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A state judge in Los Angeles, California, certified a class of nearly 9,000 women who say that The Walt Disney Company paid them less than their male colleagues. The plaintiffs requested the judge certify a class of women employed by Disney in California in positions below the level of vice president between April 2015 and the present under the California Equal Pay Act.

On June 22, 2023, a Southern District of Iowa district court judge granted preliminary approval of a $15,000,000.00 class action settlement for wage and hour claims brought by University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (“UIHC”) employees. The final settlement approval hearing is currently set for August 28, 2023.

MSE Managing Partner Greg McGillivary answers “What’s New on the Wage and Hour Front?” in the latest edition

On October 26, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a final rule updating the standard for determining when an entity is a joint employer that will have to come to the bargaining table under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

On October 19, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York approved as final a $4.25 million class action settlement in the case of Heckle v. Matrix Absence Management, Inc., Case No. 7:21-cv-1463. Plaintiff Erica Heckle and the Class of 203 Disability Benefits Claims Examiners who worked in Matrix’s Hawthorne, NY office were represented by MSE attorneys Molly A. Elkin and Sarah M. Block.

On October 17, 2023, a class of current and former Yale New Haven Hospital employees informed the court that they had reached an agreement in principle to settle their claims that the hospital had failed to properly monitor their 403(b) retirement plan, allowing the plan’s recordkeeper, Fidelity Management Trust Co., to overcharge the plan for its recordkeeping services.

On October 24, 1938, six years after it was initially introduced by Senator Hugo Black of Alabama, the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) became federal law. The Act established a federal minimum wage, employer record-keeping requirements, the eight-hour workday/40-hour workweek, and overtime pay requirements. It also established laws against “oppressive child labor.”

October 13 marks the anniversary of the enactment of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (“CSRA”), a federal personnel law designed to protect federal employees from unfair or unwarranted employment practices and to create a fair workplace for them.

Steel manufacturer Gerdau MacSteel, Inc. has agreed to pay $6,000 to each non-union male employee who was prevented from taking paid paternity leave after the birth of a child between August 30, 2019, and December 31, 2022.

On October 2, 2023, a Texas jury found that the Texas Department of Public Safety discriminated against a disabled veteran based on his disability stemming from his military service.