It’s springtime in California!  Even as the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, the California legislature is busy, busy, busy passing 100s of new laws because, after all, you can never get too much of a good thing!

Yes, it’s Bill Passing Season in Sacramento again, and the California legislature seems as determined as ever to defend the state’s vaunted position as “#1 Judicial Hellhole” in the Nation!

Here’s the state of play so far – the State Assembly passed six new bills that would further add to a California employer’s to-do list:

  • AB-51 (Gonzalez, D-San Diego) is the legislature’s perennial attempt to outlaw arbitration in employment contracts, as we have reported before. Just like its predecessors, this bill is likely preempted by federal law (the Federal Arbitration Act) despite its declared intent not to invalidate agreements that are otherwise enforceable under the FAA.  Former Gov. Jerry Brown repeatedly refused to sign similar bills.  (We predict that Gov. Newsom may not be quite as punctilious.)
  • AB-171 (Gonzalez, D-San Diego) provides a “rebuttable presumption” of unlawful retaliation if within 90 days of notice to the employer of sexual harassment, domestic violence, stalking, or sexual assault, the employee suffers an adverse action (e.g., discharge, demotion, suspension, etc.) by the employer.
  • AB-196 (Gonzalez, D-San Diego) guarantees 100 percent wage replacement (up to the maximum weekly amount available for workers’ compensation temporary disability benefits) when workers access California’s Paid Family Leave.
  • AB-500 (Gonzalez, D-San Diego) provides paid leave of six weeks for employees of school districts, charter schools, and community colleges who suffer pregnancy-related disabilities (pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, recovery).
  • AB-1066 (Gonzalez, D-San Diego) makes striking employees eligible to receive unemployment benefits after the first four weeks of a trade dispute – currently, only employees who leave work due to a lockout are eligible for benefits.
  • AB-5 (Gonzalez, D-San Diego) codifies the Dynamex decision, making it nearly impossible for most employers to classify a worker as an independent contractor. Adopting this new standard could cost California businesses as much as $6.5 billion in additional payroll expenses.

Meanwhile, the State Senate passed some new bills of its own affecting employers:

  • SB-142 (Wiener, D-San Francisco) expands upon the existing requirement to provide nursing mothers a private space to express milk. The requirement for lactation accommodation, which was updated in the last legislative session, is further fine-tuned under SB-142, with the requirement that a lactation space contain a surface to place a breast pump and personal items, a place to sit, and access to electricity.  An employer also would be required to provide access to a sink with running water and a refrigerator or other cooling device in close proximity to the employee’s workspace.
  • SB-171 (Jackson, D-Santa Barbara) requires employers with 100 or more employees (which are already required to submit EEO-1 reports to the EEOC) to submit annual pay data reports to the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing, showing employee compensation and hours worked by gender, race, ethnicity and job category.
  • And finally, SB-37 (Skinner, D-Berkeley) would raise the corporate tax rate for businesses in California from 8.84% to a new rate ranging between 10.84% and 14.84% (i.e., an increase of between 23% and 68%).  If this latest tax increase passes, California will have achieved the Tax Trifecta:  The highest personal income tax rate (13.3%), state sales tax rate (7.25%) and corporate tax rate in the nation.  This latest increase in taxes comes amidst a record $21.5 billion budget surplus in Sacramento.

These bills now go to the other house of the legislature for review. The full legislature will or won’t pass them by September 13 after which time the lucky winners will head to Gov. Gavin Newsom for approval.

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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.

Photo of Cole Lewis Cole Lewis

Cole Lewis is an associate in the Labor & Employment Department.

Cole graduated from UCLA School of Law, where he worked as a law clerk for Public Counsel of Los Angeles and advocated for benefit recipients in the Department of Public Social Services.

Cole Lewis is an associate in the Labor & Employment Department.

Cole graduated from UCLA School of Law, where he worked as a law clerk for Public Counsel of Los Angeles and advocated for benefit recipients in the Department of Public Social Services. He has also previously worked as a summer associate in Proskauer’s Labor & Employment Department.

Prior to law school, Cole received his Bachelor’s degree in Journalism at Indiana University, where he graduated cum laude.