Photo of Tony Oncidi

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 JournalThe 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 JournalBloomberg 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.

Snapp v. BNSF Ry., 889 F.3d 1088 (9th Cir. 2018)

Danny Snapp sued his former employer, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. (“BNSF”), for failure to accommodate his alleged disability in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). Snapp worked as a division trainmaster, but due to “tiredness and low energy,” he went to a doctor and was diagnosed with sleep

Camacho v. Target Corp., 234 Cal. Rptr. 3d 223 (Cal. Ct. App. 2018)

Adrian Camacho, a former Target cashier, sued for alleged sexual orientation discrimination, harassment causing a hostile work environment, retaliation, constructive termination in violation of public policy and related claims. Prior to resigning his employment with Target, Camacho settled a workers’ compensation (“WC”) claim he had filed against Target based upon his

Taswell v. The Regents of the Univ. of Cal., 23 Cal. App. 5th 343 (2018)

Carl Taswell, M.D., alleged he was retaliated against for his whistleblowing activities regarding patient safety at the brain imaging center during his employment with the University of California, Irvine. Prior to commencing his civil action, Taswell filed an internal complaint for whistleblower retaliation and initiated a grievance procedure

Wassmann v. South Orange County Cmty. Coll. Dist., 2018 WL 3063946 (Cal. Ct. App. 2018)

Carol Wassmann challenged her dismissal from employment as a tenured librarian at Irvine Valley College in a five-day administrative proceeding brought pursuant to the Education Code. The administrative law judge determined there was cause to terminate Wassmann’s employment, and the trial court upheld the judge’s decision. Wassmann then filed

Abed v. Western Dental Servs., Inc., 23 Cal. App. 5th 859 (2018)

Western Dental posted a job opening for a dental assistant in its Napa, California office while Ada Abed was working there as a student extern. Although Abed originally had been assured that the externship was a four- to six-week “working interview” and that her work was “above average,” she was later

Meeks v. AutoZone, Inc., 2018 WL 3062555 (Cal. Ct. App. 2018)

Natasha Meeks worked as a store manager for AutoZone and claimed that she had been sexually harassed by Juan Fajardo, another store manager. Among other things, Meeks testified that Fajardo would comment on her body and clothes; ask her to go out with him; suggest that they have sex; send her text messages

Epic Sys. Corp. v. Lewis, 584 U.S. ___, 138 S. Ct. 1612 (2018)

The United States Supreme Court ruled that employers may require their employees to arbitrate disputes with the employer individually and waive their right to pursue or participate in a class or collective action against the employer. In a 5-4 ruling in favor of an employer’s right to include class action waivers

Janus v. AFSCME, 585 U.S. ___, 2018 WL 3129785 (2018)

In a highly anticipated decision, the United States Supreme Court held that it is a violation of the First Amendment to require public sector employees who are not members of a union to pay any union dues, even when a portion of those dues is attributable to the costs of collective bargaining on behalf

On July 4th, U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez issued an order enjoining California from enforcing parts of the California Immigration Workers Protection Act (Assembly Bill 450), a new state law that restricted private employers from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. See our previous blog post regarding the lawsuit here.

Among other things, the law imposed fines on private employers of up

On Tuesday, a Los Angeles jury did what L.A. juries do so often these days — they awarded tens of millions of dollars to an ex-employee who claimed she had been the victim of discrimination, wrongful termination and retaliation.  Codie Rael, who worked as a materials buyer for a dental supply company, claimed that she was subjected to comments such as you are “outdated,” “a