NY Times Facing Discrimination & Misclassification Claims
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Robert Stolarik, a photographer with an extensive working relationship with the New York Times, filed a lawsuit against the newspaper. He alleges that the New York Times misclassified him on the job, discriminated against him due to age, denied him assignments due to a past arrest, and retaliated against him when he made these claims public. During the course of his career as a photographer, Stolarik has had his photos featured on the front page of the New York Times over 30 times.
Stolarik filed the lawsuit on July 6th in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He included a number of different accusations:
Classification as a freelancer instead of a full-time employee, which left him responsible for paying additional taxes and ineligible for the company’s benefits and retirement plan. Stolarik claims the editors referred to him as a “full time freelancer” for 14 years.
No overtime pay despite working close to 3,400 hours in overtime from 2005 through 2009.
When seeking to become a staff photographer/employee, Stolarik was told a number of times by different editors at the paper that his age (37 in 2006) prevented his hiring as a staff shooter. During that same time period, younger photographers (20-somethings) were hired on as staff photographers.
In August 2012, Stolarik was assaulted and arrested while covering a story in the Bronx. The Times made sure Stolarik had legal representation and submitted an angry letter to the NYPD about the incident. The officer was later charged and found guilty of a felony for lying about the arrest. Yet Stolarik was taken off the police beat (that he had covered for more than 10 years) in response to the arrest.
Stolarik claims that the unlawful and discriminatory practices of the New York Times resulted in a loss of income and benefits because he was denied both a staff position and freelance assignments. In addition, Stolarik claims the paper retaliated against him when he submitted a letter including these legal complaints to the paper in spring of 2016. Since that time, he has not received a single assignment from the paper’s editors.
If you have experienced workplace retaliation or you don’t know what to do about discrimination in the workplace, please get in touch with one of the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik.
