Tag: labor
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Restaurant Workers Sue Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich
Renowned restaurateurs Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich have reportedly been sued by workers in their East and West Coast restaurants. A complaint filed in late July 2010 by current and former employees of New York City’s Babbo Ristorante e Enoteca was amended to include a class of employees who work in five additional east coast…
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Grocery Profit-Sharing Arrangement During Labor Strike Ruled Anticompetitive
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that an agreement among grocery chains in Southern California to share profits during an anticipated labor strike was anticompetitive in violation of the Sherman Act and rejected defendants’ argument that the violation could be excused because the agreement was designed to be used as an economic weapon…
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Advocacy Organization Report Calls for Protection of Young Agricultural Workers
Human Rights Watch has issued a report titled “Fields of Peril: Child Labor in US Agriculture” that describes the working conditions facing the nation’s youngest field laborers and calls for changes to federal employment and environmental laws to provide them with greater protections. According to the report, child farmworkers as young as age 12 often…
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Federal Appeals Court Sends Obesity Disability Litigation Back to Trial Court
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has returned to a federal district court litigation alleging that a karate instructor was fired because he was obese in violation of a New York City law that forbids disability-based workplace discrimination. Spiegel v. Schulmann, No. 06-5914 (2d Cir., decided May 6, 2010). According to the appeals court, no cases…
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Criminal Action Still in Progress Against Kosher Slaughterhouse in Iowa
Some two years after a raid on a Postville, Iowa, kosher slaughterhouse for the employment of hundreds of illegal immigrants, charges of child-labor law violations are apparently about to be tried in state court against former executive Sholom Rubashkin. Prosecutors reportedly dropped many related charges against other individuals on the eve of trial. Rubashkin, who…
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Poultry Plant Managers and HR Personnel Sued for Alleged Hiring of Illegal Immigrants
A putative class action has been filed against individual plant managers and human resources personnel responsible for hiring employees at 16 Perdue Farms, Inc. facilities in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee, alleging violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in the hiring of illegal immigrants. Walters v. McMahen, No. 10-257 (M.D. Ala., filed…
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Eleventh Circuit Reinstates RICO Claims Against Steak House; Putative Class Alleges Illegal Workers Were Hired
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse employees in Alabama adequately alleged that their employers “encouraged or induced an alien to reside in the United States, and either knew or recklessly disregarded the fact that alien’s residence here was illegal,” thus stating the predicate act needed to bring a claim…
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Colombians Sue Chiquita in U.S. Court for Alleged Terror Campaign
Nearly 1,000 unnamed plaintiffs, who claim to be family members of individuals purportedly killed by terrorist organizations in Colombia’s Urabá region, have sued Chiquita Brands International, Inc., alleging that throughout the 1990s and at least until 2004, the company “funded, armed, and otherwise supported” these organizations “to produce bananas in an environment free from labor…