Devi Rao, Fellow

In a win for workers everywhere, last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied Wells Fargo’s petition for a writ of mandamus in a case involving the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) collective action mechanism.

Huh?

Okay, a writ of mandamus is just a fancy way of telling someone to do something. In seeking a writ of mandamus, Wells Fargo was asking the Fifth Circuit to tell the district court in Texas that it messed up and needed to try again. And in denying the petition, the Fifth Circuit politely said “thanks, but no thanks.”

So what’s the issue here? Well, the FLSA requires that certain employees be paid overtime for any works weeks over 40 hours. And the collective action mechanism in the FLSA allows workers to bring lawsuits on behalf of themselves and others to enforce this law.

The National Women’s Law Center filed an amicus brief urging the court to deny Wells Fargo’s motion for the writ (so: yay, we won!). We explained why collective actions are essential to women workers’ claims under the Equal Pay Act (EPA), an amendment to the FLSA, and why the way the district court handled the case was appropriate.

Having a smartphone with GPS is great, right? We can map directions, find the best places to eat in the area, and have a car come pick us up wherever we are. But it can also be scary and dangerous:

• A man in Arizona stalked his wife by tracking her cellphone, and murdered their two children, before shooting himself.
• A Texas woman packed up her car and drove to a friend’s house after her husband assaulted her, only to have him secretly track her through her phone’s GPS and show up, assault her again, and take the car.
• Near Seattle, a mechanic tracked his wife’s cellphone, found her at a store with another man, and shot and killed their five children and then himself.

Technology that allows a third party to monitor a smartphone user’s location is frighteningly prevalent. In December 2010, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed that of the 101 top smartphone apps, nearly half (47) disclosed a user’s location to third parties, typically without the user’s consent. Many of these are “stalking apps,” which are used to stalk and harass women.