Pregnancy discrimination laws provide robust protection for employees, defending them against termination due to pregnancy-related complications. This legal safety net was highlighted in the recent case with Bakotic Pathology Associates, LLC (Bako), which was involved in a lawsuit over allegations of pregnancy discrimination and retaliation. The lawsuit, presented by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), asserted that Bako unfairly treated an employee suffering from pregnancy-related ailments.
Bako terminated the employee during her authorized medical leave and while she was availing short-term disability benefits, following her reports of pregnancy discrimination. This alleged behavior contravenes Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that explicitly forbids sex-based discrimination and retaliation for participation in protected activities.
As a result of the lawsuit, Bako agreed to a settlement involving a $50,000 payment and the implementation of remedies. Additionally, Bako is now obligated to provide its employees with specialized training on Title VII, share internal complaint procedures and Title VII policies with the workforce, and report any pregnancy discrimination complaints to the EEOC.
Specific situations that would constitute pregnancy discrimination and/or retaliation include:
An employer refusing to accommodate reasonable requests made for pregnancy-related conditions, especially when such accommodations are provided for other employees with different medical conditions.
Openly demoting, reducing the hours, or offering lower pay to an employee upon learning of her pregnancy, under the guise of unrelated performance issues.
Dismissal of a pregnant employee using the pretext of organizational restructuring, when in reality, the position remains open or is quickly filled by someone not pregnant.
Subjecting a pregnant employee to frequent, unwarranted disciplinary actions following the announcement of her pregnancy, suggesting a motive grounded in discrimination rather than actual performance issues.
Failing to reinstate an employee to her original or equivalent position after returning from maternity leave, which is guaranteed under certain conditions by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
Retaliating against an employee for filing a complaint regarding pregnancy discrimination or for participating in an investigation about such allegations, often seen through sudden negative performance reviews or exclusion from meetings and company events.
For more information on pregnancy discrimination, visit the www.HelmerFriedman.com website or reach out through 1-310-396-7714 or info@HelmerFriedman.com. Ensure your rights are protected.
Imagine a workplace where your skills, experience, and professionalism can thrive without fear of racial discrimination or harassment. Sadly, for John Mack – an African-American man – this was just a dream. The reality, as alleged in a recent lawsuit, reveals a disturbing picture of racial discrimination within the Electric Boat Company.
Hired as a Structural Nuclear Welder by Riley Power Group (RPG) to work at Electric Boat, Mack performed his duties diligently and competently, receiving positive reviews about his work. Tragically, his experience soured as he began to face a hostile working environment, racial discrimination, and a series of assaults by a white supervisor.
What makes Mack’s story more shocking is the response when he reported these incidents. A human resources professional allegedly requested that he not file a police report, promising that Electric Boat would handle the matter internally.
Not only did this fail to bring any substantive disciplinary action against the perpetrator, but Mack also faced another racial incident involving a safety officer who made several racist comments about African-Americans. Yet again, despite reporting the incident, there was no significant disciplinary action.
The law is clear. The Rhode Island Civil Rights Act, the Rhode Island Whistleblower Protection Act, and the Fair Employment Practice Act prohibit discrimination and retaliation and protect employees against racial discrimination in the workplace. Mack bravely came forward to ensure that his rights and those of his coworkers are respected – and so can you.
Every employee deserves a safe, respectful, and equal work environment. Discrimination or harassment at work is not only damaging to individual rights, dignity, and sense of worth but also undermines the potential for businesses to enjoy a diverse, dynamic, and creative team.
If you experience or witness racial discrimination or harassment at work, know that you’re protected by law. Protect your rights. Take a stand. Speak out against racial discrimination, and together, let’s make our workplaces truly equitable and inclusive.
Hundreds Allege Sex Harassment, Discrimination at Kay and Jared Jewelry Company
Kristin Henry, a former Sterling employee, is seen in her apartment in Sanford, Fla. Henry says she was 22 when a district manager tried to kiss and touch her. After reporting the incident, she says, she was falsely accused of theft and fired. (Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post)
Hundreds of former employees of Sterling Jewelers, the multibillion-dollar conglomerate behind Jared the Galleria of Jewelry and Kay Jewelers, claim that its chief executive and other company leaders presided over a corporate culture that fostered rampant sexual harassment and discrimination, according to arbitration documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Declarations from roughly 250 women and men who worked at Sterling, filed as part of a private class-action arbitration case, allege that female employees at the company throughout the late 1990s and 2000s were routinely groped, demeaned, and urged to sexually cater to their bosses to stay employed. Sterling disputes the allegations.
The arbitration was first filed in 2008 by more than a dozen women who accused the company of widespread gender discrimination. The class-action case, still unresolved, now includes 69,000 women who are current and former employees of Sterling, which operates about 1,500 stores across the country.
Statements allege that top male managers, some at the company’s headquarters near Akron, Ohio, dispatched scouting parties to stores to find female employees they wanted to sleep with, laughed about women’s bodies in the workplace, and pushed female subordinates into sex by pledging better jobs, higher pay or protection from punishment.
Though women made up a large part of Sterling’s sales force, many said they felt they had little recourse with their mostly male management. Sanya Douglas, a Kay sales associate and manager in New York between 2003 and 2008, said a manager even had a saying for male leaders coaxing women into sexual favors to advance their careers, calling it “going to the big stage.”
“If you didn’t do what he wanted with him,” she said in the 2012 sworn statement, “you wouldn’t get your (preferred) store or raise.”
Not all of the 69,000 class members are alleging sexual impropriety. Many are accusing Sterling of wage violations, arguing women were systematically paid less than men and passed over for promotions given to less experienced male colleagues.
Sterling, like other U.S. companies, requires all workers to waive their right to bring any employment-related disputes against their employer in public courts. Instead, complaints must be decided in arbitration — a private, quasi-legal system where cases are guaranteed little transparency.
Signet Jewelers, the parent company of Sterling, has its headquarters in Fairlawn, Ohio. (Dustin Franz for The Washington Post)
More than 1,300 pages of sworn statements were released Sunday and feature company-approved redactions that obscure the names of managers and executives accused of harassment or abuse. But a memorandum by the employees’ attorneys supporting their motion for class certification, filed in 2013, revealed that top executives including Mark Light, now chief executive of Sterling’s parent company, Signet Jewelers, were among those accused of having sex with female employees and promoting women based upon how they responded to sexual demands.
Mark Light, seen June 15, 2016, in New York, is chief executive of Signet Jewelers, Sterling’s parent company. A memo filed in 2013 as part of the case says that top executives including Light were among those accused of having sex with female employees and promoting women based on how they responded to sexual demands. (Chris Goodney/Bloomberg News)
Many of the most striking allegations stem from the company’s annual managers meetings, which former employees described as a boozy, no-spouses-allowed “sex-fest” where attendance was mandatory and women were aggressively pursued, grabbed, and harassed.
Multiple witnesses told attorneys that they saw Light “being entertained” as he watched and joined nude and partially undressed female employees in a swimming pool, according to the 2013 memorandum.
Routine sexual “preying” at company events “was done out in the open and appeared to be encouraged, or at least condoned, by the company,” Melissa Corey, a manager of Sterling stores in Massachusetts and Florida between 2002 and 2008, said in her declaration.
Ellen Contaldi, a Sterling manager in Massachusetts between 1994 and 2008, said in her declaration that male executives “prowled around the (resort) like dogs that were let out of their cage and there was no one to protect the female managers from them.”
“I didn’t like being alone, anywhere. I used to dread going” to the meetings, Contaldi told The Post in an interview. “If you were even remotely attractive or outgoing, which most salespeople are, you were meat, being shopped.”
“It was like nobody knew right from wrong, and there was nobody trying to show anybody right from wrong,” Contaldi added. “There was no discipline. There was no consequence. You were on your own.”
Former employees who sought help or reported abuse through an internal hotline alleged in their declarations that they were verbally attacked or terminated. Kristin Henry, a five-year Sterling employee who said she was 22 when an older district manager tried to kiss and touch her at a managers event, told The Post she was falsely accused of theft and quickly fired after reporting his advances to superiors at Sterling.
“They’re still hiring younger women, and I worry about those women,” Kristin Henry said. (Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post)
The case, Jock et al. v. Sterling Jewelers, was filed before the American Arbitration Association, one of the nation’s largest arbitration organizations. Kathleen A. Roberts, the case’s arbitrator, and a retired federal magistrate is forbidden by association rules from speaking with the media. Like other arbitrations, the case before Roberts is conducted in private and is legally binding. While arbitrator decisions are appealable, there are very limited grounds on which decisions can be overturned. The confidential nature of the case has made it difficult to determine why it has taken so long to resolve.
In a 2015 decision to grant class-action status to the women, Roberts wrote that the testimony includes references to “soliciting sexual relations with women (sometimes as a quid pro quo for employment benefits), and creating an environment at often-mandatory Company events in which women are expected to undress publicly, accede to sexual overtures and refrain from complaining about the treatment to which they have been subjected.”
“For the most part Sterling has not sought to refute this evidence,” Roberts wrote. Instead, she wrote, “Sterling argues that it is inadmissible, irrelevant and insufficient to establish a corporate culture that demeans women.”
The case could deeply tarnish a business that sells billions of dollars worth of jewelry a year through romance-centered marketing campaigns such as “Every Kiss Begins with Kay.” Signet told shareholders in an annual report last year that it would have to “pay substantial damages” if it lost the case.
Sterling’s mall outlets and storefronts account for a large chunk of America’s jewelry market, as well as more than 18,000 jobs across all 50 states. Its parent company, Signet, which is domiciled in Bermuda but headquartered in Ohio, is the world’s largest retailer of diamond jewelry, selling more than $6 billion of jewelry, watches, and services in 2015, company filings show.
Joseph M. Sellers, a partner at the Cohen Milstein law firm and lead counsel for the case, told The Post in an interview that the former employees’ statements provide “breathtaking evidence of ways in which women were mistreated in the workplace.”
“It was terribly demeaning to them as women,” Sellers said, “not just because they themselves were mistreated but because they saw how their co-workers were treated as sexual objects.”
‘Backed into a corner’
When Heather Ballou left her job at a small jewelry store and moved to a Kay retail outlet in Pensacola, Fla., in 2000, she believed she had made the right move to advance her young career. Sterling seemed to offer high standards, a professional atmosphere, and managers willing to groom and mentor new employees, Ballou, a class member in the arbitration, said in an interview with The Post.
As she worked her way up to store manager, though, she said, she became increasingly disturbed at the frequency of sexual harassment from the company’s crude “boys club.” At a managers meeting in 2005, a district manager promised to help transfer her to a better store if she had sex with him, she said in her sworn statement. That night, she did, believing she was “backed into a corner” and had no other way to advance.
“Looking back, I can’t believe I did some of the things I had to do,” Ballou, 41, told The Post, adding that in the moment she thought: “You suck it up and do what you have to do for your family. You need this job.”
Heather Ballou, seen in Gulf Breeze, Fla., said while she was at a managers meeting in 2005, a district manager promised to help transfer her to a better store if she had sex with him. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Ballou attended four of Sterling’s multi-day managers meetings, where attendance was mandatory for managers at company stores nationwide. The events, which were mostly held in Orlando, included daytime work seminars but were infamous for their wild parties at night, employees said. It was common practice, former employees said, for executives and high-level managers to ply subordinates with alcohol.
One night, Ballou told The Post, she saw a top executive watching as female managers in varying stages of undress splashed in a hotel pool. “He had a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other, just taking it all in, like, ‘I am the king and this is my harem,’ ” she told The Post. She was prevented by her attorneys from naming which executive was involved, because of the condition of the arbitration documents’ release. The 2013 class-action motion states Light took part in a pool-related incident similar to the one Ballou described.
Henry, who attended the 2005 meeting, said she was retrieving her shawl from a hotel room when a male district manager who was her father’s age, and whom she had been told to treat like a mentor, forcibly tried to kiss and touch her. Stunned, she left immediately afterward and called her parents for advice.
“I was so embarrassed,” she told The Post. “I was afraid of what would happen next, how I would be treated if it was something he would tell other employees about.”
A few days later, she called an internal hotline to report the encounter, believing her identity would be protected. But within days of her report, a regional boss visited her store for two days, interviewed her co-workers, and reviewed surveillance video before accusing her of stealing a gold necklace and $100 in cash. She told The Post she showed the boss evidence that she had not stolen anything, but Sterling fired her, a few days before she was set to receive an annual commission payment worth roughly $30,000, she alleged.
Because she was fired and accused of theft, she told The Post, that she was unable to find a job at another jewelry store. Now 34, she works as a nurse in Florida.
“Friends to this day ask: What ever happened to that job? And it’s one of those situations: Do I tell the truth? Or do I say I just moved on, to save myself the embarrassment?” she told The Post. Seeing Kay commercials, she said, continues to unnerve her.
“They’re still hiring younger women, and I worry about those women,” she told The Post. “I worry about what might happen to them.”
“I can’t even go into a Kay anymore. It just turns my stomach,” says Ballou, who now works as an office manager. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Julia Highfill, a nine-year Sterling manager in Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi, said in her sworn statement that the company “did not have an effective or serious mechanism by which female employees could complain about their mistreatment.” After calling the company to report that a district manager had arrived to work late and reeking of alcohol, she alleged that he called soon after to warn her against calling again. He told her, “Anything you say, I’m going to know,” she recalled in an interview.
Men who are not part of the class also filed sworn statements alleging Sterling was a hostile workplace for women. Richard Sumen, who worked for Sterling in Ohio from 1992 until 2005, said in his declaration that a group of managers and officers are commonly known as the “good ole boys” was infamous for “protecting and promoting their friends, and wild escapades of sex, drugs, excessive drinking and womanizing.” He recalled one former Ohio-based executive saying, “Why pay women more when they just get pregnant and have families?”
In his sworn statement, Sumen also recounted an incident at corporate headquarters in which an executive pointed to a female secretary and asked a district manager, “Are you doing her?” The secretary looked visibly uncomfortable, Sumen said, but the executive said again, louder, “I want to f—ing know if you are f—ing doing her.”
Sumen told The Post that he remained troubled by what he called Sterling’s discriminatory corporate climate. He wrote in his 2008 declaration, “This culture of sexism and womanizing was so prevalent that female management employees were pressured to acquiesce and participate.”
Like ‘an abusive relationship’
This culture seemingly arose in a company whose sales force was mostly women. More than 68 percent of Sterling’s store managers are women, the company told The Post. Three of Signet’s 10 executive officers are women. A job-recruitment video calls Sterling “your place to shine” and promises an “exciting and fulfilling career.”
Light was made Sterling’s chief executive in 2006 and presided over an eight-year growth streak during which the company’s sales more than tripled. Light, now 54 and chief executive of Signet, earned about $7.4 million in salary, stock, and bonuses in fiscal 2016, up from $2.4 million in 2014, company filings show.
Signet, the parent company of Sterling, Zales, and other jewelry brands, has struggled in recent months because of disappointing holiday sales, investors’ worries over how much of its jewelry is bought on credit, and a scandal during which Kay customers alleged diamonds they had brought in for cleaning were swapped for lesser-quality stones. The company denied the diamond-swapping allegations. Its share price has dropped by half since its late-2015 peak.
Since 1998, Sterling has forced all employees to agree to arbitration — a no-judge, no-jury resolution system that allows companies to keep potentially embarrassing labor disputes and case records mostly confidential.
The nonprofit American Arbitration Association, where the Sterling case is being heard, allows companies to refuse arbitrators they believe will not fairly rule on their case.
Some companies have argued that arbitration allows them a quicker path to resolving employee disputes beyond traditional courts. Workers effectively consent to the rules when they sign agreements requiring arbitration as a condition of their employment, as seen with Sterling’s contracts.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a report last year that mandatory arbitration policies “can prevent employees from learning about similar concerns shared by others in their workplace.”
Ballou, who left the company in 2009, is hoping the case leads to more than back pay. Now 41, the single mother is back in school studying to become a registered nurse and working as an office manager for a real estate company, where she told The Post she “hasn’t encountered an inkling” of what she saw at Sterling.
“What’s sad is that I was there for so long, it was almost like when someone is in an abusive relationship: You think that’s what normal is,” she told The Post.
“I can’t even go into a Kay anymore. It just turns my stomach,” she added. “Even seeing those ‘Every Kiss Begins with Kay’ commercials revolts me, thinking of what’s behind them. All the good things they do, all the lovely things they promise. It’s a lie.”
Kristin Henry, a former Sterling employee, is seen in her apartment in Sanford, Fla. Henry says she was 22 when a district manager tried to kiss and touch her. After reporting the incident, she says, she was falsely accused of theft and fired. (Eve Edelheit for The Washington Post)
She told The Post she wanted to speak out in hopes that it could help other women, as well as her 8-year-old daughter.
“I was a victim, and I didn’t have anyone to speak for me,” Ballou said. “As humiliating as it was, it was worth it, because now maybe it won’t happen to her.”
Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC ordered to pay more than $225K to worker terminated after reporting injury at Kansas City, Kansas, rail yard
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC wrongfully terminated an employee in Kansas City after he reported an injury to his left shoulder, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The company has been found in violation of the Federal Railroad Safety Act*, and OSHA ordered the company to pay the apprentice electrician $225,385 in back wages and damages, remove disciplinary information from the employee’s personnel record and provide whistleblower rights information to all its employees.
“The resolution of this case will restore the employee’s dignity and ability to support his family,” said Marcia P. Drumm, OSHA’s acting regional administrator in Kansas City, Missouri. “It is illegal to discipline an employee for reporting workplace injuries and illnesses. Whistleblower protections play an important role in keeping workplaces safe because they protect people from choosing between their health and disciplinary action.”
OSHA’s investigation upheld the allegation that the railroad company terminated the employee following an injury that required the employee to be transported to an emergency room and medically restricted from returning to work. The company’s investigation into the injury, reported on Aug. 27, 2013, concluded that the employee had been dishonest on his employment record about former, minor workplace injuries unrelated to the left shoulder. These conclusions led the company to terminate the employee on Nov. 18, 2013.
OSHA found this termination to be retaliation for reporting the injury and in direct violation of the FRSA. BNSF has been ordered to pay $50,000 in compensatory damages, $150,000 in punitive damages, more than $22,305 in back wages and interest and reasonable attorney’s fees. Any of the parties in this case can file an appeal with the department’s Office of Administrative Law Judges.
OSHA enforces the whistleblower provisions of the FRSA and 21 other statutes protecting employees who report violations of various airline, commercial motor carrier, consumer product, environmental, financial reform, food safety, health care reform, nuclear, pipeline, worker safety, public transportation agency, railroad, maritime and securities laws.
Employers are prohibited from retaliating against employees who raise various protected concerns or provide protected information to the employer or to the government. Employees who believe that they have been retaliated against for engaging in protected conduct may file a complaint with the secretary of labor to request an investigation by OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Program. Detailed information on employee whistleblower rights, including fact sheets, is available at http://www.whistleblowers.gov.
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA’s role is to ensure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.
Coaches Sue Chivas USA Professional Soccer Organization, Allege Discrimination Against Non-Latinos
Two former members of the coaching staff of Chivas USA have filed a lawsuit against the Major League Soccer organization, saying they were fired “because they were neither Mexican nor Latino.” The filing was announced by Gregory D. Helmer, of the Los Angeles law firm of Helmer Friedman, LLP, who represents the two coaches.
Daniel Calichman and Theothoros Chronopoulos, both of whom were former professional soccer players and members of the U.S.National Team before being hired by Chivas USA, are suing in Los Angeles Superior Court. The men, described in the complaint as “Caucasian, non-Latino Americans,” allege discrimination, harassment, retaliation and wrongful termination by Chivas USA based on national origin, ethnicity and race.
Mr. Chronopoulos and Mr. Calichman were employed as coaches in the Chivas USA Academy, which offers soccer programs for youngsters from approximately age seven through age 18. Mr. Helmer noted that the Chivas USA team was formed in 2004 by a group that included Jorge Vergara Madrigal, a prominent Mexican businessman.
Two years earlier Mr. Vergara had acquired Chivas de Guadalajara. The Mexican team, popularly known as “Chivas,” has since 1908 had a stated policy of hiring only players who are Mexican-born or born of Mexican parents.
In 2012, Mr. Vergara acquired full ownership of Chivas USA and, according to the complaint, began to “implement a discriminatory policy similar to the ethnocentric ‘Mexican-only’ policy that exists at Chivas de Guadalajara.” This included “replacing players and staff who had no Mexican or Latino heritage,” and appointing Mexican nationals to the team’s top executive positions.
“While the hiring practices of Chivas de Guadalajara may be legal in Mexico,” Mr. Helmer said, “Chivas USA must follow California and federal laws prohibiting discrimination, including treatment based on race, national origin or ethnicity.”
On November 13, 2012, the complaint states, Mr. Vergara called all Chivas USA employees to a meeting and announced that non-Spanish speaking employees would be fired. It quotes Mr. Vergara as saying, “If you don’t speak Spanish, you can go work for the Galaxy, unless you speak Chinese, which is not even a language.” (The Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team hires players from diverse backgrounds, notably including David Beckham of England.)
In late November of 2012, the complaint states, Jose David, the team’s newly hired president and chief business officer, asked Mr. Chronopoulos to report which Academy players and coaches were Mexican or Mexican-American and which were not.
In late December Mr. David directed Mr. Chronopoulos to collect ethnic and national origin data on the youngsters enrolled in the Chivas Academy and their parents, according to the complaint, which states that
“When the requests for this information were sent to the parents, many of them were offended and refused to provide it.”
On January 11, 2013, Mr. Calichman and Mr. Chronopoulos submitted written complaints of discrimination and harassment to the team’s Human Resources Manager, Cynthia Craig. At a meeting three days later, according to the court filing, “Ms. Craig assured Mr. Calichman that Chivas USA was going to conduct a ‘full investigation’” into the men’s complaint, but no investigation was made.
At that meeting Mr. David stated that he and Mr. Vergara “were taking the team ‘back to its Mexican roots,’” the complaint states, and indicated that Mr. Calichman and Mr. Chronopoulos would not be “part of the effort to take the team back to its Mexican roots.”
The two men subsequently “were informed that they were not being fired but, at the same time were told not to perform their job duties. They were, in effect, placed on suspension.”
The following day, the complaint states, Ms. Craig contacted both men proposing that they resign from their jobs in exchange for two weeks of severance. On January 18, Mr. Calichman responded by email, rejecting the proposal and asking Ms. Craig to verify that he was still employed.
In February, having received no response to their allegations of harassment and discrimination, the court filing states, the men filed complaints with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
On March 7, 2013, according to the court filing, both men received identical letters from Mr. David, notifying them that their employment was being terminated as of the following day. Their lawsuit notes that “the letter is conspicuously silent” as to whether the company had investigated their complaints of harassment and discrimination. “Moreover, in further retaliation for their complaints, Mr. David falsely and maliciously accused them of ‘demonstrat[ing] unprofessional conduct that created an unsafe work environment,’” without stating how they allegedly did so.
The lawsuit seeks general, special and punitive damages in amounts to be determined at trial, as well as any other relief the Court may deem proper.
Also named as defendants are Insperity, Inc. and Insperity Business Services, L.P. The complaint alleges that Insperity is a joint employer with Chivas USA and, in that capacity, is liable for any unlawful employment practices.
“A major professional soccer team should pick its players and coaches based on their abilities,” Mr. Helmer noted. “The behavior detailed in our complaint against Chivas USA is totally unacceptable for any American employer. It is also a disservice to young people of all ethnicities who might aspire to a career in professional soccer, or who look at these players as role models. It also short-changes fans by fielding a team whose players are selected because of their ethnicity rather than their skills.”
Former employee of Los Angeles based Innovative Dining Group, Inc. (“IDG”) filed a wrongful termination lawsuit.
Laura Holycross the Company’s former Director of Catering and Special Events; alleges that she was wrongfully terminated after she complained that IDG was engaged in illegal and fraudulent conduct including: (1) charging several of its clients for non-existent services and products; (2) hiring undocumented workers so that it could pay them less than it would have to pay individuals authorized to work in the United States and that it paid its workers “under the table” so that it did not have to pay federal, state, and local taxes; (3) refusing to allow its workers to take the meal and rest periods to which they were entitled under California law; (4) instructing its employees, including Ms. Holycross, to falsify and forge legal documents and information that was to be provided to its clients, their lawyers, their security companies, and various police departments; and (5) instructing its employees not to book events that would include African-American and Persian guests.
Commenting about her lawsuit, Ms. Holycross’ attorney, Andrew H. Friedman of Venice-based Helmer Friedman, LLP said “California law clearly prohibits employers, and certainly their highest level officials, from firing an employee for complaining about illegal conduct. We look forward to vigorously representing our client and obtaining the remedies to which she is entitled under the law.”
