Latest news with #employmentlaw
South China Morning Post
12 hours ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong's Physical gym founders fined HK$24,000 for unpaid wages to 2 coaches
The founders of the now-closed Physical fitness chain have been fined HK$12,000 (US$1,530) each over unpaid salaries to two coaches, with their lawyer saying they had exhausted every payment option after mortgaging all their properties. Advertisement Eastern Court on Friday recorded guilty pleas from a lawyer representing Luk Ngai-keung and his wife Ho Yuk-wah on eight wage default charges under the Employment Ordinance. The couple, who were absent from the hearing, were also required to pay damages totalling HK$23,227.80, which represented the outstanding payments to the two former workers between August 1 and September 6, 2024. Physical Health Centre Hong Kong Limited, the company that hired the two coaches, was fined a total of HK$44,000 after pleading guilty to 12 charges in April. The 38-year-old gym chain had defaulted on payments to more than 700 workers when it abruptly closed all of its 14 branches across Hong Kong in September the same year, a Labour Department representative told the court on Friday. Advertisement Defence counsel Bosco Cheng Yu-kit said his clients, who were both directors of Physical, had been 'extremely responsible' in running the company and had never delayed payments to staff before last year.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
YMCA branch will settle with VP who said she was fired for pursuing IVF
This story was originally published on HR Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily HR Dive newsletter. The YMCA of Waukesha, Wisconsin, will settle a former vice president of operation's claims that she was wrongfully fired due to her pursuit of in vitro fertilization treatment, according to court documents filed June 13 (Rehm v. YMCA of Greater Waukesha Inc.). The decision to settle followed U.S. District Court Judge Pamela Pepper's order allowing the employee's wrongful termination claim to proceed last December. The judge dismissed four other claims, including charges of unequal pay and retaliation in violation of both the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The terms of the settlement agreement have not yet been released but both parties said in a court document 'they have a good faith belief that this case is resolved.' The dispute in the case centered on whether YMCA's reasons for firing the VP were pretextual. The CEO of the YMCA branch asserted the VP demonstrated a lack of leadership and disregard for her job duties, according to the judge's December order, telling her at her termination that she was 'not performing at a level commensurate with a vice president of an organization.' He also contended that staff had complained about her poor work ethic and lack of accountability. However, the worker said she had consistently received positive feedback on her performance and no feedback suggesting she needed to improve. She also said the CEO could not point to specific incidents of lackluster job performance — and pointed out that she received an incentive bonus just a few months before her firing. The worker also argued that the alleged performance issues were manufactured as pretext and occurred more than two years before her firing, and that YMCA could not provide a consistent explanation for who decided to fire her. Finally, the employee pointed to comments the CEO made to a team with multiple pregnant employees, including that he was 'going to have to change the water in here' and that no one else was 'allowed to get pregnant.' 'Although a factfinder could conclude that the defendant's reasons for firing the plaintiff were legitimate, the plaintiff has shown that there is reason to question [the CEO's] justifications,' Pepper found. She found that given the timing of the CEO's comments on worker pregnancies, the timing of performance issue documentation beginning just days after she announced she was starting IVF and comments from the CEO during that conversation, there was a genuine issue of material fact concerning the motivation for the firing. Employers and HR professionals should document performance issues, compliance experts have advised, but doing so is not always a silver bullet. The timing of such documentation — and how closely it aligns with other events — can complicate an employer's defense. In a similar case, for example, a terminated worker alleged her company, Santander Consumer USA, began aggressively documenting her deficiencies shortly after she announced she was pregnant. The worker and Santander reached a settlement on that case in late February, according to court documents. Recommended Reading EEOC targets universities for antisemitic treatment of staff Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Running the work rule over scourge of the non-compete clause
To what extent should your employer be able to dictate where you can work after you quit? In recent years, policymakers in a range of countries have come up with the same answer: not as much as they do now. Their interest in this question has been prompted by academic research into what I call, 'the economics of small print'. The prevalence of non-compete clauses in employment contracts, for example, is now 'surprisingly high', according to a recent overview by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). These clauses typically ban an employee from going to work for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving their job. And they appear to have spread quietly from well-paid jobs, such as senior executives, to badly paid ones, such as fast-food workers and hairdressers. Will rent reform make building apartments viable? Listen | 40:12 Interestingly, such patterns seem to hold in very different types of labour markets, from flexible ones such as the United Kingdom and Australia to more regulated ones like Austria and Italy. READ MORE Policymakers are paying attention. There have been moves in Australia, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, the UK and some US states to prevent or restrict the use of non-competes, often because they suppress mobility and wage growth for workers. But one place is zigging while everyone else zags. In Florida, the state legislature has passed a Bill that, if approved by the governor, would permit non-compete agreements that last a full four years. It would also make it easier for employers to get them enforced. Even in the United States, the move would make Florida a real outlier. 'Before this law, if any employer in any state in the US would have asked me, 'hey, is a four-year non-compete enforceable?' I would have simply said, 'no,'' Mark Konkel, a partner at Kelley Drye & Warren who specialises in employment law, told me. What does Florida hope to achieve? The Bill's title offers a clue: it is called the Contracts Honoring Opportunity, Investment, Confidentiality and Economic Growth (Choice) Act. Much of the legal analysis has described it as an 'employer-friendly' move to make Florida even more 'wide open for business'. The case for non-competes is that they protect workforce investments, client relationships and trade secrets But to see stringent non-competes as straightforwardly pro-employer would be a mistake. It would be better to say that they are pro-incumbent employers. And what that means for economic growth is not straightforward. The case for non-competes is that they protect workforce investments, client relationships and trade secrets. But they have long been unenforceable in California, which didn't stop Silicon Valley from becoming the innovation capital of the world. And, if you have a new company and you want to expand and hire good people, the clauses can allow incumbent competitors to hoard talent. The OECD report's authors concluded that 'the balance of evidence suggests that non-compete clauses suppress job mobility, firm entry, innovation, wages and productivity, which more than offset any gains from enhanced incentives for firm-specific investment'. Indeed, there are signs that the forces of 'creative destruction' have been waning in recent decades: business entry and exit rates have declined in the US and elsewhere, as have job-to-job moves. It is possible that non-competes have contributed to this trend by preventing competition and fluidity. Economic Innovation Group chief executive John Lettieri – the group is a think tank that opposes non-competes – said he thought Florida was committing economic self-harm, even though the law would only apply to people who earned more than twice the annual mean wage. 'Imagine taking some of the best human capital you have in your state and putting it on the sidelines for four years,' he said. 'The biggest economic harm in the long run is restricting the highest-paid talent.' Florida's move on non-competes could be seen in the same way as its proposal to ease restrictions on child labour Konkel, the employment lawyer, said it remained to be seen how much employers would use the new law. 'If you are about to join an employer and you know that in accepting that employment, you're going to be compelled to sign a four-year non-compete, it is very hard to imagine very marketable people will just sign such an agreement without negotiation,' he said. While some firms like hedge funds might be able to pay enough to compensate, many other employers would probably wait and see, or 'continue to take a more tailored approach', he predicted. Florida's move on non-competes could be seen in the same way as its proposal to ease restrictions on child labour: interventions that might benefit incumbent employers in the short run, but with costs to human capital and growth in the long run. At least the economists who like to study the economics of small print have a new place to get their microscopes out. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
After 4 years, worker may proceed with claim Dave Ramsey's firm fired her for pregnancy out of wedlock
This story was originally published on HR Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily HR Dive newsletter. A former employee of financial advisor Dave Ramsey's company, The Lampo Group, may proceed with her religious discrimination claims against the firm more than four years after a federal judge previously dismissed them, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee held June 12. The plaintiff claimed in 2021 that she was fired after becoming pregnant while unmarried due to Lampo Group's alleged policy prohibiting employees from engaging in premarital sex. She alleged violations of laws including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and of the Tennessee Human Rights Act, stating that she was fired for having religious beliefs different from those imposed by Lampo Group on its employees. The court initially dismissed the Title VII and THRA claims, holding that the plaintiff's disagreement with Lampo Group's policy did not suffice to prove discrimination. The plaintiff filed a motion to reconsider in 2024 following a decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that employers may not discriminate against employees on the basis of religious nonconformity. The district granted the motion. The court's decision involved a lengthy discussion on the nature of the plaintiff's religious beliefs and whether they in fact conflicted with Lampo Group's employee conduct policies. The company's 'righteous living' policy, which the plaintiff alleged to have implied a prohibition against premarital sex, did not in fact have a written prohibition against such activity, Judge Eli Richardson wrote in his initial dismissal of the Title VII and THRA claims. In his decision to reconsider the matter, Richardson said that plaintiff's complaint 'fosters confusion as to the various potential sources of whatever rule, policy, standard, etc. was invoked as justification' for her firing. But the judge ultimately concluded that the plaintiff's allegation, properly construed, was that she was terminated for not adhering to Judeo-Christian beliefs promoted by Ramsey's company in its employee handbook, rather than any specific policy against a particular behavior. 'This finding is a close call, because in the Court's view the Third Amended Complaint was not nearly as clear as it could have been as to what rule, policy, standard, etc.,' the plaintiff violated, Richardson said. 'But on balance, the Court concludes that construed in her favor, the Third Amended Complaint does allege what it needs to allege to state the claim asserted in [her complaint].' Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of an employee's sincerely-held religious belief or practice. The 6th Circuit's 2024 decision in Amos v. Lampo Group, LLC — also a religious discrimination case brought against Ramsey's company — held that the law's protections extend to situations in which employees are discriminated against because they do not share their employers' religious convictions. Recommended Reading Judge vacates gender identity portions of EEOC harassment guidance
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Labour Court to hear Musk's X appeal against WRC ruling
The Labour Court has set aside three days next month to hear Elon Musk's X appeal against a ruling that it must pay out an Irish record unfair dismissal award of €550,131 to a former executive. In the ruling last August, Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) Adjudicator, Michael MacNamee found that Twitter International UC - since renamed X Internet Unlimited Company- unfairly dismissed the company's former Director Source to Pay, Gary Rooney, in December 2022 after he failed to respond to Elon Musk's 'Fork in the Road' email. Mr Rooney has yet to receive any of the monies as moneyse is before the Labour Court on appeal from Twitter International UC. Solicitor for Mr Rooney, Barry Kenny of Kenny Sullivan Solicitors in Bray, confirmed that the case 'is listed for hearing in the Labour Court on July 29th for three days'. READ MORE [ Twitter ordered to pay record €550,000 to senior executive in Ireland Opens in new window ] Mr Kenny said 'My client is anxious to put all this all behind him.' 'The WRC determined that X's treatment of him as a long standing and loyal employee amounted to an unfair dismissal. Mr Rooney is anxious that the Labour Court will affirm this decision. 'Mr Rooney is also hopeful that the claim under the Payment of Wages Act and his loss of income arising due to the fact that he was unfairly dismissed is also affirmed,' he said. At the WRC, Twitter International UC fully contested Mr Rooney's claim over five days of hearing contending that he had resigned voluntarily. In his original findings, Mr MacNamee found that Mr Rooney was dismissed because he did not click 'yes' to Elon Musk's 'Fork in the Road' email on November 16th 2022 and for that reason alone. Three days after Mr Rooney opted not to click 'yes' on the link, on November 19th, 2022, Mr Rooney received a further company email which stated that it is 'to acknowledge your decision to resign and accept the voluntary separation offer'. The record €550,131 award was made up of Mr Rooney's remuneration losses of €350,131 from January 2023 to May 2024 and estimated future remuneration losses of €200,000. He secured a new role with an employer in the banking sector in September 2023 on total remuneration of €129,897. 'It is open to the Labour Court to increase or reduce sums awarded in the WRC as it will be a De Novo hearing,' Mr Kenny said. He added that 'X have advised that they intend to call at least three witnesses, some or all of them may be giving evidence remotely from the USA. 'Mr Rooney is the only witness in his own case,' Mr Kenny said.
