Archive for Wage and Hour Violations

Jennifer Atkinson | May 12, 2012
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Ten Deadliest Jobs

# 10: Electrical power-line installers and repairers

Fatalities per 100k: 15.6

Fatalities in 2011: 21

The biggest cause of death for electrical power-line installers and repairers is exposure to hazardous substances, workplace falls, and electrocution. The median annual salary for power-line workers in 2008 was $55,100.

# 9: Police officers

Fatalities per 100k: 18.0

Fatalities in 2011: 133

Transportation incidents are the leading cause of death for police and sheriff patrol officers, but assault and violent acts also accounted for 53 American fatalities in 2010.

In May 2010, the median hourly wage for police officers was $25.74.

# 8: Truck drivers

Fatalities per 100k: 21.8

Fatalities in 2011: 683

Truck drivers deal with long hours and narrow profit margins, which create situations leading to accidents. Median hourly wages vary: for heavy truck drivers working long shifts, earning were $17.92 in May 2008; for light truck or delivery truck drivers, $13.27; and for drivers/sales workers, it was $10.70.

# 7: Garbage and recycling collectors

Fatalities per 100k: 22.8

Fatalities in 2011: 26

Nearly all of the deaths for refuse and recyclable material collectors occur in transportation incidents. The mean hourly wage for the profession is $16.50.

# 6: Roofers

Fatalities per 100k: 32.4

Fatalities in 2011: 57

As you’d probably expect for a profession that involves working at heights, the most common cause of death for roofers is falls. In May 2008, the median hourly wage for roofers was $16.17.

# 5: Coal mining

Fatalities per 100k: 38.9

Fatalities in 2011: 43

The media tends to cover coal miners deaths when mine shafts collapse, but fatalities also occur many years after work is performed, often far from the source itself as worker’s succumb to occupational illness. The most common form of this workplace illness is Coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, also known as black lung disease. The median hourly wage for those in the coal mining industry is $23.11.

# 4: Farmers and ranchers

Fatalities per 100k: 41.4

Fatalities in 2011: 300

Because of machinery and difficulties moving animals and equipment that farmers and ranchers face each day, transportation incidents are the leading cause of death. Contact with objects and equipment also causes a significant number of fatalities—about one third.

# 3: Aircraft pilots and flight engineers

Fatalities per 100k: 70.6

Fatalities in 2011: 78

Flight accidents claimed the lives of 76 American aircraft pilots and flight engineers in 2011, including crashes. Unlike many other jobs on this list, the earning potential for pilots is high—the median annual salary for airline pilots and flight engineers is was $111,680, and for commercial pilots it was $65,340.

# 2: Logging workers

Fatalities per 100k: 91.9

Fatalities in 2011: 59

The most common cause of death for loggers is contact with objects or equipment—both trees that are being cut and the logging instruments themselves. The median hourly wages for logging workers ranges from $14.66 to $15.96.

# 1: Fishers and related fishing workers

Fatalities per 100k: 116

Fatalities in 2011: 29

For fishers and fishing-related workers, the most common cause of death is transportation incidents, though about 30% of deaths are caused by drowning. Also, for the most dangerous job in the U.S, wages are low: the median hourly wage is currently only $12.30.

 

Category: Department of Labor and Industries, Wage and Hour Violations, Work-related death, Workers Compensation Attorney, Workplace Accident |
Jennifer Atkinson | April 29, 2012
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Coping with Stress in the Workplace

While a certain level of workplace stress is normal, excessive stress can take a dangerous toll on a workers’ health. Excessive workplace stress is often caused by a work-related injury or illness; fear of being laid off; working more overtime hours due to staff cutbacks; sexual harassment or workplace discrimination; pressure to perform to meet rising expectations but with no increase in job satisfaction; and pressure from employers to work at optimum levels at all times. Many of these factors are difficult to manage on one’s own, and require the help of a Workers Compensation Lawyer or Employment Attorney to be fully resolved.

However, there are also smaller and more easily-managed causes of stress. The good news here is that managing workplace stress does not always require extensive changes. Sometimes improvements can start by focusing on the one thing that’s most squarely within your control: you.

The ability to reduce stress in the workplace can not only enhance physical and emotional health, but can also make the difference between success or failure in a career. Emotions can be contagious, and therefore stress can affect the nature and quality of your interactions with other workers. The better you become at managing your stress, the more positive effects you’ll have on others, and the less co-workers’ stress will negatively impact you.

Learn to manage job stress

There are many steps workers can take to reduce personal stress levels in the workplace.

Tip 1: Recognize signs of excessive job-related stress

When workers feel overwhelmed on the job, they often lose confidence or become irritable or withdrawn. This can compromise your job performance, and even make your work seem less rewarding. Ignoring the warning signs of job-related stress generally leads to bigger problems like chronic stress accompanied by physical and emotional health problems.

Common Symptoms of excessive workplace stress

  • Feeling anxious, irritable, or depressed
  • Apathy, loss of interest in work
  • Trouble sleeping
  • Fatigue
  • Difficulty in concentrating
  • Alcohol or drug use as a coping strategy
  • Muscle tension or headaches
  • Stomach problems
  • Social withdrawal

 Tip 2: Take care of yourself 

When job-related stress interferes with your ability to adequately perform at work, manage your personal life, or negatively affects your health, it’s time to take action. Start by paying attention to your physical and emotional health. When your personal needs are fully addressed, you’ll feel more resilient and be in a better position to overcome stress without feeling overwhelmed.

Even minor changes can lift your mood, increase energy, and make you feel like you’re back in control. Here are some common stress-management techniques:

Get moving

Aerobic activities that raise your heart rate are highly effective for elevating mood, increasing energy, honing your focus, and relaxing the mind and body. For effective stress relief, try to complete at least 30 minutes of heart-pounding activity daily. If it’s easier to fit into your schedule, break the activity into shorter segments throughout the day.

Make food choices that keep you going

Low blood sugar can cause anxiety and irritability, while overeating can make us lethargic. Try eating small but frequent meals during the day to maintain an even blood sugar level and avoid mood swings.

Drink alcohol in moderation

While alcohol can temporarily reduce anxiety, overconsumption can cause anxiety as it wears off. Drinking to relieve job stress can also lead to alcohol abuse and dependence in the long run.

Get adequate sleep

Not only can stress and worry lead to insomnia, but insufficient sleep can make workers vulnerable to even more stress. When we’re well-rested, it’s easier to maintain emotional balance, a key factor in coping with workplace stress.

For more information on reducing workplace stress, check back with us for the second part of this article. Stay tuned for tips #3 and #4 …

Category: L&I Attorney, Wage and Hour Violations, Worker Injury, workers compensation | Tags: , , ,
Jennifer Atkinson | April 4, 2012
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Long Work Hours Raise Heart Attack Risk

Employees who work more than 11 hours a day (as opposed to the standard eight) significantly increase their risk of heart disease, according to the UK’s Annals of Internal Medicine. Recent reports show that risk goes up by 67% for those who put in long hours at work.

The University College London team based findings on more than 7,000 civil service employees whose health has been monitored since 1985. They suggest that doctors should now be asking patients about working hours.

Lead researcher of the story, Professor Mika Kivimäki said: “Considering that including a measurement of working hours in a GP interview is so simple and useful, our research presents a strong case that it should become standard practice. This study might make us think twice about the old adage ‘hard work won’t kill you.’”

Professor Stephen Holgate of the Medical Research Council added that the study “could also be a wake-up call for people who overwork themselves, especially if they already have other risk factors.”

Over the course of the 11-year study, 192 of participants had a heart attack.  Those who out in 11 hours of work or more per day were more than 50% as likely to have a heart attack than those who worked shorter hours.

And factoring working hours into well-established heart risk factors (like high blood pressure), made the predictions far more accurate. Studies are now needed to see if encouraging employers to cut back on working hours (or getting employers to soften their demands) will improve heart health.

“Tackling lifestyles that are detrimental to health is a key area for the MRC, and this research reminds us that it’s not just diet and exercise we need to think about,” said Professor Holgate.

Experts suspect a number of underlying factors may be at play, such as undetected high blood pressure, stress, anxiety or depression, and being a driven, aggressive or irritable personality.

The study also raises related issues traditionally managed by employment attorneys, such as unpaid overtime hours, wage and hour violations, wrongful termination and workplace discrimination. An experienced Employment Attorney at Emery Reddy can help with any of these issues. In addition, workers who have submitted an L&I Claim with the Department of Labor and Industries, and need help with their workers compensation case, should consult an L&I Lawyer at Emery Reddy.

Category: Employment Attorney, L&I Attorney, Labor and Industries, Wage and Hour Violations, Workers Compensation Attorney | Tags: , , , , ,
Jennifer Atkinson | March 5, 2012
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Carwash Workers Hurt by Wage & Overtime Violations, Vow to Unionize

At a carwash in an industrial district of Queens, NY, immigrants and other workers are preparing to open the next front in New York City’s labor battles.

Carwash employees are often paid him less than the minimum wage, and are routinely cheated out of overtime pay. Moreover, workers are not given protective gear even though they use caustic cleaners that burn their eyes and sinuses. Community organizers report that these kinds of wage and overtime violations are widespread among carwashes.

So during the past few weeks, and under the guidance of immigrant advocates, New York carwash employee Adan Nicolas has been briefing his co-workers in basic labor law and in the fundamentals of organizing. Away from bosses, similar conversations have been taking place at carwashes around New York City.

“We’re all ready to fight for our rights and have a dignified place to work, and not to be abused like we are today,” Mr. Nicolas said.

In the coming days a partnership of community and labor organizations plans to introduce a citywide campaign to reform the carwash industry. Union advocates hope to seize this momentum by unionizing carwash workers throughout the city.

“This is a real partnership between community organizations and organized labor to try to tackle these problematic working conditions,” said Andrew Friedman, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, an advocacy group that is leading the coalition with New York Communities for Change, another advocacy group, and support from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

A related campaign in Los Angeles succeeded in collective bargaining agreements between several carwash companies and their workers.

Yet the New York campaign will be an uphill battle. About 1,600 carwash workers are scattered across 200+ locations, and many of those are under individual ownership. This means that each company would need to undergo a separate organizing effort. In addition, many workers are undocumented immigrants who may be reluctant to speak out for fear of being fired (wrongful termination) or being identified by immigration authorities.

Carwash managers and owners claim that they pay and treat their employees fairly, and have pledged to fight the unionizing effort.  “We’re going by the law,” said the manager at Queensboro Car Wash in Long Island City, who declined to give his name.

This claim, however, is disputed by the organizing coalition (known as “Wash New York”), which interviewed 90 carwash workers from carwashes all around New York City, and learned that two-thirds reported to make less than the state-mandated minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

A typical schedule for carwash workers is at least a 60-hour workweek; yet a majority receives no overtime pay as required by law when employees put in more than 40 hours. Those who did get overtime pay often earned far less than the required time-and-a-half rate. Moreover, rest breaks and lunches went unpaid or were extremely brief.

According to the labor organizers, not a single worker in the survey had received paid sick days, and only one reported that he had been offered a health plan.

Equally troubling is the lack of workplace safety. Most workers claimed that they are not given appropriate protective equipment or training for handling the caustic cleaning products used at carwashes. Some workers even use chemicals that burn holes through their clothing, the organizers said.

Mr. Nicolas admitted his misgivings about possible repercussions – including being fired – but he added that the effort was “worth it because we’re suffering so much injustice.”

Assessments of the industry by “Wash New York” strongly correspond to findings from a state investigation in 2008.  That year, 60 state inspectors visited 84 carwashes in New York and reported $6.5 million in underpayments to 1,380 workers.  The vast majority of New York City carwashes (up to 80%) had violated minimum wage and overtime laws.  State labor commissioner Patricia Smith called the industry “a disgrace.”

That investigation resulted in millions of dollars in fines, litigation and promises of compliance by owners.

Then in 2010, the department announced a settlement of $2 million with the owners of an Upper Manhattan carwash that had failed to pay minimum and overtime wages.

Facing the recent rumbling of organization among workers, owners themselves are now mobilizing to resist the unionization effort. “We would never sign with the union,” said the manager at Whitestone Car Wash in Queens. “I like things the way they are.”

If you are involved in a wage or overtime dispute, contact a Seattle Employment Attorney at Emery Reddy. We also represent clients who need a Labor & Industries Attorney or Workers’ Compensation Lawyer.

Category: Department of Labor and Industries, Employment Attorney, Unfair Pay Practices, Wage and Hour Violations, Worker Rights, Workers Compensation Attorney, Workplace Safety | Tags: , , , ,
Jennifer Atkinson | September 24, 2011
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Experts Weigh in on the IRS’s New Voluntary Classification Settlement Program

Over the past week we have been following developments on the Labor Department’s crackdown on improper classification of workers, followed by the IRS’s announcement that a new program, the Voluntary Classification Settlement Program, will extend an opportunity for businesses to reclassify those employees. As the IRS stated in its September 21 press release, “Under the program, eligible employers can obtain substantial relief from federal payroll taxes they may have owed for the past, if they prospectively treat workers as employees. The VCSP is available to many businesses, tax-exempt organizations and government entities that currently erroneously treat their workers or a class or group of workers as nonemployees or independent contractors, and now want to correctly treat these workers as employees.”

Some employers classify workers as independent contractors to avoid paying unemployment insurance premiums, overtime wages, Social Security and Medicare taxes, or workers’ compensation premiums.

Yet according to Russell Cawyer, a partner with Kelly Hart & Hallman, there may be a good reason that the VCSP sounds too good to be true. One disadvantage, he explains, is that despite the gesture of government leniency in providing a kind of amnesty for past mistakes, wage & hour plaintiff attorneys are not likely to be so forgiving.  “Participation in the IRS program will be tantamount to admitting that the workers were misclassified as independent contractors,” he said, introducing “all the baggage that goes along with such a misclassification.”

Cawyer provides the following analysis:

“Since companies rarely keep records of the hours worked by independent contractors, the newly classified employees can seek several years of unpaid overtime and the employer is unlikely to have any records to rebut the employees’ claims of hours worked.  Moreover, to the extent companies have benefit or incentive plans in which employees participate (but independent contractors do not), companies may face claims for benefits or other incentives (bonuses, options, stock etc.) that were not provided to the misclassified contractors.”

The IRS program is clearly a helpful opportunity for employers with improperly classified independent contractors to set things straight with payroll and personnel while mitigating the penalties they might have faced prior to the creation of VCSP.  Yet Cawyer feels that the program could have been more attractive – and gained better participation – if the agency had “included such protections for companies from the other negative consequences that come along from a misclassification of employees as independent contractors such as providing immunity from overtime, benefit or incentive claims for the period of misclassification or providing that agreements with the IRS shall not be admissible in any proceeding involving the company.”  He concludes that businesses will need to assess a complicated set of pros and cons in deciding whether it makes sense to enroll in the program.

Yet given the fact that the Labor Department has teamed up with the IRS and a growing number of states in a renewed effort to penalize businesses for wage theft, employers should weigh their options carefully. According to the Associated Press, the IRS collected $4 million in back wages on behalf of about 6,500 employees who were misclassified in 2010.  With 300 new investigators in the agency this year – all of whom will focus exclusively on probing wage theft complaints – we will likely see a significant increase in those numbers, along with the fees and penalties that accompany them.
Senior executive counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business, Elizabeth Milito, offers some useful tips to help businesses get a complex set of labor laws right:

No. 1: Be proactive. Milito suggests small business owners conduct an audit on their own companies and look into their current business practices.

“Take a look at their job descriptions to make sure the employees and their classifications are correct,” she said. “Don’t assume they are not entitled to overtime because they are salaried.” The Department of Labor has specific classifications for exempt and non-exempt workers, according to their job descriptions, she said.

No. 2: Prohibit off-the-clock work. Don’t let your non-exempt employees work overtime, unless they have specific permission from their managers. If employees continue to work non-authorized overtime, Milito said you may have to take action.

“This doesn’t mean you can deny them payment,” she said. “You still have to pay them for all of their time worked. But, you can take disciplinary action against the employee, up to and including termination.” Make sure you are communicating to your employees that these restrictions are for their benefit, Milito said, to ensure they are getting paid for all of their time worked.

No. 3: Investigate complaints promptly. If an employee alleges they are entitled to overtime, but you have classified them as exempt, be sure to launch an investigation.

“You need to take this seriously and contact a lawyer,” Milito said. “Also run through the Department of Labor rules and review their job descriptions. And notify the employee of the results of the investigation.”

Read more here: http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/legal-hr/2011/09/19/tips-for-getting-labor-laws-right-avoiding-back-pay-penalties/#ixzz1YuDlSydq

Category: Wage and Hour Violations | Tags:
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