In the immortal words of Mao Zedong:  “Let a hundred flowers blossom!”

Multiple cities and hamlets throughout California have enacted slightly differing and, of course, maddeningly confusing non-uniform minimum wage laws.  Not surprisingly, no one in Sacramento seems at all concerned about the administrative burden to California employers in having to monitor and comply with so many different rules.

For those of you keeping track at home, here’s the current state of affairs:

Minimum Wage Increases

The following cities’ and county minimum wages are slated to increase:

City # of Employees Minimum Hourly Wage Beginning July 1, 2018 Minimum Hourly Wage Before July 1, 2018
Emeryville

56 or more employees

55 or fewer employees

$15.69

 

$15.00

$15.20

 

$14.00

Los Angeles (city)

26 or more employees

25 or fewer employees

$13.25

 

$12.00

$12.00

 

$10.50

Los Angeles (county) (unincorporated areas only)

26 or more employees

25 or fewer employees

$13.25

 

$12.00

$12.00

 

$10.50

Malibu

26 or more employees

25 or fewer employees

$13.25

 

$12.00

$12.00

 

$10.50

Milpitas $13.50 $12.00
Pasadena

26 or more employees

25 or fewer employees

$13.25

 

$12.00

$12.00

 

$10.50

San Francisco $15.00 $14.00
San Leandro $13.00 $12.00
Santa Monica**

26 or more employees

25 or fewer employees

$13.25

 

$12.00

$12.00

 

$10.50

** Hotel workers’ minimum wage will be indexed, meaning that their rates will be adjusted annually based on changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Most of these jurisdictions’ minimum wages are slated to increase again on July 1, 2019.

Belmont adopted an ordinance to establish its own minimum wage at $12.50/hour beginning July 1, 2018, with another increase set to go into effect on January 1, 2019.

Salary History Ordinance

San Francisco’s new Consideration of Salary History ordinance (also known as the Parity in Pay ordinance) will go into effect on July 1, 2018, and will prohibit employers from considering applicants’ current or past salaries when determining whether to extend an offer of employment and what salary to offer.  The ordinance also prohibits employers from asking applicants about their current or past salary, or disclosing a current or former employee’s salary history without that employee’s authorization (assuming that salary history is not publicly available).

However, it is important to remember that salary inquiry prohibitions are not unique to San Francisco – California recently enacted its own slightly different, statewide legislation that went into effect on January 1, 2018.

Employers should take care to review whether these ordinances impact their work force and ensure that they are compliant by the beginning of next month.

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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.