By

Hari C

Female Financial Advisers 27% More Likely to Lose Their Job at Wells Fargo

Businesswoman DismissedA new study reveals, female employees who engage in misconduct at Wells Fargo Advisors are 27% more likely than their male counterparts to have lost their jobs.

Wells Fargo Advisors had the highest rate of female workers leaving among the 44 firms studied between 2005 and 2015, as mentioned in CNN Money. It was followed closely by A.G. Edwards, which is also a division of Wells Fargo. The researchers connected the dots and concluded the employees were often leaving because they were fired.

“The financial industry is willing to give male advisers a second chance, while female advisers are likely to be cast from the industry,” wrote professors Mark Egan of the University of Minnesota, Gregor Matvos from the University of Chicago and Stanford’s Amit Seru.

Starbucks Corporate Employees Get More Maternity Leave Than Baristas

Maternity LeaveStarbucks made headlines recently for giving its hourly workers parental leave, but few people paid attention to the inequality stated in the fine print. The company is giving vastly better benefits to its already well-paid, white-collar corporate employees.

According to the Huffington Post, under their new policy, which takes effect in October, Starbucks white-collar employees who give birth to a baby are eligible for up to 18 weeks paid time off. That’s three times as much as the six weeks a woman working in a Starbucks store would get if she has a baby.

All other corporate employees can take 12 weeks paid time off after the arrival of a child, including fathers, adoptive and foster parents. Hourly workers? They get 12 weeks, too. Unpaid.

Now some Starbucks workers are protesting the policy, decrying the unfairness of giving one class of workers more time to spend with their children than another and shining light on a problem that plagues Americans across the country.

Discrimination in the Workplace Common?

Justice A new study by VitalSmarts, a Leadership Training Company, looked at the pervasive effects and attitudes of employees facing discrimination in the workplace. It found more than a quarter of those facing discrimination said it was common, unmanageable and impactful.

As mentioned in Benefits Pro, the discrimination the 500 respondents report is based on race, age, gender, national origin, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, marital status or sexual orientation.

Forty-nine percent of those facing discrimination say it happens regularly, and 66 percent say it has long-term effects on their motivation and commitment to advance in the company.

 

California’s Rules Regarding Mandatory Arbitration

Arbitration is when a dispute between two parties, such as an employer and employee, submit their differences to ultimately be decided in court. A mandatory arbitration refers to an arbitration agreement that an employer requires new employees to sign as a condition of employment or requires existing employees to sign as a condition to continue their employment.

California’s rules on mandatory arbitration are often referred to as the Armendariz standards, based on the name of the leading court decision. Under these standards, an arbitration agreement must be mutual, not one sided, and not impose any added costs or fees on an employee that would not have applied in litigation.

As mentioned by the Society of Human Resource Management, the California Supreme Court’s new decision states that “a provision in an arbitration agreement isn’t enforceable if it waives the right to seek public injunctive relief in any forum. Public injunctive relief is meant to prohibit activities that “threaten future injury to the general public” and allows a plaintiff to ask the court to prevent a defendant from engaging in allegedly unlawful practice in the future.”

Dr. Phil Sued for False Imprisonment and Wrongful Termination

Bullying On The Job MeetingDr. Phil ex-employee, Leah Rothman claims TV icon, Dr. Phil McGraw locked 300 employees in a room staffed by security guards as he made accusations that one of them had leaked information to the media.

Rothman’s lawsuit against Dr. Phil McGraw, his production company and CBS claims she was forced to quit the show in April 2015 due to a hostile work environment. She had worked on the show since 2003.

“If you f— with me, I’ll f— with you,” McGraw told the staff, according to the lawsuit.

As described by NY Daily News, to make matters worse, Rothman claims McGraw already knew which employee had leaked the information — and that the harrowing meeting was nothing more than a twisted scare tactic.

Rothman, quit her job last April, claiming the emotional stress caused by McGraw’s frightening confrontation became too much to bear.

She is now suing the TV icon for false imprisonment and emotional distress — as well as wrongful constructive termination and whistle blower retaliation.

 

New Changes to California Whistleblower Retaliation Laws

Whistle BlowerWhistleblower laws protects an employee from being retaliated against after reporting an employer that has violated the law or breached the public trust. Under the California Labor Code Section 1102.5, employers cannot create or enforce any rules preventing employees from whistleblowing. If an employer retaliates against a whistleblower, the employer may be required to reinstate the employee’s employment and work benefits, pay lost wages, and take other steps necessary to comply with the law.

The recent law changes now extends this protection to employees who make internal reports about suspected violations of the federal securities laws and other anti-fraud statutes, even if they never report the suspected violations to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As stated by the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), the law protects an employee who discloses information to “a government or law enforcement agency, person with authority over the employee, or to another employee with authority to investigate, discover, or correct the violation or noncompliance, or who provides information to or testifies before a public body conducting an investigation, hearing or inquiry, where the employee has reasonable cause to believe that the information discloses.”

 

San Jose’s Opportunity to Work Ordinance

San JoseUnder the new ordinance, that became effective on March 13, employers with 36 or more employees must offer additional work hours to existing qualified part-time workers before hiring new employees including subcontractors or the use of temporary staffing services. The San Jose Opportunity to Work Ordinance was initiated in November 2016 in the general election ballot, which was approved by 63% of San Jose voters.

The ordinance was created in an effort to promote full-time jobs in the city of San Jose and deter companies from hiring more part-time employees to avoid health insurance and other related costs. The new law will affect about 1,200 nonprofit and for-profit employers, and about 64,00 part-time workers.

As stated by the National Law Review, the ordinance requires employers to maintain the following records for four years:

  • Work schedules and employment and payroll records pertaining to current and former Employees;

  • Copies of written offers to current and former part-time employees for additional work hours (the Ordinance does not appear to require the offer be written, but this provision suggests employers ought to ensure all offers are, in fact, made in writing); and

  • Any other records the Office of Equality Assurance may require that Employers maintain to demonstrate compliance.

A violation of the ordinance is subject to a warning by the San Jose Office of Equality Assurance. Any subsequent violation may expose an employer to substantial civil penalties, and even civil litigation.