With union organizing efforts making headlines at Amazon and Starbucks, a new bill in Connecticut is designed to make it even easier for unions to win organizing votes.
A bill banning so-called “captive audience” meetings won final approval from the Connecticut General Assembly late Friday; it moves to the Governor’s office where his approval
Labor Day has come and gone. Summer is over. Can we all stop listening to Despacito now. (Please?)
But it’s time to look at a decision that came out during the dog days of summer that might have been overlooked. A recent federal district court case (Noffsinger v. SSN Niantic Operating Co. LLC, download
So yesterday, I made a convincing case that employees who smoke outside the workplace can’t be treated differently than your non-smokers.
But what about your health insurance plans? Doesn’t the state law prohibit your plan from imposing higher premium costs on those smokers?
Well on first glance it appears yes. The state law would seem
What a difference a few weeks can bring.
Back on May 5th, Attorney General George Jepsen issued a letter to legislators expressing his support of the so-called "captive-audience" bill. That letter was used in the debate by Connecticut House members as proof that the bill would pass a legal challenge. Indeed, on May 11th, the
A few weeks ago, I indicated (in posts here and here) that the AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion case would have a huge impact on forcing arbitrations of employment matters and limiting class actions.
An important new federal District Court case in Connecticut decided yesterday, D’Antuono v. Service Road Corp., (download here) has shown that to be the case exactly.
But, coming from the school of “you can’t make this stuff up”, it is remarkable that the case that is deciding this issue is one grounded in the claims of “exotic dancers” who allege that they were misclassified as independent contractors instead of employees.
(How can the strip club claim that the individuals were independent contractors? While it is not relevant to the court’s decision here, the dancers signed “leases” to the “performance space”. Within those leases were arbitration provisions. The Court did not decide that issue, though if you’re interested, I discussed a similar case back in January here. )
What is important for all employers to know is that here, the central issue in this case was whether the agreement to arbitrate (found in a lease agreement between the exotic dancer (as “tenant”) and the strip club (as “landlord”) was enforceable. The Court said that it was. In doing so, the Court forced the plaintiffs to arbitrate their FLSA claims and remove the specter of a collection action, finding that the plaintiffs gave up that right in their case.Continue Reading In Titillating Case, Court Compels Strip Club Dancers to Engage Individually …in Arbitration
My colleague, Joshua Hawks-Ladds, has this post regarding an important new case that further explains the breadth of the preemption effect of the Federal Arbitration Act, a case he handled on behalf of our client, Ulti-Mate Connector, Inc.
Last week was a watershed moment for arbitration preemption cases, both at the federal and state level.
Here’s a quick update on some items and topics that have been covered by the blog over the past year:
A recent California Appellate decision spells out 
a possible defense for some banks in discrimination cases. Specifically, the court held that state discrimination laws are preempted by the National Banking Act for certain national bank employees. For national banks in Connecticut (and indeed in other states), the decision is worth a review to determine if it