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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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A handheld wireless telephone or electronic wireless communications device may be operated in a manner requiring the use of the driver’s hand while the driver is operating the vehicle only if both of the following conditions are satisfied: (1) The handheld wireless telephone or electronic wireless communications device is mounted on a vehicle’s windshield in the same manner a portable Global Positioning System (GPS) is…

This bill expands the prohibition on smoking in a place of employment to include an owner-operated business. It also eliminates most of the specified exemptions that permit smoking in certain work environments, such as hotel lobbies, bars and taverns, banquet rooms, warehouse facilities, and employee break rooms. (ABX2-7.)

Jorge v. Culinary Inst. of Am., 3 Cal. App. 5th 382 (2016)

Leopoldo Jorge, Jr., sued Almir Da Fonseca and his employer, the Culinary Institute of America, for injuries Jorge sustained when he was struck by a car driven by Da Fonseca. Da Fonseca, who is employed as a chef instructor for the Institute, had finished his shift and was driving home in his

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Local TV, LLC v. Superior Court, 3 Cal. App. 5th 1 (2016)

Kurt Knutsson, a technology reporter who created “Kurt the CyberGuy” video segments for use on television news programs and station websites, sued Local TV for the use by its stations of CyberGuy material. Although Knutsson had entered into a written agreement pursuant to which the CyberGuy material was distributed to the websites…

Dang v. Maruichi Am. Corp., 207 Cal. Rptr. 3d 658 (Cal. Ct. App. 2016)

Khanh Dang sued his former employer for wrongful termination in violation of public policy, claiming that Maruichi had discharged him for engaging in concerted activity relating to unionizing efforts. The trial court granted Maruichi’s motion for summary judgment on the ground that it lacked jurisdiction because Dang’s claim was preempted…

As of January 1, 2017, businesses with 26 or more employees must pay a minimum wage of $10.50 per hour; the rate increases to $15.00 per hour in 2022. Smaller businesses (with 25 or fewer employees) will be required to pay the higher rates starting in 2018. Future increases in the minimum wage will be automatically linked to increases in the consumer price index. (…

Around this time last year, Section 1197.5 of the California Labor Code was amended by S.B. 358 in order to “eliminate the gender wage gap in California.” Among other things, the amendment sought to increase wage transparency and made it more difficult for employers to defend against gender-based equal pay claims.

On September 30, 2016, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed S.B. 1063, further expanding…

On the heels of North Carolina’s controversial legislation, which requires that people use the public restroom that corresponds to their biological gender rather than the gender with which they identify, California has gone in a different direction.

On September 29, 2016, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed A.B. 1732, which requires all single-user restroom facilities in any business establishment, place of public accommodation, or government…

On September 24, 2016, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed A.B. 1687 – a measure aimed at preventing age discrimination against film, television, and other professionals in the entertainment industry whose ages could be viewed by casting directors and other potential employers.  As a result of this bill, industry professionals whose profiles are listed on commercial online entertainment employment service providers (IMDb.comPro and similar…

In the past, a California employer could freely inquire about and consider a job applicant’s history of criminal convictions in determining any condition of employment including hiring, promotion, or termination. Although California law prohibited employers from asking about or considering arrests or detentions that did not result in convictions, the law did not impose any restrictions regarding what types of convictions employers could ask about…