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from the all-work-and-no-pay-makes-Jack-a-litigious-boy dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following (paywalled) story:
July 26, 2018
Starbucks Corp. must pay employees for off-the-clock work such as closing and locking stores, the California Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a decision that could have broad implications for companies that employ workers paid by the hour across the state.
The decision is a departure from a federal standard that gives employers greater leeway to deny workers’ compensation for short tasks, such as putting on a uniform, that are performed before they clock in or after they clock out.
More details are available from pbs.org:
The ruling came in a lawsuit by a Starbucks employee, Douglas Troester, who argued that he was entitled to be paid for the time he spent closing the store after he had clocked out.
Troester said he activated the store alarm, locked the front door and walked co-workers to their cars — tasks that required him to work for four to 10 additional minutes a day.
An attorney for Starbucks referred comment to the company. Starbucks did not immediately have comment.
A U.S. District Court rejected Troester’s lawsuit on the grounds that the time he spent on those tasks was minimal. But the California Supreme Court said a few extra minutes of work each day could “add up.”
Troester was seeking payment for 12 hours and 50 minutes of work over a 17-month period. At $8 an hour, that amounts to $102.67, the California Supreme Court said.
“That is enough to pay a utility bill, buy a week of groceries, or cover a month of bus fares,” Associate Justice Goodwin Liu wrote. “What Starbucks calls ‘de minimis’ is not de minimis at all to many ordinary people who work for hourly wages.”
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday July 30 2018, @12:40AM (5 children)
Of course luck comes into it. The biggest factor in how successful you will be in life is which family you are born into. Upward mobility in the USA is declining. [phys.org]
If you are born into a poor family, you are unlikely to have the opportunity to learn the skills required to pull yourself out of poverty. Even if you do get an education, you will probably have huge student loan debt that will be a lifelong drag on your prospects. If you are born into a wealthy family, you are more likely to be able to afford to take risks to build businesses.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @03:27AM (4 children)
That's not luck, that's a conscious choice your parents made.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Whoever on Monday July 30 2018, @03:35AM (3 children)
Those parents chose to be born into poverty? Wow! I didn't know it was possible to choose your parents.
Nevertheless, that doesn't refute my point.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @03:50AM (2 children)
Your parents chose to have you. The choice was not yours but neither was it luck.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Monday July 30 2018, @05:14AM (1 child)
Are you dense or something? I guess we know the answer.....
Something over which you have no choice determines your likely success in life and you claim that this isn't a matter of luck? We are looking at this from the child's perspective, not the parents'.
Even for the parents, these issues are multi-generational. Donald Trump Jr. hasn't shown that he could have achieved his wealthy status without the help of his father, and that also goes for Donald Trump Sr..
I guess I should be glad that you acknowledge that having wealthy (or at least middle class) parents gives someone a big advantage in life and that success in life take more than hard work.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @05:58AM
Do you know what luck even is? Luck is chance. Something being done by design precludes it being chance. If your parents made a choice to have a child it is not luck that said child shares their financial situation.
No, we are not. We are looking at the relevant facts. There is zero chance in who children are born to. They are always born to their parents. If your parents had decided not to have children, you do not go back in line to get dished out to some other couple.
What has that got to do with anything? Chaining non-luck events together does not make them spontaneously become luck events.
On average, yeah. So what? It's not an unearned advantage. The parents earned it and gifted it to their child.
Yeah, I never said anything remotely like that. You have no need whatsoever of rich parents to succeed in life. It makes things a bit easier but only initially. You're just regurgitating the mantra of every failure throughout human history. He did better than me so he must have cheated. Sorry but no. He did better than you because he put in the thought and effort required to do better than you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.