Earlier this year, a former employee of a Nike store in San Clemente, California, filed a legal complaint against the company, alleging a number of labor law violations. In the weeks since, the scope of the case has quickly expanded; Nike now faces a class action suit that could include all current and former nonexempt employees who worked in California-based Nike retail stores in the last four years. Were Employees Making Less Than Minimum Wage? The legal proceedings began in February, when a former worker noted that Nike failed to provide itemized wage statements and did not adequately inform employees about their sick leave policy. Yet the lawsuit has come to center around the issue of employee uniforms. Namely, the plaintiffs claim that store employees were required to buy new uniforms roughly four times a year, so that the clothes they wore to work reflected Nike’s most up-to-date retail offerings. Many of the affected employees…Read More
“College graduation is supposed to be synonymous with opportunity and prosperity and not a detour into a modern-day debtor’s prison.” – California Treasurer John Chiang College Is Expensive And Risky College is expensive, that is an undeniable, indisputable fact. To make things worse, student loans can be completely unaffordable and can have long term, crippling effects on your credit. In fact, it is estimated that students in America owe nearly $1.5 trillion in student debt. The average amount of debt carried by a graduate nationwide is about $28,000 dollars. In California, it is estimated that over half of college graduates carry some student debt. This session, California has seen a legislative push to make college more affordable and more accessible to prospective students. These include proposals to lower or freeze tuition, for free community college for a year, student loan transparency, and lower textbook costs. In addition, State Senator Ben Allen and Treasurer John Chiang…Read More
