Articles Tagged with “New Jersey Employment Lawyers”

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american-963191__340-300x200Background

On February 4, 2019, Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation which will raise the minimum wage in increments culminating in a minimum wage of $15 per hour on January 1, 2024.  The new law puts New Jersey at the forefront of the “living wage” movement, while the phase in is designed to lessen the impact on small businesses.  The new law amends the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law, which governs minimum wage and overtime requirements.

The legislation is the result of negotiations between the Governor and Legislature lasting more than a year.  The amendment was praised by labor unions and most Democrats in the state, but opposed by the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce and most Republicans.

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contract-1464917__340-300x200Senator Marco Rubio recently introduced the Freedom to Compete Act. This proposed law would prohibit employers from entering into or enforcing non-compete agreements with lower level employees while simultaneously protecting employers’ trade secrets.

Non-Compete Agreements

Non-compete agreements are binding contractual restrictive covenants which limit an employee’s ability to compete with her employer after she leaves or while she is employed. These agreements normally prohibit the employee from forming a competing business, and also from directly or indirectly capacity by working for a competitor or soliciting their employer’s customers.

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baby-2242638__340-300x210New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination gives employees some of the strongest legal protections against discrimination and harassment in the nation.  However, these protections have recently been expanded.  In one of his last acts as governor, Chris Christie signed the Legislature’s amendment to the Law Against Discrimination its protections to include mothers who are breastfeeding.

The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination

The Law Against Discrimination was enacted in 1945, placing New Jersey at the forefront in protecting employees’ from workplace discrimination.  Indeed, the Law Against Discrimination was the first statewide civil rights enforcement law.  Since then it has been amended many times by legislation and court decisions, always expanding and strengthening New Jersey’s protections against discrimination.

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the-dollar-3125419__340-300x200Some of the areas in which businesses make their largest investments of time and expense are trade secrets (including customer lists) customer relations and client development, and employee development.  However, these interests may conflict, especially when highly placed employees leave a firm.  This is an area of potentially bitter dispute in New Jersey business law and employment law.

Businesses have many trade secrets, but the most important of these is often information regarding its customers.  Because of intense competition, and the time, effort and expense which businesses invest in cultivating their clients, customer lists, especially customer lists in service industries, are protected by the common law and New Jerseys Trade Secrets Act.

Businesses also invest significant expense in training and developing their employees, even aside from salary and benefits.  Thus, New Jersey business law and employment law imposed a duty of loyalty on employees, even those who do not have a restrictive covenant.  This duty of loyalty prohibits employees from competing with their employers while they are employed.  An employee may not induce her employer’s employees or customers to leave her employer, nor may she appropriate her employer’s trade secrets.  The employee may plan to leave, and if the employee does not have a restrictive covenant she can even seek employment with competitors or even set up a business entity which will compete with the employer after she leaves. However, the employee cannot go beyond the planning stage while still employed.

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agreement-300x200The Appellate Division of New Jersey’s Superior Court recently issued an instructive decision about arbitration agreements in employment law disputes.  The case does not invalidate arbitration agreements – they are protected by both federal and New Jersey law – but it does show that the trend is that arbitration agreements are being construed strictly against the employers which drafted them.

The Skuse Case

In the case of Amy Skuse v. Pfizer, Inc., the Appellate Division invalidated an electronic arbitration agreement used by Pfizer for all its employees.  The “agreement” was not on paper, but an electronic “training module.”  Employees received an email which instructed them to complete the “electronic training.”  Even if they didn’t, complete the training module, the employees would have be deemed to have agreed to the arbitration provision by continuing to work for Pfizer for another 60 days.  The module allowed them to scroll past the text of the provision, and did not provide for the employees to indicate their agreement to arbitration, only their “acknowledgement” of the policy.  The module then thanked the employee for “reviewing” the policy, but not for agreeing to it.

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yes-3029367__340-300x158The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey recently issued a decision which illustrates some of the weaknesses in both Federal and New Jersey Employment law, particularly Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination.  Our attorneys represent both employers and employees in employment law, and this issue is of utmost concern to us.

The decision was in the case of Axakowsky v. NFL Productions, LLC, d/b/a NFL Films.  In that case, Nadia Axakowsky sued NFL Productions, LLC, for sexual harassment under Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination.  The judge dismissed the case on summary judgment, ruling that Axakowsky was an independent contractor and therefore was not protected by either law.

The judge undertook a detailed analysis under federal case law interpreting Title VII.  Culminating with the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company v. Darden in 1992, the federal courts have developed a test to determine whether a worker classified as a contractor is in reality an employee entitled to protection under Title VII.  The judge went into detail examining all the factors in the relationship, and determined that Axakowsky was in reality a contractor, not an employee, and therefore not entitled to protection under Title VII.  Without going into detail, given that Axakowsky worked only one and a half hours per week as a voice-over artist and continued to audition for and accept other work, the analysis was in all likelihood correct.

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we-566326__340-300x135On June 27, 2018, the United States Supreme Court issued an important employment law decision in the case of Janus v. American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees (“AFSCME”). Prior to Janus, the general law was that public sector unions (i.e. unions comprised of governmental employees) could collect fees from employees even when the employee did not want to join the union. The prior law was set in the case of Abood v. Detroit Board of Education,a prior United States Supreme Court case from 1977.

In Abood, the Court held that a public employee could still be required to pay union dues to cover collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievances even if they refused to join the union. The employee could only opt out of paying a portion of fees which were used for political purposes. Much of the reasoning for that holding was that public employees would benefit from union activities and thus should have to pay for such activities; however they did not need to pay for ideological or political support which the employee did not support. Being forced to make donations to political candidates through mandatory union dues was found to be a violation of First Amendment rights.

However, the Janus ruling changed that long-followed law. Janus argued that everything a public-sector union does (including bargaining for wages) is inherently political because it involves the use of taxpayer money, and therefore all mandatory union dues protected by the First Amendment. One concern is that this could potentially have a negative effect upon democratic political support where unions are generally very active in supporting candidates.

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disciplinary-1326277__340-300x300New Jersey’s government employees provide a wide range of services without which the public could not survive. These range from law enforcement to firefighting, mass transit, garbage removal, building and maintaining roads, ensuring the safety of buildings, protecting the civil rights of New Jersey’s citizens, protecting the environment, traffic safety, urban planning, parks, agriculture, guarding inmates, the list goes on – in short, they affect virtually every aspect of our lives.

Our employment attorneys regularly represent New Jersey civil servants defending themselves against discipline imposed their governmental employers. This is a brief overview of discipline and appeals procedures under New Jersey’s Civil Service System.

Background

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New Jersey’s Civil Service governs the hiring, promotion, classification and discipline of employees of government the State of New Jersey, and employees of the majority of counties, municipalities and governmental boards and commissions which have chosen to be governed by Civil Service . The Civil Service System is governed by the New Jersey Constitution and New Jersey’s Civil Service Act and the regulations issued by New Jersey’s Civil Service Commission which implement the Civil Service Act.

Constitutional Foundation

New Jersey’s Civil Service System is based on a strong constitutional foundation. Article VII, section I of New Jersey’s Constitution of 1947 provides that:

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yes-3029367__340-300x158The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently issued an important decision on the law of sexual harassment in the case of Sheri Miransky versus Susquehanna County and Thomas Yadlosky, Jr.  The Third Circuit hears appeals from the Federal District Courts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the Virgin Islands.  Its decisions are binding on questions of federal law in New Jersey.  The only higher court in the nation is the United States Supreme Court.

The Facts

The facts are long, but generally speaking Sheri Minarsky suffered from years of significant sexual harassment by her supervisor.  She did not complain for several years because she feared retaliation, which the supervisor threatened, and because she saw that upper management knew of his harassment against other employees and did nothing.  Finally after four years she did complain, and her supervisor was fired.

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