Employment Law

Employment Discrimination

Employers are prohibited from discriminating against their workers on the basis of disability, gender, race, age, pregnancy, religion, national origin, and sexual orientation. Despite Federal and New York State laws, employers continue to discriminate unlawfully against their employees. Pasternack, Tilker, Ziegler, Walsh, Stanton & Romano, LLP will fight for the rights of clients who have been the victims of such discrimination. Our attorneys will successfully guide workers through proceedings before Federal (EEOC), State and City administrative agencies and before both state and federal courts. Contact our firm online or call 1-800-692-3717 to learn how we can help protect your rights.

Victims of employment discrimination as well as sexual harassment are often afraid of discussing the possibility of pursuing legal action for employment discrimination, fearing retaliation on the part of their employers. However, if you believe your employer has violated your rights, there are legal options and protections. Our attorneys will advise you in determining the most appropriate course of action in your case. Our employment attorneys represent workers who were unlawfully discriminated against, sexually harassed or retaliated against for complaining about discrimination, sexual harassment, a hostile work environment, unpaid wages, and invoking their Family and Medical Leave Act rights.

Unlawful employment discrimination or retaliation is not confined to termination from your current position. Other forms of unlawful discrimination or retaliation include demotion, being subjected to a hostile work environment, failure to promote, failure to hire and transfers.

Our employment attorneys carefully investigate each worker’s situation in order to gather the information we need to determine whether or not it is advisable to pursue legal action and, if so, the proper course of action.

Wage and Hour Disputes

All workers in New York, including undocumented workers, are protected by both federal and state laws that set basic protections for workers’ payment and hours worked. The law provides for a standard 40-hour work week, overtime requirements and minimum wage. Notwithstanding legal protections, employers consistently break the law by denying overtime, misclassifying hourly employees as exempt, pressuring or outright ordering workers to work off the clock, allowing managers to skim from tipped employees’ tip pools, altering time cards and much more. Pasternack, Tilker, Ziegler, Walsh, Stanton & Romano, LLP will fight for the rights of workers to recover wages, tips or salary that was illegally withheld. Contact out firm online or call 1-800-692-3717 to discuss a possible wage and hour lawsuit and to help you recover earnings to which you may be entitled.

Examples of some illegal employer practices include not compensating workers by misclassifying a worker as exempt, asking a worker to run errands for the employer on the way home, regularly asking workers to put on uniforms or special equipment before clocking in and take them off after clocking out, conducting security clearances after clocking out, automatically deducting breaks from time cards regardless of whether the break is taken, and asking workers to take work home to meet a deadline.

Employees who are not exempted from overtime under the law must be paid “time and a half” (1.5 times their normal wage) for any hours above the standard 40 hours a week. Employers may pressure employees to work after they clock out, alter time cards, fail keep proper records of hours worked, or simply not pay the overtime and hope the employee does not complain.

Workers at businesses where tipping is common are often subject to illegal withholding of wages by their employers. Common violations for tipped workers include paying employees less than the state’s minimum wage for that category of workers, or deducting tips from paychecks, allowing managers to pocket part of the employees’ tips, and illegally shaving time off timecards.

Our employment attorneys carefully investigate each worker’s situation in order to gather the information needed to determine whether or not to pursue legal action and, if so, the proper course of action.