On April 4, 2016, Governor Brown signed Senate Bill 3, which will increase California’s minimum wage annually, reaching $15 per hour for employers with at least 26 employees by January 1, 2022. This bill enacts the highest statewide minimum wage in the nation, on par with New York, which enacted a bill mandating a $15 minimum wage last week.
Governor Brown opposed the bill
New California anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, and pregnancy disability leave regulations go into effect on April 1, 2016. The substantive law regarding these issues has not changed. However, the new amendments enumerate detailed requirements regarding anti-harassment policies and investigations, and institute additional notice and recordkeeping requirements.
Anti-Discrimination and Harassment Regulations
The new anti-discrimination and harassment regulations clarify an employer’s duty to take reasonable steps to prevent discriminatory
We recently held a webinar titled California’s New Paid Sick Leave Law: Are you Ready for the Big Changes Ahead? to help prepare employers for California’s new paid sick leave law. More than 400 people registered for the webinar, and we received well over 100 participant questions.
We realized that everyone — including those who could not attend the presentation — would benefit from viewing the questions and our responses. The full Q&A follows.
San Francisco recently enacted two sweeping ordinances that are being referred to as the “Retail Workers Bill of Rights” (you can find the ordinances here and here). The new laws impose strict new requirements on retail employers and establishments in the City of San Francisco. While the ordinances became effective on January 5, 2015, employers will have until July 3, 2015 to comply. Below
On September 3, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld certification of a class of approximately 800 nonexempt insurance claims adjusters who claimed they worked overtime without compensation despite the employer’s lawful written policy to pay nonexempt employees for all hours worked.
In Jimenez v. Allstate Ins. Co., the Ninth Circuit upheld certification after finding three common questions existed. First,
Minimum Wage Increase
Gov. Brown has signed into law a measure that will increase California’s minimum wage from $8.00 per hour to $9.00 per hour on July 1, 2014, and to $10.00 per hour on January 1, 2016. So, California employers must prepare for a 25% increase in the minimum wage over the next two years.
The California Chamber of Commerce lists the new law
Employers sometimes face vicarious liability for personal injury and property damage when employees use their own vehicles in connection with the performance of their job duties and get into traffic accidents. When facing such claims, California employers have generally been able to rely on legal exceptions that carve out an employee’s regular commute as well as trips made by employees for personal (rather than job
The IRS recently released a memorandum advising taxpayers on the proper tax characterization of attorney’s fee payments in connection with a settlement of or judgment in an employment dispute.
Courts have long held that payments to plaintiffs for their attorney’s fees pursuant to a fee shifting statute belong to the plaintiff, not the attorney. Thus, when the plaintiff’s underlying recovery is taxable, the plaintiff must
Governor Brown signed Senate Bill 292 this week, amending the Fair Employment and Housing Act to allow an employee claiming sexual harassment to prevail without having to show that the allegedly harassing conduct was motivated by the harasser’s “sexual desire.” S.B. 292 was authored by Senate majority leader Ellen M. Corbett and principally sponsored by the California Employment Lawyers Association, an organization of attorneys that