Is awarding a day off for women employees on 8 March a discrimination against the male employees? Early this year I joined a new company. As part of the benefits they give to their employees is included a day off, paid by the company, to all female employees for the 8 of March because of the International Woman's Day celebration. So women employees get one benefit more than men employees, simply because they are women. I'm curious to understand under what conditions can employees be treated differently differently by the company based on their gender and not be considered discrimination.
In the US, prohibitions against sex discrimination in employment do not include an exception when males are the targets of a discriminatory practice, whatever the underslying rationale may be. The specific language of 42 USC 2000e-2 is It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer— (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin Although sex discrimination lawsuits are infrequent when the victim is male, extending a beneficial condition of employment to females only would be as illegal as extending a beneficial condition of employment to whites only.
First of all, there is no breach - they said they would pay it "over the course of the first year"; in what way is the first week not part of the first year? Second, breaching a contract doesn't always allow the aggrieved party to terminate it: in fact, being able to terminate is only for the most egregious of breaches or ones that are specifically spelled out as giving a right to termination. For example, failure to deliver (or pay) on time or in full would not allow termination, only damages.
It does not really matter exactly how the employer chooses to count working hours. However, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires, among other things, that the employee is at least paid the official minimum wage for each hour worked, and gets overtime pay for >40 hours per week. The Act also defines what counts as "hour worked" for these purposes. The Fact Sheet # 79D from the U.S. Department of Labor gives more details about what counts as "hours worked" for domestic services under the FLSA. The general rule is that all time during the shift counts, whether the employee is busy or not: Generally, when an employee is “on duty” (that is they must be in the home and prepared to provide services when required), they are working. The only exception is that time spent sleeping may be deducted under certain circumstances: In some circumstances, an employer may exclude up to eight hours an employee spends sleeping at the worksite from the time for which an employee must be paid. The rules are different, depending on whether the employee permanently resides at the place of work ("Live-in employee), has shifts of >=24 hours or shifts of &lt;24 hours. In your case the shift is >=24 hours, so the rule is (see page three of the document): Up to eight hours of sleep time may be excluded from hours worked, provided that: sleeping facilities are available the employee can usually sleep at least five hours without disturbance the employee agrees to exclude sleep time Even then, interruptions of sleep for work must be paid, and if the employee get &lt;5 hours sleep during a given shift, no exclusion is possible. So in summary: For calculating hourly wage and overtime pay, the employer must count at least 16 hours for each 24 hour shift, and more if the employee cannot sleep for eight hours during the shift. It probably does not matter that the employer calls it "12 hours worked", but your mother is entitled to at least "minium wage x 16" for each shift worked, and is entitled to overtime pay (at least 1.5 times minimum wage) if she works more than two shifts per week. If the shift is ever reduced to less than 24 hours, even sleep time may not be excluded.
I would recommend talking to an adult person in HR. I'm quite sure they will notice that what your manager wants to do is more than dodgy, and doing something dodgy may be in the interest of your manager, but not in the interest of the company. The best thing is to go to HR, acting as if a mistake has been made, and point out to them what your start date was, and that the new contract has the incorrect starting date, and they need to fix this mistake or you can't sign the contract. If they insist you sign it, then you DON'T sign it. If they say you will be fired if you don't sign it, then you tell them that in that case you would get legal advice. BTW. You definitely don't sign this as it is. PS. This answer was posted on workplace.stackexchange, not law.stackexchange, so please don't complain if there is no legal content.
In the U.S. a board member would not be an employee just by virtue of being a board member, even if they were compensated for attending board meetings. The CEO, an employee, might or might not also be a board member. Employees can be fired by their manager. A board member can't be fired from the board but, typically, only removed by a vote of shareholders. They are not assigned tasks by managers of the company. This is 100% clear in CA under employment code 622 (a) “Employee” does not include a director of a corporation or association performing services in his or her capacity as a director. I was a CEO of a private company I co-founded I was a board member as a result of voting myself on the board via my stock ownership. The majority of the board could fire me as CEO but I would still be a board member. If outside board members did get compensation, it would be as a consultant, paid with a 1099. The CA code does say that a board member could take on actual work, like auditing financial information, that might fall under the activities of an employee.
I can't find any law that would prevent an employer from requiring this. Under current Florida law, an employer can even demand passwords and access to an employee's social media accounts. A bill was proposed to prohibit this, but it hasn't passed. Generally, an employer can require anything they want as a condition of employment, as long as it is not illegal. Florida has at-will employment so the employer could certainly fire the employee if they don't comply.
Germany There is a group of civil servants called Beamte. They are expected to show special loyalty to the state, and in turn the state is expected to show special loyalty to them. Different pension rules from regular workers, different healthcare rules, they can only be fired for gross misconduct, but in turn they are not allowed to go on strike and the state has more leeway on simply reassigning them to a different office. Then there is a group of civil servants called Angestellte im öffentlichen Dienst, whose contract is much closer to a private sector employee contract in Germany. They are allowed to go on strike for better salary or better working conditions. Some teachers are Beamte, some are Angestellte. It differs from state to state, and also by the date when they entered the profession. So some teachers in Germany can go on strike and some cannot. Both types may be mixed in the same school.
if a manager emailed an prospective employee a contract containing the pay rate of $20/hr, if the prospective employee crossed out $20/hr and replaced it with $25/hr, then went to work and gave the manager the contract which he failed to carefully read, continued working for a few months, would the employee be entitled to $20/hr? A party ought to timely alert or notify the other counterparty about any disagreements or proposed changes. This is especially recommendable when evidence suggests that the counterparty's expectation that the party only would sign the contract was reasonable. In the example you outline, the employee's unilateral alteration of the compensation/rate in the contract seems unlikely to favor the employee's position. That is because typically employer and employee negotiate compensation prior to formalizing their agreement. In that case, the employee would need stronger evidence with which to overcome the employer's credible argument that he did not knowingly accept the altered rate.