Wage and Hour Defense Blog

In Elijah Baer, et al. v. Tesla Motors, Inc., fifteen plaintiffs filed a putative class and Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) representative action lawsuit against Tesla, Inc. (“Tesla”) alleging wage-hour violations of California law. Two of the plaintiffs were employed by Staffmark Investment LLC (“Staffmark”) – a non-party staffing agency – and assigned to work at Tesla for a period in 2020. The other plaintiffs were direct former or current employees of Tesla going back to 2017. After Tesla removed the action to federal court, it moved to compel arbitration.

The plaintiffs signed various arbitration agreements throughout their employment. From the fall of 2018 to May 2022, Tesla utilized a recruiting software called Averture. According to Tesla, Averture required applicants to create a secure online profile with their own personal information. Eight of the plaintiffs signed offer letters with Tesla through Averture containing an arbitration provision. These plaintiffs did not dispute that they signed, and Tesla countersigned, the offer letters.

At some point in 2022, Tesla stopped using Averture and started using a system called Inside Tesla. The security measures applicable to Averture were largely the same as those employed by Inside Tesla; however, applicants who were offered employment under Inside Tesla signed an offer letter and a standalone arbitration agreement. Four of the plaintiffs signed arbitration agreements through the Inside Tesla system.

With limited exceptions, California law does not require employers to provide employees with a premium rate of pay for working during holidays or paid days off for holidays unless contractually obligated to do so. However, many employers chose to do so for a variety of reasons. For employers that choose to provide holiday benefits, your “presents” is requested for this read.  

Why offer holiday pay?

Many employers voluntarily elect to offer holiday benefits. Some common reasons for doing so are:

• Boosting employee morale;
• Increasing company loyalty;
• Making an employment offer ...

The California Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District recently issued its opinion regarding business-related expenses in Thai v. International Business Machines Corporation. The Court found that expenses incurred by employees in direct consequence of performing their jobs may be reimbursable regardless of whether such expenses are directly caused by the employer.

Paul Thai was employed by defendant and respondent IBM. Thai required, among other things, internet access, telephone service, a telephone headset, a computer and accessories in order to perform the functions of his job. On March 19, 2020, Governor Newsom issued a stay-at-home order that instructed all California residents “[t]o stay home or at their place of residence except as needed to maintain continuity of operations of the federal critical infrastructure sectors” and any other additional sectors later designated as critical. After the order went into effect, IBM directed Thai and thousands of other workers to continue performing their regular job duties from home. Thai and the other IBM workers personally paid for the services and equipment necessary to do their jobs while working from home, and IBM did not reimburse them for those expenses.

The Los Angeles City Council passed the Fair Work Week Ordinance (“FWWO”) that seeks to “implement enforcement measures for the new fair work week employment standards” for employees in the retail sector.  Going into effect April 1, 2023, the FWWO will apply to any person, association, organization, partnership, business trust, limited liability company or corporation in the retail business or trade sector that directly or indirectly exercises control over the wages, hours or conditions of at least 300 employees globally.  This includes employees through an agent or any other person, including through the services of a temporary staffing agency.