Virtual At-Home Call Center Employees working for Apple File Class Action Lawsuit against the company for allegedly misclassifying Employees as independent contractors in order to avoid paying taxes and overtime pay.
On December 8, 2011, the employment lawyers at Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik filed a class action lawsuit against Apple alleging that Apple devised an illegal scheme of classifying at-home call center employees as independent contractors in order to avoid paying Apple’s share of payroll taxes and other business related expenses through the use of a Yellow Dog Contract. Hilton v. Apple is currently pending in Santa Clara Superior Court as Case No. 111-CV-214597.
According to the class action complaint filed by the employment attorneys, Apple “hires workers to answer calls from its customers in regard to billing questions and technical support” but has devised an unlawful scheme of classifying the employees as independent contractors in order to avoid paying for regular and overtime hours worked as well as the “the cost of the employer’s share of tax payments to the federal and state governments for income taxes, social security taxes, medicare insurance, unemployment insurance and payments for workers’ compensation insurance.” The complaint specifically alleges that in order to avoid the payment of these costs as required by law, the at home call center employees “are required by APPLE to each form a separate Virtual Services Corporation to act as a shell corporation as part of the scheme to insulate APPLE from APPLE’s liability for APPLE’s Business Related Expenses.” The class action lawsuit against Apple refers to these agreements between Apple and the employees as “Yellow Dog Contracts” that violate not only employment laws, but also fundamental public policy.
When asked about the class action lawsuit filed against Apple, the managing partner of Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik, Norman Blumenthal, stated, “AT&T, Apple and any other company involved in this illegal scheme of classifying at-home call center employees as independent contractors must be stopped.” Blumenthal emphasizes that “by engaging in this scheme, the employers are trying to avoid laws involving payroll taxes, minimum wage, overtime pay and workers’ compensation insurance – all in an effort to gain an unfair advantage on the competition.”
Blumenthal Nordrehaug & Bhowmik also has a class action lawsuit against AT&T for the same allegedly unlawful practice. Perry vs. AT&T, Case No.3:2011cv01488 was filed in the Northern District of California on March 28, 2011.
Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik is an employment law firm that focuses on claims involving California labor laws.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/16/prweb9040394.DTL#ixzz1gxLgRRox
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