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Old 05-22-2018, 09:40 PM
 
12,704 posts, read 8,924,720 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SportyandMisty View Post
I disagree.

...
Juan Gonzalez, an employee of a national casual restaurant chain, was shorted in his paychecks. I think the amount was a couple hundred bucks over several paychecks. Juan Gonzalez (not his real name) was a dishwasher. He was also an illegal alien, as were many other people in the kitchens of these restaurants across the country. Like other illegal aliens, Juan purchased a social security number & name from a broker who sold them to illegals so they could then apply for jobs.

As luck would have it, another illegal alien who worked for the restaurant chain purchased the exact same SS and name. After all, these SS number brokers are not exactly honest people, and the wholesaler must have sold the SS & name to multiple brokers, who in turn sold it to multiple illegal aliens, two of whom went to work for the same restaurant chain.

What are the odds?

Somehow, the hours worked by Juan Gonzalez #1 were treated by the company's computer payroll system (which users names & social security numbers) as belonging to Juan Gonzalez #2. Juan Gonzalez #2 was paid the money owed Juan Gonzalez #1, and Juan Gonzalez #1 was rightfully upset that he didn't get the pay he was expecting and deserved.

How many times does something like this happen? It's one-in-a-million. There is no need for class action status.

At the same time, weird employment stuff like this does happen.

In this case, it means that Juan Gonzalez #1 was paid less than the Federal Minimum Wage for all of his hours, and no arbitration clause prevents pursuit of this violation in Federal Court.

My friend was the Juan Gonzalez #1's attorney for this. He sued for violation of the Federal Minimum Wage. However this national casual restaurant chain has a policy of never, ever settling so as to discourage frivolous litigation. My friend even had the company's Director of Payroll admit to all the facts on the witness stand showing Juan Gonzalez #1 was in the right and the company was clearly in the wrong. The Director of Payroll said on the witness stand under oath, "Yes, we were wrong. Juan Gonzalez is owed the money."

The Federal Minimum Wage is a strict liability law - no explanation or mitigating factors are considered. The existence of Juan Gonzalez #2 is irrelevant. The mistaken identity is irrelevant. The only issues are: how many hours did Juan Gonzalez #1 work (not disputed), and how much was he paid (not disputed), and the arithmetic calculation of pay/hours (not disputed) and then comparison of that to the Federal MW (not disputed.) There can be no extenuating circumstances.

Juan Gonzalez #1 won, and then the company appealed (because they are stupid), and lost in appeals court. Ultimately Juan Gonzalez got his pay -- several hundred bucks (certainly less than $1K).

And the federal law provides for attorneys' fees, so the restaurant chain paid my friend over $25,000 in attorneys fees.

Somehow there must be more to this story. Makes no sense because it describes a simple paperwork error the employer knew they committed so they could simply correct the error. Not even a question of settling because they could have corrected it right away, didn't have to go to litigation. If anything this story supports the justification for having the court system rather than arbitration because if the only issues were as listed above, an ethical company would have corrected the error. In arbitration, without the attorney, would the result have been the same?
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Old 05-22-2018, 10:03 PM
 
13,109 posts, read 20,851,123 times
Reputation: 21318
Quote:
Originally Posted by ovi8 View Post
There, fixed.
Your skillful editing fixed nothing except showed how foolish most american are.

As a business owner, I have no issues with unions. There is nothing in a union contract that can harm me unless I;m a skudzy employer. Everything in that contract has to be something I agreed to abide by when I signed it. Americans spend way too much time harping on the negatives of unions (as small as they are) yet they conveniently forget the company agreed to those terms and conditions.

Fortunately for us, a large segment of american workers are doing the Union busting job for us with their ignorant portrayals of labor unions. All we have to do is sit back, pay a candidate to say what workers want to hear even though they never will deliver on those promises. Once we get out man in office, (put there by ignorant voting workers) who gives a rat's rear what was promised those workers. The quicker we get rid of unions, the quicker we can start rolling back those costly employee protections.

If your looking for more reasons to hate unions, they are the cause of the overweight and diabetic problem plaguing american children and workers today! Remember, we didn't have a bunch of overweight obesse kids when child labor and sweatshops existed!
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Old 05-22-2018, 10:23 PM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,826,471 times
Reputation: 15839
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff View Post
...If anything this story supports the justification for having the court system rather than arbitration because if the only issues were as listed above, an ethical company would have corrected the error.
Yes, an ethical company would have corrected the error. This particular publicly traded company isn't ethical. Tomorrow I'll write up a few other minimum-wage violation cases involving this same publicly traded company.

A violation of the Federal Minimum Wage Law is always adjudicated in Federal Court, I believe -- but I could be wrong. My friend is out of town; when he comes back, I'll ask him. ADR does not apply, because this is a strict liability issue.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff View Post
...In arbitration, without the attorney, would the result have been the same?

Yes - because of the nature of strict liability.
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Old 05-23-2018, 01:04 AM
 
Location: Georgia
4,578 posts, read 5,643,202 times
Reputation: 15968
Quote:
Originally Posted by fishbrains View Post

If employment were truly a level playing field, this decision might be fair. The reality is, for the vast majority of people, employment isn’t a level playing field, and this simply disadvantages most people in the country.
Employment isn't a level playing field? Last I heard, slavery was abolished in the early 1860's. Which means, an employee is free to leave and seek employment elsewhere if they do not like the terms and conditions of their employment.
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Old 05-23-2018, 06:54 AM
 
Location: Proxima Centauri
5,768 posts, read 3,208,773 times
Reputation: 6094
The following is a link which does a fair criticism of forced arbitration. You may find it interesting that the legislators in 1925 were targeting inter company disputes and up until 1981 were never directed at employees.

https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu...&context=bjell

There is a case study on page 17.
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Old 05-23-2018, 07:24 AM
 
Location: Posting from my space yacht.
8,452 posts, read 4,732,188 times
Reputation: 15354
So employment contracts can stipulate that the employer does not have to follow federal and local employment laws?
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Old 05-23-2018, 08:31 AM
 
4,309 posts, read 7,200,382 times
Reputation: 3465
Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Bully View Post
So employment contracts can stipulate that the employer does not have to follow federal and local employment laws?
No.
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Old 05-23-2018, 10:12 AM
 
Location: Proxima Centauri
5,768 posts, read 3,208,773 times
Reputation: 6094
Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Bully View Post
So employment contracts can stipulate that the employer does not have to follow federal and local employment laws?
It sums up to this. If an employee signs an employment application which contains a mandatory arbitration agreement, they no have no right to join together with other employees in a class action suit. According to Justice Ginsburg 53% of all employment contracts have mandatory arbitration agreements.

See post 45 for a link to the drawbacks of mandatory arbitration.
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Old 05-23-2018, 11:18 AM
 
Location: In a city within a state where politicians come to get their PHDs in Corruption
2,907 posts, read 2,060,858 times
Reputation: 4478
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tonyafd View Post
It sums up to this. If an employee signs an employment application which contains a mandatory arbitration agreement, they no have no right to join together with other employees in a class action suit. According to Justice Ginsburg 53% of all employment contracts have mandatory arbitration agreements.

See post 45 for a link to the drawbacks of mandatory arbitration.
No it doesn't. For the love of god stop making things up. No contract can supersede state and federal law. If an employee signs a contract that contains language that is illegal in either state or federal court, that contract becomes null and void.
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Old 05-23-2018, 01:59 PM
 
Location: Northern panhandle WV
3,007 posts, read 3,121,037 times
Reputation: 6796
How many workers out there even white collar ones have employment contracts?
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