Summary of Program

Companies and their employees are now widely using social media in their daily business activities. These networking sites are used by employees to communicate with one another as well as current and potential customers. However, an employee’s use of social media may occasionally adversely impact their employer’s business or present other legal risks. What can an employer do to protect itself without intruding on an employee’s rights?

Program Highlights

  • Employer’s use of employee’s social media information versus the employee’s right to privacy.
  • Protection of employer’s Confidential and Proprietary Information.
  • Ramifications of B.Y.O.D. policies.
  • Potential employer liability for employee’s on-line conduct.
  • The importance of effective Electronic Use and Social Media policies.
  • Legal limits for employee use of social media in the workplace.

Date:      May 22, 2014

Time:    9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

Location:  Weintraub Tobin, 400 Capitol Mall, 11th Floor, Sacramento, California.

For more information and to download a copy of the flyer, please click here.

Summary of Program

The regulations regarding California’s Mandatory Sexual Harassment Prevention Training for supervisors require that certain employers provide training to their supervisors every two years.  The Labor and Employment Group at Weintraub Tobin Chediak Coleman Grodin is offering a two hour in-person training session that will comply with all the requirements outlined in the regulations, including things like:

• an overview of sexual harassment laws;

• examples of conduct that constitute sexual harassment;

• lawful supervisory responses to complaints of harassment in the workplace;

• strategies to prevent harassment in the workplace; and

• practical and inter-active hypotheticals and examples to help illustrate what sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation can look like.

If you are an employer with 50 or more employees, and have supervisors who have not yet been trained, this training is a must. We look forward to hearing from you and helping you comply.

Training Program

Date:  May 15, 2014

Time:  9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

Charge:  $75 per supervisor.

To register for this seminar, please email Ramona Carrillo at rcarrillo@weintraub.com.  For additional information, visit our website at www.weintraub.com and click on the News and Events tab.

The Bay Area Commuter Benefits Program (“CBP”) is a pilot program that affects any public, private, or non-profit entity for which an average of 50 or more full-time employees per week perform work for monetary compensation within the geographic boundaries of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (“BAAQMD”).  (Seasonal/temporary employees are excluded.)

Employers that become subject to this rule at any time after the CBP goes into effect must select at least one of four commuter benefit options, notify employees of how to take advantage of the benefits, and register online with the BAAQMD’s Air Pollution Control Officer (“APCO”) or that Officer’s designee, no later than six months after becoming subject to the CBP

The four commuter benefit options are:

Pre-tax option:  Allow employees to exclude commuting costs (i.e. transit passes) from their taxable wages.

Employer-paid benefit:  Offer employees a subsidy equal to the monthly cost of commuting via public transit or vanpool, or $75, whichever is lower.  Employers may also choose to provide a subsidy for bicycle commuting costs.

Employer-provided transit:  Furnish to employees at no cost, or low costs as determined by the APCO, a vanpool, bus or similar multi-passenger vehicle operated by or for the employer.

Alternative commuter benefit:  Provide a pre-approved alternative employer-provided benefit that is as effective in reducing single occupant vehicles as Options 1-3.

An employee who performed an average of at least 2 hours of work per week within the previously calendar month within the geographic boundaries of the District, excluding a season/temporary employee is covered by the pilot program.   While covered employees are required to offer at least one commuter benefit (or an approved alternative benefit), an employee is not required to participate in the program.

As you will recall from previous posts, a large high tech antitrust class action is being waged in California that has major implications for employer non-solicitation agreements.  Questions regarding agreements between employers that impact employee mobility are being addressed in this lawsuit against the backdrop of antitrust allegations.

High-Tech Employee Mobility Antitrust Class Action: Background Developments 

On October 24, 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Lucy H. Koh granted plaintiffs’ motion for certification in a class action alleging that Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, and other large tech companies worked together from approximately 2005 to 2009 to negatively impact the pay of valuable employees by, among other things, agreeing not to actively recruit each other’s employees. The complaint seeks lost compensation and treble damages for the alleged antitrust violative employment practices of Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel Corporation, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar. The complaint states the tech companies formed agreements to (1) not recruit each other’s employees; (2) provide notification when making an offer to another’s employee (without the knowledge or consent of that employee); and (3) cap pay packages offered to prospective employees at the initial offer.  The allegations are an interesting twist on previous employee mobility cases.

On January 14, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied defendants’ petition to appeal the district court’s order granting class certification.  Now past the certification process, the individual plaintiffs that filed the antitrust lawsuit can now represent all class members in claims that Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel and other tech companies violated federal antitrust laws.

Trial of the class action is set to begin on May 27, 2014.

Latest Pre-Trial Developments: Documents Show Not Everyone Joined

As the parties prepare for trial next month, documents show that the companies that are accused of creating a system to prevent employee mobility were unable to pull another tech giant into the group.  Facebook declined the other companies’ friend request.  Facebook would not agree to not poach other’s employees, share salary information or agree to cap technical workers pay.

Today, these companies vigorously compete for talent.  However, pretrial documents seem to show that in the 2000s, executives of various tech companies frequently had conversations with one another before recruiting each others’ technical workers or making strategic moves in hiring and setting of salaries.

The failed effort to bring Facebook into the group was revealed in recently released pretrial documents, which include emails and depositions filed with the court.  In a March 28 ruling allowing the case to go to trial, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh stated that an executive from one of the Defendant Companies “unsuccessfully sought to expand Google’s anti-solicitation agreements to Facebook.”

Waiting for Trial

If this matter proceeds to trial, it has the potential to captivate the world like no other trial since the Lindberg Baby Trial.  Tech’s glitterati will parade through the courtroom with court reporters and the press hanging on every word.  If the reports are correct, a potential mediated settlement may deny us the opportunity to see this spectacle.  More importantly for other companies, we will not get an answer to the vexing question of what mobility agreements can companies agree to between themselves when they potentially have an impact on employees.

We will continue to monitor this case here at the blog.  In the meantime, if you are currently considering employee mobility questions, please contact your Weintraub Tobin attorney to discuss.

Summary of Program

Join the attorneys from Weintraub Tobin’s Labor and Employment Group as they discuss important legal developments from 2013 and review the complexities of a number of new laws facing employers in 2014.

Program Highlights

  • New Federal and State Legislation and Regulatory Requirements
  • Updates in the World of Harassment, Discrimination and Retaliation Law
  • Privacy: Social Media and Beyond
  • Keeping up with the Complex Law Relating to Leaves of Absences and Reasonable Accommodations
  • Developments and Trends in Wage and Hour Litigation

Date:       April 30, 2014

Time:      9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Location:   Irvine Company Office Properties, 610 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach, CA 92660

For more information and to register for this seminar, please click here for a copy of the Flyer – Employment Law Update.