San Pedro

The ethnically diverse neighborhood of San Pedro, previously an independent city built around the fishing industry, is located across 12.06 square miles in the Harbor and South Bay regions of Los Angeles. Along with Wilmington and Terminal Island, to which it's linked by the Vincent Thomas Bridge, San Pedro is a location of the Port of Los Angeles. As of the 2000 United States census, 80,065 people lived there. The median household income was $57,508. If you are in a dispute with an employer, you should call the seasoned San Pedro employment law attorneys of Calderone Law Firm.

California wage and hour laws, including laws related to minimum wage, overtime, and meal and rest breaks, apply to nonexempt employees in the state. You aren't protected by these laws, however, if you are an independent contractor or an exempt employee. Some employers misclassify workers as independent contractors or exempt employees in order to evade the rules that apply when employing nonexempt employees. Generally, an independent contractor is somebody that provides a service under an agreement that indicates she'll get a result for a specific sum and also keeps control over how to accomplish that service. A nonexempt employee, by contrast, doesn't have control over how to achieve the sought-after results. If you believe your employer failed to pay you minimum wage or overtime or committed another wage and hour violation, you should seek our legal counsel to determine your options. While the sum at issue may be small, there are situations in which it's appropriate for a group of workers to band together against their employer to pursue a wage and hour class action lawsuit.

Federal laws like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibit discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in larger workplaces. The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) is the state law that forbids your employer from discriminating against you with regard to your protected traits. FEHA applies to workplaces with a minimum of five employees; however, when it comes to sexual harassment, FEHA prohibits it in workplaces of all sizes—even if you are your employer's only employee. Both exempt and nonexempt employees may seek recourse under antidiscrimination laws. Workplace discrimination occurs whenever an employer takes an adverse employment action against an employee based on a trait protected under the law; adverse employment actions can include firing, failure to hire, disparate pay, failure to promote, layoffs, and failure to provide equal opportunities of training. You might have a claim, for example, if your supervisor failed to promote you because of his prejudice against your religious beliefs.

Most workers are understandably nervous about coming forward to report an employer for illegal conduct or regulatory violations for fear of their employer seeking to penalize them. Laws that protect whistleblowers are the California False Claims Act, the federal False Claims Act, Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and the Whistleblower Protection Act. In California, the broadest law that prohibits whistleblower retaliation is Labor Code 1102.5. Under Labor Code 1102.5, an employer is forbidden from retaliating against an employee for disclosing what he or she reasonably believes is a violation of the law or noncompliance with it. An employer is also forbidden from retaliating against an employee who testifies or gives information to a public body that's investigating a legal violation or noncompliance. You are protected even if your employer didn't actually violate the law, but you had a reasonable belief that it did. Generally, when these cases go to trial, a whistleblower bears the burden of proving it's more likely than not your whistleblowing was a contributing factor in the retaliatory actions your employer took against you.

It's normal to feel anxious about going up against an employer in court. It's crucial to retain a knowledgeable and tenacious lawyer to protect your rights and interests. If you need to pursue an employment lawsuit in San Pedro, call Calderone Law Firm. Vincent Calderone, the founder of the Calderone Law Firm, has more than two decades of experience effectively litigating employment lawsuits. Please contact us online or call us at (424) 348-8290.