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
The California Labor Commissioner recently issued a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) memo regarding breaks and lactation accommodation. The FAQ memo contains no new concepts, but emphasizes the following longstanding principles:
This law expands the scope of mandatory sexual harassment training employers must provide to their supervisory employees. Currently, FEHA requires employers with 50 or more employees to provide at least two hours of prescribed training and education regarding sexual harassment to all supervisory employees within six months of their assumption of a supervisory position and then once every two years thereafter. This new law expands
This new law expands parental leave protections to those individuals who work for employers with at least 20 employees. Under the new law, employers with at least 20 employees must allow an employee who has more than 12 months of service with the employer to take up to 12 weeks of parental leave to bond with a new child within one year of the child’s
Minnick v. Automotive Creations, Inc., 13 Cal. App. 5th 1000 (2017)
Nathan Minnick, who had worked for only six months before his employment ended, sued his former joint employers under PAGA, alleging their vacation policy violated state law because it required employees who worked for less than one year to forfeit their vested vacation pay. The trial court sustained the employers’ demurrer and dismissed the
Jury panels in the Los Angeles Superior Court (which is often referred to as “The Bank” by the plaintiffs’ bar) have recently delivered multimillion-dollar verdicts to former-employee plaintiffs. Many employers doing business in California already have insulated themselves from such disasters by adopting comprehensive arbitration regimes, which would require that such cases be heard by a retired judge or employment lawyer rather than a jury
San Francisco has become the latest jurisdiction to pass a law restricting employers from inquiring about prior salary history during the hiring process. The ordinance, which will go into effect on July 1, 2018, will restrict employers from: (i) considering or relying on an applicant’s salary history as a factor in determining whether to make an offer of employment or what salary to offer; (ii)
As we previously blogged, Assembly Bill 2337 (approved by the Governor last fall) will go into effect on July 1, 2017, and California employers will be required to give written notice of workplace rights that must be provided to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. The Labor Commissioner has just posted a form that employers may elect to use to comply with
In May 2017, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) approved new regulations regarding transgender identity and expression in the workplace. The regulations become effective July 1, 2017.
The new rules further expand the Fair Employment and Housing Act’s (FEHA) role in preventing discrimination in employment and housing on the basis of gender identity. In addition, the regulations describe some new policies that
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (“DFEH”) recently obtained a settlement on behalf of a custodian for a school district who was fired after an on-the-job injury. As part of the settlement, the employer agreed to pay $290,000 and offer reinstatement with reasonable accommodations.
During an investigation by the DFEH, the district told the DFEH that it relies on a test of physical