By Admin | Published July 7, 2015 | Posted in Employee Rights | Tagged Tags: Fair Labor Standards Act, labor rights activists, overtime salary, pay standards, poverty line | Leave a comment
President Obama Proposes Major Changes to Overtime
President Barack Obama recently proposed raising the threshold for overtime salary to $50,400 in an op-ed he penned for the Huffington Post. Currently, the threshold is less than half that amount — set at $23,660 per year. That amount is currently below what is considered to be the poverty line for a family of four. Read More
Read MoreWhistleblower Awarded $80,000 in Punitive Damages
A recent case, Peasley v. Regis Corporation, resulted in a jury awarding $80,000 in punitive damages to the plaintiff, a hair stylist named Valerie Peasley. The claim was filed under the Maine Whistleblower Protection Act. Peasley says she reported to the manager of her salon that some of her coworkers had been selling and using Read More
Read MoreWhistleblowers Big Winners After OSHA Obtains Injunction in Case
On May 7, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) succeeded in obtaining a preliminary injunction in a whistleblower claim, which kept the Lear Corporation from being able to retaliate any further against a whistleblower named Kimberly King. This injunction is big for whistleblowers everywhere, as it could redefine the protection given to whistleblowers to Read More
Read MoreMore Evidence Gathered in Whistleblower Claim Against ALEC
New evidence from nonprofit advocacy organizations Common Cause and the Center for Media and Discovery bolsters claims that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been falsely portraying itself as a tax-exempt organization, while using money from taxpayers to fund lobbying practices for its own private interests. Common Cause originally filed the tax fraud whistleblower Read More
Read MoreMajor Recent Developments in International Anti-Corruption
There have been some significant developments in the world of international anti-corruption laws in recent months. The following are a few examples: Greater transparency in corporate charging decisions. Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice Leslie Caldwell recently made a promise to increase transparency in the way the division issues Read More
Read MoreFourth Circuit Ruling Makes Retaliation Claims Harder to Dismiss
Reya C. Boyer-Liberto, a cocktail waitress, recently filed a lawsuit against the Maryland hotel she worked at, claiming she was fired after complaining about people using racial slurs against her. The defendant, the Fontainebleau Corporation, originally won the case by summary judgment, but the Fourth Circuit Court reviewed the case and found that should instead Read More
Read MoreSarbanes-Oxley Case Clears Up Issues of Pleading Knowledge of Protected Whistleblowing
The recent decision in the Pennsylvania case of Westawski v. Merck & Co, Inc. clarified a rule stating whenever someone files a whistleblower complaint about a Sarbanes-Oxley violation against a corporation and he or she “alleges facts that [he or she] engaged in protected activity” directly to oversight committees, supervisors or the corporation, then that Read More
Read MoreUS Marshals Whistleblowers Claim Officials Use Freedom of Information Act for Retaliation
Multiple whistleblowers have come forward from the U.S. Marshals Service, claiming that leadership within the agency uses requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to retaliate against individuals because they sought to report various abuses of power. Among the claims made by the whistleblowers is that the U.S. Marshals Service has a major problem Read More
Read MoreWhistleblower Compliance Officer Receives $1.4 Million Award from SEC
On April 22, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced an award of between $1.4 million and $1.6 million given to a compliance officer who alerted authorities to wrongdoing within a large company. Because of confidentiality laws, the SEC was not able to reveal the name of either the whistleblower or the business. However, Read More
Read MoreDepartment of Justice Takes Active Role in Lawsuit Against Nursing Home Chain
For the past six years, the Ohio-based nursing home chain HCR ManorCare has been embroiled in a whistleblower lawsuit featuring allegations that the company systematically overbilled Medicare and often put its residents through overly rigorous rehabilitation schedules in efforts to increase revenue. Now the U.S. Department of Justice is stepping in, which means an end Read More
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