FedEx’s independent contractor classification woes do not appear to be over; it faces another misclassification suit, this one by New York driver. In other contingent workforce news briefs, Apple Inc. is also in legal crosshairs over time spent by workers going through bag checks after their shifts, and there may be a push to curtail spouses of H-1B visa holders from getting employment themselves.
- A group of FedEx drivers in New York have asked a court to certify their case for class action status, according to a report by Law 360 [1]. “The instant suit covers potentially hundreds of FedEx drivers in New York who began driving for FedEx Ground after 2007 and 2008, and were not included in the massive $240 million settlement [2] that FedEx Ground reached in June 2016 to settle class actions by delivery drivers in 20 states who also alleged they were misclassified as independent contractors and shorted on wages,” according to the story.
- Apple Inc. retail workers in California filed suit against the computer firm saying they should be compensated for bag checks when leaving work, Ars Technica reported [3]. A federal judge ruled against the workers, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the California Supreme Court should rule on the issue. A staffing firm was sued over bag checks for employees at an Amazon.com warehouse, but the US Supreme Court ruled [4] in 2014 that the time was not compensable.
- Some companies rely on high skilled workers, such as tech workers, coming into the US on H-1B visas. One limitation of the visas in the past was that spouses of the workers could not work — even though they may be skilled themselves — a work permit was created in 2015 that allowed them to work. However, the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reports [5] that rule may now be in danger of going away.