Are You Being Paid for All the Time You Work? The U.S. Department of Labor has found that hospitals, nursing homes, and healthcare agencies frequently fail to pay nurses and other healthcare workers for all the hours they work.   In general, “hours worked” includes all the time you must be on duty, including time spent before or after your regular shift.  It also includes breaks of 20 minutes or less.  If you have to stay after your shift to give a report to the nurse on the next shift, or if your meal breaks are interrupted, then you must be paid for your time.   It may no ..read more

Don't Give Up Your Right to Overtime Compensation If you are paid on an hourly basis, then you must be paid one and one-half times your regular hourly rate if you work more than 40 hours in a work week. There is an exception for certain employees of hospitals and nursing homes.  Under certain circumstances, their right to overtime compensation is based on 80 hours every two weeks.  For everyone else, however, overtime pay begins after you have worked 40 hours in a single week. Employers who fail to pay overtime can be required to pay not only the unpaid overtime compensation but ..read more

How to Recover Tips Owed by Your Employer Every year, restaurants are forced to pay millions of dollars to their servers, bartenders, bussers, and other tipped employees because they engaged in illegal tip pooling.  The restaurants that have been caught include large national chains and restaurants owned by celebrity chefs. If you have not been paid your fair share of customer tips because of an illegal tip pool, here is what you need to know. What is a tip pool? A “tip pool” is an arrangement whereby tipped employees pool their tips.  The tips are then distributed to eligible t ..read more

Building a Strong Case to Recover Unpaid Overtime and Money Damages Did your employer fail to pay you for overtime when you worked more than 40 hours in a workweek?  If so, you may have a claim for up to two times the amount of overtime you are owed. The first step is educating yourself about your rights.  The overtime laws are extremely complicated.  How complicated?  The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that up to 70% of employers make mistakes when trying to figure out how to comply with the wage and hour laws.  Start by reading this article, then call us at ..read more

Your Right to be Paid for All the Hours You Work Does anyone work a 9 to 5 job anymore?  We work from home, get emails and text messages before and after normal working hours, and have to start early or work late to finish projects.   Even if you only work an extra 15 minutes here or 30 minutes there, it adds up over time.  Just 15 extra minutes per week adds up to 13 hours per year.  That is about two full days of work you are giving to your employer. If you are paid by the hour, then you must be paid for all the time you work.  The number of "hours worked ..read more

Six Simple Steps to Proving Emotional Distress Damages Every act of discrimination or harassment at work creates stress.  Over time, the stress can build up until you reach a point of severe emotional distress.  You may be awarded significant money damages for emotional distress.  How much you will be awarded depends on the evidence.  Your own testimony is important.  You can explain how the discrimination or harassment made you feel, and the emotional and physical impacts it had on you.  To win a very large damages award for emotional distress, however, you ..read more

When Discrimination Turns Deadly Nurses of color are dying from COVID-19 at disproportionately high rates.  While more than 80 percent of nurses in this country are white, almost 60 percent of nurses who have died of COVID-19 are nurses of color.  More than 30 percent of nurses who have died are Filipino, even though they account for only 4 percent of all nurses nationwide. Part of the story is simply tragic.  Nurses of color tend to work in urban areas hardest hit by the pandemic.  Many work two jobs or double shifts to support extended families.  More shifts mean mor ..read more

Four Steps to Protect Yourself and Build a Case for Damages Here’s a secret based on 30 years of experience with sexual harassment cases.  Men who sexually harass women are cowards.  They harass women because of their own deep and serious insecurities. Here are four ways you can and should respond: 1.  Tell the harasser to stop and report them to human resources or a supervisor.  Tell them clearly that their conduct is not welcome.  You will be surprised how often this ends the harassment.  Harassers who seem strong when they think you are weak often whimper ..read more

Atty. Leandro “Lindy” Lachica:  Employment Rights Litigator and Seasoned Diplomat The Howley Law Firm would not be where it is today without our secret weapon:  Leandro “Lindy” Lachica Lindy is an employment litigator with a fascinating twist.  Before joining our law firm, he was a Philippine diplomat who helped Filipino healthcare professionals in this country by working directly, government-to-government, with our state and federal Departments of Labor, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and other government agencies. A Distinguished Career with the Philippine Dep ..read more

What Does It Mean to be an American? When my friend Elliott Masie asked me to join him as a producer of a Broadway musical called Allegiance, he didn’t have to twist my arm.  The show, which is now also a movie, tells the story of our government’s internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.  It stars two of my favorite actors:  George Takei and Lea Salonga. George is not just an actor in this story.  He is the source of the story.  Born in Los Angeles, California, he is a native-born American citizen.  Yet, as a young boy, he was imprisoned in an America ..read more