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New York

Geeks in trench coats? L.I. firm alleges software spying

10/01/2007

CA Inc., a software company in Islandia, has filed a $200 million lawsuit against rival Rocket Software of Newton, MA, alleging Rocket stole computer source codes and other trade secrets from CA and used the information to develop almost identical products …

Restaurants shell out $1 million in unpaid wages

10/01/2007

Five Long Island eateries will pay $966,000 in back wages to busboys, counter personnel, dishwashers and cooks to settle a U.S. Labor Department lawsuit. The wages cover two years in which the employees, mostly Hispanic immigrants, worked up to 60 hours per week without overtime compensation …

Lewd boss induces $2.5 million panic attack

10/01/2007

A woman from Queens is suing her boss and their employer for $2.5 million, claiming she began suffering panic attacks after the boss handed her 15 photos of himself stark naked …

At Novartis, nursery rhymes are in, motherhood out

10/01/2007

That’s what a dozen female Novartis employees, recently granted class-action certification in Manhattan federal court, will try to prove in their gender discrimination suit against the Maalox maker …

Malverne to pay $100,000 for wrongful firing

10/01/2007

A federal jury has awarded $100,000 for pain and suffering to a former director of special education for the Malverne School District, who claimed she was fired for reporting sexual harassment. The director lost her underlying sexual harassment suit, but prevailed on the wrongful-firing claim …

American Home Mortgage employees blindsided by shutdown

10/01/2007

American Home Mortgage (AHM) was reportedly still hiring employees by the dozens when it crashed in the first week of August. More than 6,000 employees, including 1,300 in the company’s Melville headquarters, were let go with a single day’s notice …

Disciplining employees under the modern employment laws

10/01/2007

Ask employers what their toughest challenge is, and they probably will mention discipline. It seems no one likes to play parent in the workplace. On the other hand, there’s no way to avoid it …

On-Call pay

10/01/2007

Q. Some of our programming staff members, who are classified as nonexempt, must be “on-call” nights and weekends. That means that if we call them on their cell phones or beepers, we expect them to come to work. Is the time spent “on call”—waiting for a potential call—compensable time? …

Reading personal mail at work

10/01/2007

Q. Several employees have complained that they received personal letters via our company’s regular mail system (not e-mail) that had been opened by someone else in our company. Can other employees or supervisors open and read personal mail sent to employees? …

Collecting for damaged equipment

10/01/2007

Q. We recently terminated an employee and subsequently learned that he damaged company equipment through his own negligence. My boss wants to deduct the cost to repair the damage from his final paycheck. Is this legal? …