Regarded as one of the most high-tech places in America, San Francisco is home to cornucopious amounts of technology startups looking at changing work places and daily human interactions. As technology becomes more advanced and computers become smarter at computing logical responses, the worry of robots and automation in general taking over human employment has become a rising concern. Who exactly is the demographic which workplaces are laying off and how does this concern employment laws?
Discrimination
Often times when a company goes through a laying off process in order to cut costs by replacing humans with robots, employment lawyers search for redundancies in who was affected by the layoff. For instance, if a San Francisco manufacturing facility replaced 30 of its employees with robots, the employment lawyer will look to see if discriminating factors such as age were a factor in the decision of laying off these workers. If age or another discriminating factor was indeed the case for the business to perceive that the individual(s) of having a lack of technological skills compared to the robots, a suit can be filed with the State.
Labor Laws
Employment laws look at what the responsibility and duties are between an employer and an employee. The State of California has set pretty strict standards in regards to its employment laws as the state is known for its fast growth and technological advances. Employment lawyers then have a duty to analyse the these employment contracts to ensure that both sides are upholding what was contractually agreed upon.
Despite the fast paced growth of technology in places such as San Francisco and the legal constraints of laws catching up to these advances, employment lawyers within these tech hubs have ample amounts of interpreting the old legal structures with the new world of technology.
