The Employment Law Unit (ELU) provides assistance to individuals—typically low-wage and unemployed workers—facing a range of employment law issues. The majority of ELU’s cases involve wage violations, workplace discrimination, sick, family, and medical leave, unemployment insurance, and labor trafficking. Undocumented workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous employers, and the ELU works in close collaboration with our Immigration Law Unit to provide support with applications for U or T visas.

Our Impact

Fighting Wage Theft

The Legal Aid Society and Katz Banks Kumin LLP have filed a lawsuit seeking to hold PPL accountable for its widespread failure to pay personal care assistants accurately, on time — or at all — since assuming its new role as fiscal intermediary. These failures are systemic, stemming from PPL’s broken infrastructure for onboarding workers, tracking time, approving wages, and processing payroll. Learn More.

**If you are a PPL personal care assistant who has not been paid on time — or at all, please fill out this survey so that we can learn more about the problems people are having.

Partnerships

Expanding Our Resources

The ELU partners with community-based organizations, workers centers, and social services organizations to identify and assist clients throughout New York City with employment law issues.

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The ELU also partners with law firms who become pro bono co-counsel on our litigation. The ELU also works with retired attorney volunteers and law students to greater expand our capacity to represent low-wage workers.

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Richard Blum, a staff attorney in our Employment Law Unit, along with former members of the unit, students at CUNY Law School’s Main Street Legal Services, and attorneys at Arnold & Porter LLP collaborated with Adhikaar, the Nepali worker center, to work with 23 clients trying to claim unpaid wages from their former employer, an owner of a chain of gas stations across Long Island.

For years, many of these employees were not paid the minimum wage, were denied overtime pay, and saw illegal deductions from their weekly wages. Some employees, who often worked over 80 hours each week, never received any payment for their work.

Thankfully, after years of work, we won an incredible settlement of $285,000 for our clients in bankruptcy court. Richard and his clients celebrated their victory when he distributed checks to a group of workers who for too long were taken advantage of by their employer.