Sabatini and Associates, LLC Attorneys at Law :: Newington :: Hartford :: Connecticut

A former Wal-Mart employee, Andi Bailey, believes her testimony in a slip-and-fall case led to her termination. She is now seeking $1 million in damages from her former employer.
As a witness in a personal injury case against Wal-Mart, Bailey alleges she was told to lie under oath and commit perjury. Bailey claims she called Wal-Mart maintenance about a substance on the floor, but before they could respond, someone slipped and became injured. According to the lawsuit, Wal-Mart’s attorney told Bailey to say she did not call maintenance before the incident.  Baily did testify and testified truthfully.  Days later, Wal-Mart fired her.  Read more about the wrongful termination lawsuit against Wal-Mart.

The classification of employee versus independent contractor is a crucial on.  It is crucial because it has implications on issues like benefits, overtime pay, unemployment insurance, employment discrimination and family and medical leave.  In recent months, FedEx has been battling its drivers over this issue in a series of administrative hearings and state court decisions.  So far, decisions have come down from the Internal Revenue Service, the National Labor Relations Board, various state unemployment insurance agencies, and 31 cases from 24 state courts, all finding in favor of the drivers, classifying them as employees and not independent contractors as FedEx has been doing internally for years.  The basic test for determing whether a worker is an independent contractor or employee is control.  A worker is an independent contractor when he is “free from control and direction in connection with the performance” of services, both contractually and in fact.  If the worker is not free from control and direction than he is an employee.

In 2007, the EEOC released data showing that men made about 15% of gender-based harassment complaints. This marks an increase in male complaints and the increase has been growing over recent years. Most of the male complaints of harassment involve male-on-male harassment. It is believed that the rise in complaints is tied to the growing willingness of male workers to report workplace harassment rather than an increase in the numger of harassment instances.