Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

MANY employees hesitate to pursue valid wage claims thinking that these claims are too small to require an attorney’s time. They also believe that litigation costs too much and the payoff may not be worth it. Employees also fear that employers will fire them or give them a hard time for asserting their rights. Even though these concerns may be valid, employees should know that they have available legal remedies. One effective remedy is by means of an employment class action.

It is a lawsuit by an employee or a small group of employees (called the class representative) on behalf of themselves and all other employees who have the same employment claims. For example, an employment class action may prove that the employer’s action in not giving meal breaks against one employee is typical of the employer’s treatment of its other employees.

A class action is beneficial to employees for the following reasons:

1) Since individual awards in wage and hour cases tend to be modest and since minimum wage litigation involves the lowest-wage workers, a class action will provide low-wage workers with a relatively inexpensive way to resolve an employment claim.

2) A class action may minimize the risk of retaliation against an employee member of the class. It is undeniable that current employees who individually sue their employers face a greater risk of retaliation. Fear of economic retaliation might induce aggrieved employees to quietly accept substandard conditions. Courts have recognized that fear of retaliation for individual suits against an employer justifies a class certification in an employment litigation even if the number of employees necessary to form a class has not been met.

3) A class action may serve to notify, inform, and educate employees who do not know that their legal rights have been violated. For example, some workers, particularly immigrants with limited English language skills, may be unfamiliar with the overtime laws. Even English-speaking or better educated employees may become confused with the complexities of the laws. Also, some employers misinform their employees that they are not eligible for overtime.

4) Government resources which handle wage claims are inadequate. If there are one thousand employees from the same employer individually making the same claims before the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), a deluge of such claims would simply outstrip the resources of the DLSE, affecting not only these claims but other unrelated claims as well. Without private enforcement through class actions the DLSE’s resources to resolve labor claims would be overtaxed. Class actions can prevent ‘a failure of justice in our judicial system’ by enforcing legal rights and statutory sanctions.

A class action is a potent weapon available to employees in order to challenge labor violations by the employer. With a class action, one lawsuit can vindicate the rights of a larger group of employees and make a real difference in protecting employee rights in the workplace.

***

( www.asianjournal.com )

( Published on August 29, 2009 in Asian Journal Los Angeles p. C3 )