Orange County Employment Lawyers Blog

New Food Processing Jobs in California

May 30, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

California has a wide of industries that make the state a great place to live and work. There are farms and other agricultural jobs, technology centers, the television and movie industry in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, large law firms and international corporations, and a variety of other opportunities.

What many people may not realize that far more of the employment opportunities in California are directly or indirectly related to the state’s agricultural sector. According to a recent report from Record Net, food and beverage processing industry account not only tens of thousands of jobs, but for billions of dollars of value-added activity throughout the state.

For example, grape vineyard in the Napa Valley employs workers to grow and harvest the grape. During the growing process, supplies are shipped from other areas in the state. The grapes are then harvested and driven by truck drivers to an estate winery that will make and bottle wine. The wine is then sent to stores and restaurants in Southern California, which creates more jobs and raises the overall revenue for the state. Workers will then be able to purchase or rent a place to live, which in turn will create more jobs and revenue for the state. Continue Reading ›

Major California Employer Lays Off 2,000 and Offers Contract Positions

May 28, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

According to a recent news article in the Los Angeles Business Journal, Health Net, Inc. has announced it will by laying off more than 2000 of its employees and offering them jobs as contractors to the company.

In total, around 1200 employees in Woodland Hills and approximately 900 employees in Rancho Cordova will be without permanent positions, according to the major insurance company. The contract positions will be offered through a third-party consulting firm. Continue Reading ›

Term “Alien” to be removed from California Labor Code

May 26, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

According to a recent news article from the USC Guardian, State Senator Tony Mendoza introduced Senate Bill SB 432 earlier this year and the senate has just approved his bill. SB 432 was drafted to the remove the term “alien” from the California Labor Code.

In the existing form of the state labor code, the term alien is used to denote any person who is not a citizen of the United States or a United States national. The term alien to mean a person who is not a US citizen has long history of use in the legal documents of the United States and in common usage. With respect to the legal documents, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 can be used as an example. This act was used to grant authority to the federal government to deport any non-citizens it determined were dangerous to the nation. Other statutes use the terms illegal and unauthorized alien.

In speaking about why he felt the need to create this piece of legislation, Mendoza stated he feels the term alien holds a negative connotation, and there is no appropriate place for it in modern laws and statutes. Mendoza further argues the term alien has been a derogatory term in common usage, especially in the context of speaking about illegal aliens. Continue Reading ›

California Unemployment Rate Down

May 26, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

Despite the growing problems in low wage jobs across the state of California including wage theft, and employee misclassification, there has been an overall decrease in the unemployment rate throughout the state.

According to a recent article from the Modesto Bee, the current unemployment rate in California has fallen slightly to 6.3 percent. The recent economic upswing has created approximately 30,000 new jobs across the state. Continue Reading ›

Transgender Workers Sues CA Employer for Discrimination

May 24, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of brave GLBT individuals and advocacy organizations, gay and lesbian individuals are finally being granted a greater degree of respect. While some places, including many areas in California, are more accepting of this community than others, there is still a long way to go in the fight for equal rights for all people.

Unfortunately, people who identify as transgender individuals often have a bigger fight ahead of them in terms of equal treatment and respect from the mainstream community. Perhaps things will change with more people willing to speak out and the media paying attention to their struggle. Perhaps the notoriety given to Olympic athlete and television personality Bruce Jenner will further the cause. Continue Reading ›

California Farmworkers’ Union Brings Fight to DC

May 23, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

California has a very diverse economy, and this is one of the reasons it is such a great place to live. In terms of jobs, there are a variety of different sectors and opportunities not available to residents of other states. Not only do we have the world’s leading computer design and software industry located in Silicon Valley, but we have large amounts of farmland on which a large portion of our nation’s food supply is produced each year.

With all of these farms and agricultural industries within our state’s borders, there are a lot of jobs available for farmworkers. However, in addition to great opportunity for farmworkers, we also see many farmworkers being taken advantage of by employers who care more about making money than they do about farmworker safety, health, and quality of life.

According to a recent news article from The Daily Caller, a decent sized crowd of California farm worker union supporters showed in Washington, DC to protest what is happening in relation to a California farmworker labor dispute. Continue Reading ›

Low-Wage Jobs in California Causing Major Problems

May 22, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

Statistically speaking, California has a larger number or low wage jobs than many other cities and states across the country. Part of this is result of the large variety of employment opportunities throughout the state, and part of it is a long history of California’s employers taking advantage of the working poor.

According to a recent article from The Berkeley Blog, low-wage jobs may be California’s Achilles’ heel. A study referenced in the article showed that, in 2014, around one-third of all workers in the state of California earned less than $14 per hour. This equates to around 5 million workers, and most of them are adults working full-time to support their families. To make matters worse, they have an average annual income less than $16,000, and the vast majority of them does not have any health insurance, benefits, or receive overtime pay. Continue Reading ›

California Workers’ Compensation Bill Leads to Debate

May 20, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

The workers’ compensation system in California is a very complex process. While it tries to take into account every possible contingency in such a way as to balance workers’ rights and need for quick access to benefits with employers’ need for a way to predict workers’ compensation expenses, from time to time the system will need a major overhaul to keep it up-to-date with changing times and economic conditions.

To this end, California state legislators and Governor Jerry Brown passed a piece of legislation, which provided for somewhat sweeping changes to the state’s workers’ compensation act about three years ago. Many saw these changes as favoring employers and insurance companies, causing a disadvantage to providers of medical care for injured workers and rehabilitation providers, and, in turn, harming many disabled workers, even though it was designed to provide more cash benefits to workers.

Since the bill was enacted, there have been reports of a five percent drop in medical claims associated with workers’ compensation petitions. This has undoubtedly upset medical providers around the state, and they have pushed for new changes to the state workers’ compensation act. A newly proposed piece of legislation entitled Senate Bill 563 aims to address their concerns. According to a recent article in the Sacramento Bee, State Senator Richard Pan, a physician himself, wishes to take away some of the teeth from the utilization review required to approve any medical treatments as absolutely necessary prior to awarding disability benefits to pay for those medical treatments. Continue Reading ›

Los Angeles Minimum Wage $15 per Hour by 2020

May 19, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

For the past year, there has been a great deal of debate about creating a minimum wage for the City of Los Angeles. The state already has a minimum wage, but it has become increasingly clear that state minimum wage does not equate to a living wage for the residents and workers in Los Angeles.

With that in mind, the debate over whether or not Los Angeles should follow the lead of other cities and establish their own minimum wage is quickly turning into a debate of what the new minimum wage for the city should be, as it was obvious some form of a minimum wage law was needed. There was understandably a lot of input from advocates for low-wage workers and also for business owners and other employers in the city of Los Angeles. As one could easily imagine, workers’ advocates and employers had vastly different ideas on what the new minimum wage should be and when it should take effect.

There were three main proposals that emerged as frontrunners in the debate, and the amounts of the new minimum wage ranged from around $11 per hour to $15 per hour. The number of years to fully implement the increased minimum wage ranged from a little as three years to more than 15 years. According to a recent news article from the Washington Post, city officials have decided to raise the citywide minimum wage to $15 per hour, and this increase will take effect by 2020. Continue Reading ›

Three Businessmen Arrested for Wage Theft in Orange County

May 18, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

It is a sad fact some unscrupulous employers will stop at nothing to make money, even when that involves taking advantage of their hardworking employees. According to a recent news article from Orange County Breeze, three employers were recently arrested and charged with stealing wages from their employees on a public works project.

Authorities say one businessman has been charged with four felony counts of conspiracy to take employee wages earned during a public works project, over 30 counts of taking employee wages on a public works project, 20 felony counts of tax evasion, 4 counts of conspiracy to commit a crime, and an additional 10 counts of conspiracy to file false or counterfeited documents. Continue Reading ›