The Chamber of Commerce has just released its preliminary list of “job killer” bills that have been proposed in the California Legislature. Don’t forget that California remains tied with Louisiana for the fourth highest rate of unemployment in the country at 6.7%.

This year’s list identifies 16 proposed laws, including four new “Increased Labor Costs” mandates and one “Increased Unnecessary Litigation Costs” mandate, which will directly impact California employers should the bills become law.

Chamber President and CEO Allan Zaremberg said that the 2015 preliminary list “represents the worst of the worst” in proposed legislation. “These proposals will unnecessarily increase costs on California employers that will likely lead to a loss of jobs.”

The “Increased Labor Costs” bills, which will directly affect California employers, are as follows:

  • AB 357 (Chiu, D-San Francisco) – Predictable Scheduling Mandate and Predictability Pay For Food and Retail Establishments: The “Fair Scheduling Act of 2015” would require food and retail establishments to provide employees with two weeks’ advance notice of their schedules and additional “predictability pay” when the retail establishment cancels or reschedules its employees’ shifts. The bill would further require food and retail establishments to allow employees to take unpaid absences for up to eight hours twice per year to attend required appointments at county human services agencies. This bill is modeled after the San Francisco Retail Workers Bill of Rights, which we recently blogged about here.
  • SB 3 (Leno, D-San Francisco / Leyva, D-Chino) – Automatic Minimum Wage Increase: Raises the minimum wage to $11 per hour by January 1, 2016 and $13 per hour by July 1, 2017. This law would increase California’s minimum wage by more than 40% over the next two years. After 2017, the bill mandates additional automatic minimum wage increases based on future increases in inflation.
  • SB 406 (Jackson, D-Santa Barbara) – Expansion of California Family Rights Act: The proposed legislation would redefine “employer” under the California Family Rights Act to include all employers with at least 5 employees within 75 miles of the employee’s worksite. Currently, the Act excludes employers with fewer than 50 employees within a 75-mile radius. The proposal would also further expand the categories of employees who are entitled to take leave under the Act and the covered reasons for which employees may take protected leave.
  • SB 563 (Pan, D-Sacramento) – Increase in Workers’ Compensation Costs: Existing law requires employers to establish a utilization review process to review physician requests for medical treatment for injured employees. This bill would prohibit the utilization review process for certain treatment recommendations, thereby increasing the cost of workers’ compensation for employers. The bill would further require employers to file with the administrative director methods of compensation and any incentive payments contingent upon the approval, modification, or denial of a claim for an individual or entity providing services pursuant to the utilization review process.

The “Increased Unnecessary Litigation Costs” bills include:

  • AB 465 (Hernández, D-West Covina) – Bars Mandatory Arbitration Agreements: The proposed legislation provides that employers cannot mandate as a condition of employment any waiver of a legal right, forum or procedure. This would result in precluding mandatory pre-dispute employment arbitration agreements, which many California employers currently use.

For more information on how these proposed bills may impact you, contact your Proskauer relationship attorney.

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Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair 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…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair 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.