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employment attorney Orange County California Whistleblowers

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Many California employees contact us to find out if they are entitled to “whistleblower” protection. Both state and federal laws protect persons who report illegal activity by their employers says employment attorney Orange County. To be protected, an employee usually only has to have a “reasonable but mistaken belief” that illegal activity is afoot. In California, whistleblowers are protected by Labor Code 1102.5 which prohibits retaliation against an employee who complains about illegal activity. This is a very tough law for employers to prevail on, since the very next code section (1102.6) provides that the burden of proof is on the employer to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the whistleblowing about illegal activities had nothing to do with the adverse employment action.

According to employment lawyer Orange County, an employee can claim retaliation under the federal qui tam laws, where it is shown that the whistleblower was discharged, demoted, or discriminated against because of lawful acts done in furtherance of a false claims investigation. If the relator basically violates confidentiality and removes tens of thousands of documents indiscriminately, in order to later prove a qui tam case, there will probably be a finding of non-protected activity and the loss of the right to bring a retaliation action under the federal law.

When a whistleblower actually sues his or her former employer on behalf of the government for monies lost by the government, it must be shown that the government was actually defrauded and lost money says employment attorney Oakland. The federal false claim act is found at 31 United State Code 3729. A recent case illustrates some of the differences in “reasonable but mistaken” (sufficient to support a wrongful termination claim) and actual false billings. In this case the plaintiff contended that her employer withheld disclosure of new inventions from the government, stating that the contract with the company provided that the government owned the inventions. As the government would have had the right to license and sell these new inventions, the theory of the employee went, the United States was defrauded by not having that right of sale. Unfortunately for the plaintiff, she was unable to allege that the employer ever sought payment from the government and had not submitted a “false claim”.

Employment attorney San Diego says that false claims take many forms such as fraudulent use of a receipt; unauthorized purchase of government property or use of a “false record or statement” to avoid payment to the government. Another recent case held that a request for reimbursement that falsely implied compliance with federal rules might constitute a false claim. “Reverse false claims” are also actionable. In one such case, the defendant company falsely represented the value of some aircraft metals as “scrap”, whereas in fact it was worth several million dollars. A false claim was properly stated. Finally, it’s important to determine if the false claim was in a “condition of participation” or a “condition of payment”. No false claim is usually stated if the defendant accused of defrauding the govenment is simply falsely certifying compliance (such as non-discrimination) with a federal program or is actually billing falsely.

Financial rewards for whistleblowers can be huge! Under California state laws, up to 30% can be awarded to the whistleblower. Routinely, about 15-20% is awarded in federal false claims actions.

As always, this blog is educational in nature and legal advise can only be given by an experienced attorney in your jurisdiction.

Choose Hospitality & Tourism Management As Your Career After Intermediate

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After completing 12th, choosing a career is a big decision because you are going to invest a lot of time on your studies and them spend many life hours working in the field you have chosen. One of the major aspects that you need to keep in mind is that how easily you will get job after completion of your studies. If you are considering the career in hospitality management though, you already know how will be seeking employment in this rapid growing industry in the world.

Hospitality management is a wide term that includes various sorts of careers. However, they are different in terms of responsibilities, the various careers all have in common the fact you will be serving people by providing specialized services. You can select the general hospitality industry and will discover you have many options in terms of employment opportunities. Your training for certification in any of the fields of study includes a customized curriculum to suit your educational requirements. You not only study cooking or room management, but also supervision of staff, budgeting and ordering of supplies.

Jumpstarting to Success
The careers in hospitality management are widely categorized under food or hotel management. By acquiring a certification within your selected field of study, you are able to jumpstart what would take years of on the job training. It results to faster promotion and wider opportunities.

Hotel and tourism careers are available in a number of different businesses. In some cases, careers are even built by blending more than one field such as hotel and restaurant management. Some of the famous careers include the following:
Restaurant management
Hotel management
Cruise ship food and beverage manager
Convention or event planning
Corporate planning
Resort management
Tourism industry
Flight catering

There are not all the possible careers available and new ones are development every day. Some the newest careers are in this area such as IT as related to the hospitality industry. Lots of countries are realizing that attracting tourist dollars can provide economic stability and resort areas are searching for qualified managers and chefs.

IIMT is among the best colleges for hotel management, offering hospitality management colleges and hospitality and tourism management course with all contemporary way of teaching and practical to boost your career in hospitality and tourism management industry.

Ethical Behaviour Risk Factors Lessons From Emilio Botin Abbey Santander 2009

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Some of the factors that increase the risk of unethical behaviour in organisations are illustrated by the high-profile legal case Chagger v Abbey National plc & Hopkins (2006), in which the Employment Tribunal made a finding of unlawful racial discrimination and (further to Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group’s refusal to comply with the Tribunal’s order to reinstate Mr Chagger) ordered Abbey Banco Santander share to pay Mr Chagger the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation for his loss. Abbey Santander share price (the UK bank soon to be re-branded as Santander banking group, and part of the global Emilio Botin Banco Santander Central Hispano Group – BSCH) dismissed Mr Chagger from his employment in 2006, giving a fair redundancy as the reason. However, Mr Chagger believed that the actual reason behind the termination of his employment was unfairness and race discrimination. Mr Chagger was of Indian origin. He worked for Emilio Botin Abbey Santander finance as a Trading Risk Controller, earning about 100,000 a year, and reporting into Nigel Hopkins.

Some ethical behaviour risk factors illustrated by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander 2009 clearly relate to the pursuit of personal goals; the Employment Tribunal found that Mr Hopkins personally desired Mr Chagger’s employment with Abbey Santander share price to be terminated, had pre-planned that Mr Chagger would be dismissed, and had used the compulsory redundancy process as a means to dismiss Mr Chagger, in an unfair and discriminatory manner.

One such factor increasing the risk of unethical behaviour is the amount of discretion an organisation allows its officers; the greater the discretion allowed, the greater the opportunity the officer has for acting in his personal interests. The Employment Tribunal found that the redundancy selection criteria Abbey Santander had permitted Mr Hopkins to apply in assessing and judging the two employees up for redundancy were highly subjective and un-measurable; they afforded Mr Hopkins a very wide discretion. The Employment Tribunal criticised Mr Hopkins for the way in which he had applied that discretion (i.e., for his own interests). As an example, Mr Hopkins had criticised and scored Mr Chagger lower for getting on with work and being self-reliant. The Employment Tribunal thought that other reasonable managers would consider such qualities to be valuable assets, considering Mr Chagger’s highly paid and highly responsible job, and praise and score him highly for. As a further example, during the redundancy process, Mr Hopkins had criticised Mr Chagger on numerous points that Mr Chagger had never been criticised for prior to the redundancy exercise. All the criticisms were inconsistent with previous company records of Mr Chagger’s performance. The Employment Tribunal ruled that the criticisms were unfair not legitimate.

Another such factor increasing the risk of unethical behaviour is the level of autonomy of decision-making and action an organisation allows its officers; the greater the level of autonomy, the greater the opportunity the officer has for acting in his personal interests. The Tribunal found that Mr Hopkins was entirely single-handedly able to advise Abbey’s management to dismiss one of the two Trading Risk Controllers that he managed (of which Mr Chagger was one), was entirely single-handedly able to make Mr Chagger an offer of voluntary redundancy (Mr Chagger refused the offer, and never was an equivalent offer ever made to the other Trading Risk Controller), was entirely single-handedly able to judge and score the two employees up for redundancy, and was entirely single-handedly able to lower Mr Chagger’s redundancy scores to guarantee that he would be the one who would be selected for dismissal.

A different type of factor also increasing the risk of unethical behaviour is the organisation’s focus; a focus on results rather than processes can imply that the ends justify the means. The UK statutory Code of Practice on Racial Policy in Employment provides organisations with guidance concerning good practices and processes. The Employment Tribunal found that Abbey Banco Santander had failed to comply with those processes. Abbey Grupo Santander had failed to comply with the statutory guidance regarding Equal Opportunity training. Mr Chagger had tried to resolve the issues of unfairness and race discrimination around his dismissal directly with Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins, through the company’s grievance procedures. Santander Abbey had not provided any Equal Opportunity training to any of the managers it had assigned to decide on Mr Chagger’s issues. Not even one manager upheld Mr Chagger’s issues; his issues were simply dismissed out of hand. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander banking group had also failed to comply with the statutory guidance concerning monitoring procedures. The Tribunal found a multitude of monitoring failures (far too many to outline here), as well as the failures to give serious consideration to allegations of racial discrimination and to investigate them promptly.

In 2008, Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) against the original Employment Tribunal’s ruling of racial discrimination; the EAT upheld the original Tribunal’s ruling that both Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger. Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had also appealed against the record-breaking 2.8 million compensation award; the EAT accepted Abbey Santander’s appeal on the compensation award and remitted it to the original Tribunal for reconsideration. In 2009, matters were escalated to the Court of Appeal (the second highest court in the UK). The Court’s List of Hearings showed that the case was heard on 7 and 8 July 2009. The Court’s records of the hearing were not available at the time of writing this article. The 11KBW set of barristers’ chambers, who represented Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins, had reported prior to the hearing that the it was to be about quantum only (i.e., compensation) and not about liability (i.e., not about the wrong committed of race discrimination). That would seem to suggest that the wrong of race discrimination committed by Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Nigel Hopkins was finalised by the EAT when it upheld that Emilio Botin Abbey Santander and Mr Hopkins had racially discriminated against Mr Chagger, and that Mr Chagger had appealed against the EAT’s ruling to send the compensation award back to the Employment Tribunal stage for reconsideration.

The Rise Of The Temporary Employment Agency

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There is a huge influx of skilled professionals and executives into the temporary employment category, which has sprung up a number of temporary employment agencies. One of the harsh lessons learnt by companies from the economic slowdown is not to bite more than they can chew. The volatile economy has left companies with no choice but to disband their long term projections and work for today. Such an attitude has changed the outlook of an average American on temporary employment.

In recent developments it has been noted that the pay rates for temporary workers overweighs those of full-timers. Temporary employment agencies have been on a hiring spree and some of them house more employees than large American corporations. In a dynamic labor market temporary workers not only enjoy the competitive pay, but also the time it gives them for other activities. The average time span of a temporary assignment ranges between 10 to 12 weeks. A lot of the work-force prefers to hang-on to the temporary jobs while looking to land a more stable job; it puts them in a win-win situation. In 2010 it was predicted that temporary workers would account for 4% of the workforce within three years, the same number was 1.65% before the recession.

Temporary employment agencies are making hay while the sun is still shining; their clients pay them a service fee and cover the temporary workers wages, payroll taxes, unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation fees. Organizations have also found it profitable to tie-up with such agencies because it reduces their costs by almost 8%.

The picture is not all rosy for temporary employment agencies as they have to shrug off immense competition from fellow agencies. The rise in the number of agencies has also lead to clients being more demanding with respect to negotiating fees and other expenses.

It is also worthy to note that temporary employment agencies are starting to dole out attractive benefits and other perks to further draw more talent towards temporary employment.

With the economy not showing great signs of recapturing its former glory, the rise of temporary employment agencies is a significant development in the larger picture.

Make Employee Write Up, Employment Letter Of Recommendation, And Offer Letters Manageable

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If you are a supervisor, there are parts of your job that you love. You may like the responsibility, or perhaps you enjoy bringing out the strengths in your employees. Unfortunately, there is likely one area of your job you dislike: employee paperwork.

With supervision of employees brings what feels like a mountain of administrative paperwork. From an employee write up to an employment letter of recommendation to employment offer letters, forms can feel overwhelming.
The a href=”http://www.theofficepress.com/employee-write-up.htm”>Employee Write Up pile can be especially daunting, as the employee write up brings with it many negative emotions. Not only do subordinates feel embarrassment or anger at the site of an employee write up, but many supervisors are uncomfortable discussing one. An employee write up can easily turn into a confrontation instead of the learning tool it was meant to be.

For an employee write up to be beneficial, not just for the individual, but for the company, it must be handled appropriately by the supervisor. The language of the employee write up must be extremely clear and come across as attempting to help the employee get back on track, not as an effort to sabotage a career.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is an employment letter of recommendation. If a subordinate is in good standing, an employment letter of recommendation is a good experience for everyone involved. An employment letter of recommendation is a perfect opportunity for positive affirmation.

An employment letter of recommendation can be for a transfer, or an employment letter of recommendation can help a former employee start a new job. When you seek to hire, employment offer letters make your intent official. Employment offer letters must be very clear and well-written.
Because a href=”http://www.theofficepress.com/employment-offer-letters.htm”>Employment Offer Letters are not frequently used in small business, as employment offer letters are only needed if a company expands or replaces a position, they are sometimes over-looked. Employment offer letters are important, however, as employment offer letters may impact the decision of your top recruits.

Even though paperwork may not be your favorite part of the job, these forms serve an essential function. From happy occasions like an a href=”http://www.theofficepress.com/employment-letter-of-recommendation.htm”>Employment Letter Of Recommendation to the often- dreaded employee discipline papers, paperwork is inevitable.
Services do exist to help save time and increase positive outcomes of all the forms discussed here, and more. With these services, your paperwork tasks can be a very manageable part of the day.