Typically no employee is entitled to severance pay unless there is a contractual obligation during the employment relationship where the employer and the employee had agreed that earlier in the relationship that when the relationship ends the employee is entitled to a certain amount of severance.

The Temporary employees can file discrimination claims, but only certain types of discrimination claims. Some claims require a certain period of employment for the employee to bring the claim. In other words, they had to be with the employer for a certain period of time to be able to have rights under that. An example would be under the Family Medical Leave Act where it would require a certain hours of employment and certain duration of employment to be able to have rights under that particular statute. Many employees can bring discrimination claims simply as temporary employees. There is no time period that they had to be employed by the employer, particularly if there is discrimination based on for example race or age or ethnicity.

A protected characteristic would include things such as the age of the person or their gender or their race or their ethnicity. Those are factors that the low considers to be typically irrelevant to whether a person is really doing a good job. Most employers aren’t going to be interested in what the person’s race is or their ethnicity is, they’re going to be interested typically in whether they’re doing a good job. That’s where the law forbids employers from taking into consideration certain protected characteristics such as those I’ve described.

An oral agreement is usually binding but not always. Florida has a statute of frauds so certain types of contracts are not binding unless they’re in writing and signed by the party against whom it’s charged. For example, selling a house or a piece of real property requires a written agreement. It has to be signed by the other party. Commercial leases exceeding a year’s length will need to be in writing. There’s a witness requirement of 2 witnesses to the execution of the lease. Many other contracts can be enforced simply because they’re oral contracts where one part has agreed and as somebody has often said, its simply a handshake where they’ve mutually agreed orally as to what the contract is.

If an employee is pregnant, the employee still can be fired. The law prohibits the employer from treating the employee worse than any other employee, so if the employee does not do a good job and happens to be pregnant, the employee still can be terminated, and it still would be lawful. Pregnancy does not insulate the employee from the requirements of every other employee to do their job properly. Now, with that said, typically it’s not in an employers best interest to rush into a termination of a pregnant employee because of the potential for claims, and the expenses associated with those claims.

There is no general limit for an employer to tell an employee how many hours to work. Now, there are exceptions. Certain industries have legal requirements that an employee cannot work beyond a certain number of hours for public safety reasons, and in those situations, the employer is limited as to the number of hours it can ask the employee to work. Outside of those industries where there are not some safety reasons, typically, there are not limits, but the employee is never obligated to work the extra hours. Employee can refuse and just simply not contain the employment relationship, or tell the employer, “I’m not willing to do this.”

The EOC resolves discrimination charges by investigating the charges so when the charge of discrimination is filed by an employee the employer is contacted by the EOC for a response. The employer will provide a written response including documentation. These responses typically will include what happened with this employee, what occurred, perhaps employment reviews that will be attached to be showing that the employer considered things carefully and made a valid business decision to terminate the employee’s employment. The EOC will then provide information to the employee and ask for the employee’s response and then make a decision as to whether there is probable cause for the charge of discrimination.

Most employees file charges of discrimination by contacting the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They will be given a form and they will complete a form, and they will meet with somebody at the agency to assist in completed that form.

Overtime hours are calculated based on the person’s hourly rate and anything above 40 they’re supposed to be getting a halftime premium. For example, if the hourly rate is $10 an hour and the person works five extra hours above 40 hours a week, they’re supposed to be paid an extra $5 for those extra overtime hours.

Business disputes are handled as any other kind of lawsuit. It’s either going to be handled through negotiation, through a court process and litigation or through arbitration. Typically, business disputes should always have efforts to try to settle the cases and reach some kind of common ground. Sometimes a lawsuit will need to be filed or defended, but then it will lead to a negotiated resolution. The earlier that you can have some discussion to determine what the other side wants and what you want the better it is. Some cases have to go farther, and the court will have to decide it.

Workers who receive tips also do require the payment of minimum wage. If you’re a tipped employee there are sometimes what’s called a tipped credit, which means that the poor employee can be paid a sub-minimum wage. A wage that’s less than a normal minimum wage because the employee is obtaining tips.

Some managers have to be paid overtime, some do not; it depends on their duties. To be exempt as an executive, which some managers are exempt from the overtime wage requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act, there have to be certain duties met, as well as the person has to be paid on a salary basis. Sometimes, managers are misclassified as managers when they’re really primarily workers or employees doing regular work and their duties are not primarily managerial or executive. Sometimes those employees can be required by law to be paid overtime.

Sometimes managers have to be paid overtime, sometimes managers do not — it depends on the duties of the actual managers. The overtime wage law, which is called the Fair Labor Standards Act, has a provision for executive-level employees, which some managers fall within that requirement. That would include being paid on a salary basis and having primarily managerial duties over other employees. However, some employers have employees perform some managerial duties, but they’re primarily a worker, and therefore, they’re going to be subject to the overtime pay requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. It depends on the actual circumstances and duties of the employee.

All employees do not need to have employment agreements, in fact most employees do not have employment agreements with their employees. It is beneficial though for employers to at least to have written policies, typically these should be signed off by the employees covering what is expected of the employee in the work place.

An employer typically cannot hold your paycheck until you return equipment because the employer always has to pay at least the minimum wage. Some employers attempt to do this where they withhold a paycheck. In that case, the employee can bring a claim for minimum wages as well as for their withheld paycheck. Employer, however, may counter claim for whatever its losses are for these items that it claims need to be returned.

If there are untrue statements made by the former employer, the question is, were these defamatory statements? If they’re defamatory or they cast the employee in a false light, then there can be a claim for defamation. There also might be a claim for retaliation. That’s why it’s typically advisable for employers to be very careful about what they say about an employee to others after the employment relationship had ended.

An employer can require an employee to arbitrate claims after they’ve been hired, but there has to be a written agreement signed by both the employer and the employee. Courts will typically honor those agreements because courts encourage arbitration to minimize the impact in courts and allow the parties, both the employer and employee to resolve the claims in the matter they’ve contracted for.

There are many exceptions to employment at will, and these are what are called discrimination laws. When an employee is being discriminated against based on race, on age, ethnicity, whistle-blower status, worker’s compensation status, these are exceptions to the at will rule that have been created by the courts as well as by the legislatures. These allow the employees to enjoy protections where the employer cannot simply saying, “You’re an at-will employee because I’m terminating you.” The laws say you’re not allowed to fire somebody for these particular reasons, and if you do you’re subject to damages for those claims.

Not all employers are covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act. There are 2 basic types of coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act. One type, the typical type is enterprise coverage meaning that the employer has to have at least $500,000 in revenues, and it has to have at least 2 employees. There are other types of coverage, which are called traditional coverage where there’s certain businesses that are going to otherwise be covered in the Fair Labor Standards Act regardless of the revenues and the number of employees.