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Tony Oncidi

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Anthony J. Oncidi is the Co-Chair Emeritus of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily Journal, The Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is "brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up." Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as "outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a "phenomenal strategist" and "one of the top employment litigators in the country."

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law Journal, Bloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management ("SHRM"), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.

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North Am. Title Co. v. Superior Court, 17 Cal. 5th 155 (2024)

Pursuant to Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 170.3, a party that seeks to disqualify a trial court judge by filing a verified statement of disqualification must do so “at the earliest practicable opportunity after discovery of the facts constituting the ground for disqualification.” The statute also provides that there shall be…

Rodriguez v. Lawrence Eqpt., Inc., 2024 WL 4719479 (Cal. Ct. App. 2024)

Julian Rodriguez sued his former employer, Lawrence Equipment, Inc., for various wage and hour violations under the Labor Code and sought civil penalties and wages pursuant to the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). Enforcing the arbitration agreement Rodriguez had signed, the trial court ordered arbitration of the wage and hour claims and…

Nebraska v. Su,121 F.4th 1 (9th Cir. 2024)

Five states challenged President Biden’s 2021 Executive Order 14026, which directed federal agencies to include a clause in federal contracts requiring contractors to pay employees a $15 minimum wage. The states argued that the executive order and the implementing rule issued by the Department of Labor violate the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act…

Osborne v. Pleasanton Auto. Co., 106 Cal. App. 5th 361 (2024)

Eva Osborne sued her former employer (Pleasanton Automotive) and its executive general manager (the ironically named Bob Slap) for discrimination, retaliation, harassment and wage and hour violations arising during the four years while Osborne worked as Slap’s executive assistant. Two years into the litigation, Slap filed a cross-complaint against Osborne, asserting that statements…

Wawrzenski v. United Airlines, Inc., 2024 WL 4750558 (Cal. Ct. App. 2024)

Alexa Wawrzenski was fired from her position as a United Airlines flight attendant for having a social media account featuring pictures of herself in uniform and wearing a bikini, with a link to an OnlyFans subscription-based account that she advertised as providing “exclusive private content you won’t see anywhere else.” Wawrzenski sued…

Miller v. California Dep’t of Corr. & Rehab., 105 Cal. App. 5th 261 (2024)

Maria Miller worked as a correctional officer at the California Institute for Women before she was injured in a slip-and-fall accident in 2016. After Miller had exhausted her workers’ compensation wage replacement benefits in 2018, the Department placed her on an unpaid leave of absence. When the Department subsequently…

Liu v. Miniso Depot, Inc., 105 Cal. App. 5th 791 (2024)

Youngtong “Jade” Liu sued her former employer, Miniso Depot, Inc., for various wage and hour violations of the California Labor Code and the California Code of Regulations; sex discrimination; sexual orientation/gender identity harassment and discrimination in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA); retaliation in violation of the whistleblower statute…

Kim v. Uber Techs., Inc., 105 Cal. App. 5th 252 (2024)

This lawsuit arose out of a traffic accident that occurred at 2:28 a.m. when an off-duty Uber driver hit Mackenzie Young Jay Kim, the pedestrian plaintiff in the case. The undisputed facts established that the driver went to “offline status” at 2:24 a.m. at a location in West Los Angeles that was…

The California Labor Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) recently refreshed its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) regarding Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) claims processing in light of the recent legislative reforms.

As we reported here, California enacted A.B. 2288 and S.B. 92 this past summer, bringing long-overdue reforms to PAGA.  The new legislation applies to PAGA notices and any resulting actions filed on or after June…

Labor Co-Chair Tony Oncidi joins Bloomberg Law podcast host June Grasso to discuss the five employment law cases currently pending before the US Supreme Court.  Those cases involve issues ranging from a heterosexual employee’s claim that she was discriminated against because of her sexual orientation and a terminated employee’s RICO claim against a cannabis company that mislabeled its “elixir” and caused the employee to fail a…