Given the increasing mobility of the workforce, the issue of which state’s laws apply to a traveling employee is becoming more and more common. In Sullivan v. Oracle Corp., the California Supreme Court held that California-based employers must pay non-resident employees working in California according to the California’s overtime laws. That means that a
Proposed Bill Gives NLRB And OSHA Right To Review Emails And Other Electronic Information Without Search Warrant
There is concern about a bill making its way through the Senate that would drastically change individuals’ privacy interest in their internet communications and “cloud” information. The bill, named the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2011, originally started out as offering more protection to individuals, but after law enforcement expressed its concerns about
NLRB Issues New Memo On Validity of Social Media Policies
In October 2012 the National Labor Relations Board issued an advice memorandum regarding whether an employer’s social media policy violated the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). This memorandum is of importance because the NLRB has issued findings recently that employer’s seemingly neutral social media policies violated employees’ rights under the NLRA. Section 7 of the
Court Upholds Timekeeping Rounding Policies: See’s Candy Shops Inc. v. Superior Court
In See’s Candy Shops, Inc. v. Superior Court the court addressed whether an employer’s policy of rounding employee’s time clock entries to the nearest tenth of an hour. See’s Candy’s policy rounded employees’ time entries either up or down to the nearest tenth of an hour in its Kronos time keeping system. For example, if
Chris Sacca – Bold Humility
I had the opportunity to attend an event with Chris Sacca last night. He is a venture capitalist who 
has been living part-time in Los Angeles recently. He spoke about how he grew up in the investment scene in Silicon Valley. He got his feet wet in investing when he started day trading law school
Silicon Valley Companies Sued Over Agreements Not To Hire Competitor’s Employees
Were Silicon Valley companies artificially keeping wages lower by having an agreement not to 
poach employees from competitors? This issue came to a head in 2010 when the Department of Justice settled an antitrust case with Adobe, Pixar, Google, Apple, Inuit, and Intel. The DOJ alleged that the companies had agreement not to poach each
Inside Litigation Over Social Media Accounts – Why Employers Should Have Social Media Policies – Part I
As previously written about on this blog, the case PhoneDog v. Kravtiz is one of the first cases in the country to deal with substantive ownership issues arising out of social media accounts used in the workplace. As companies are moving more and more away from traditional marketing and advertising towards the use of
When Does An Employer Have To Pay Wages?
I remember working odd summer jobs during college to pay the rent so that I did not have to move home. I was just thinking about one employer I worked for that always seemed to have payroll issues. Now, I do not think the mistakes were intentional, but they did cause me to have a
Does the Company or the Employee Own a Twitter Account?
Imagine you are an employer and your employee in charge of your social media accounts leaves, keeps the accounts, and begins using the accounts while working for a competitor. Conversely, imagine you are an employee, leave employment to work for a competitor and your former employer sues you for $350,000 because you refuse to stop
Why Start-up Managers Cannot Afford To Be Like Steve Jobs
I don’t have any personal knowledge of how Steve Jobs was as a manager, but every account I read of him was that he was demanding and in your face. While this can be an effective management style of some, it does come with some associated costs.
Increased litigation costs
Unless your start-up has a