer created fictional workers and put some of his hours worked under these “other employees” to avoid paying the additional overtime wages. ” According to the complaint, the owner accomplished this, in part, by paying Moya as if he were multiple workers, thereby keeping the real Moya under 40 hours each week”. Moya stated that he worked up to 70 hours per week, and should have been paid time and a half for 30 of those hours worked. Half of the hours worked were recorded under Moya, and half under another fictional employee name.

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California Workers Given a Break or Two

Can almost taste it

The California State Supreme Court issued a decision today to define employers’ obligations concerning their employees’ mealtime.  Some confusion was inherent in California’s meal break laws, which state that employers must give employees a 30-minute meal break per every 10-hour-or-fewer shift.  Employers weren’t sure, however, whether employees must abstain from all work during the 30-minutes and whether it was the employers’ problem to ensure that they do.  Today’s ruling makes it clear: employers must provide employees with the ability to take a 30-minute lunch break, but if an employee decides to work straight through anyway, well, that’s their prerogative.

So, employers are let off the hook and employees must be the ones to make sure they don’t overwork themselves.  The pressure to meet deadlines and maximize performance won’t influence low-level employees’ “decisions” to skip lunch at all.  Sounds like a step in the right direction.  Full disclosure: I usually eat lunch and do a little work at my desk, so I might be biased.  The whipping is a little much, but motivation is motivation!

 

Former Bear Sterns Employees Share $10 Million Settlement

The effect of business

Employees of Bear Sterns, the financial giant that was among the first failures of the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, claimed in a lawsuit that the bank mishandled its investments (duh), causing them to lose money in an employee stock ownership plan that was part of a retirement package.  Today, the Southern District Court of New York approved a $10 million settlement to be shared among thousands of employees.  The number may seem big, but it’s really more of a drop in a dingy bucket, accounting for between 10-28% of their total losses in the stock.  According to Reuters, more than 8,400 employees lost about $215 million in the collapse.  The settlement means that the former Bear Stearns (now owned by JPMorgan, who shilled out the settlement money) will never have to answer as to whether they knew their investment plan was unsustainable and risky.  If it went to court, in light of the recent $25 billion federal mortgage settlement, I’d like to think they’d have little to say in response.

For some laughs, here’s Mad Money’s Jim Cramer promising that Bear Stearns was not in trouble mere days before its complete failure and sale.