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Category Archives: New and Proposed Laws and Legislation

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Tax Hikes Proposed to Bail Out California Unemployment Fund

By Tony Oncidi and Ryan McGill on Posted in New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
Just as California’s employers and small businesses begin to recover financially from the COVID-19 pandemic, the state legislature is about to spring another tax increase on them. This time the money is needed to bail out the severely underfunded unemployment insurance (UI) fund (a program recently featured in the news for paying as much as … Continue Reading

Board of Directors Quota Law May Be Unconstitutional

By Tony Oncidi on Posted in Diversity and Inclusion, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
Meland v. Weber, ___ F.3d ___, 2021 WL 2521615 (9th Cir. 2021) In 2018, the California Legislature enacted Senate Bill 826, which requires all corporations headquartered in California to have a minimum number of females on their boards of directors; corporations that fail to comply with SB 826 are subject to monetary penalties.  One shareholder … Continue Reading

California Mulls More Job Killer Bills, Major Tax Hikes

By Tony Oncidi and Dylan K. Tedford on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation, Tax, Wage and Hour
Last week, New York announced new tax increases that will subject certain of its residents to higher personal income tax rates than even Californians pay.  Before the pages on that bill had cooled, the California legislature was well on its way to showing it would not relinquish its top-of-the-heap status without a fight by proposing … Continue Reading

Ah, It’s Bill Passing Season in California again – and No Employer is Safe!

By Tony Oncidi and Dylan K. Tedford on Posted in Leaves of Absence, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation, Tax
It’s springtime in California!  And even as the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, the California legislature is busy, busy, busy passing hundreds of new laws because, after all, you can never get too much of a good thing! Yes, it’s Bill Passing Season in Sacramento, and the California legislature seems as determined as ever … Continue Reading

California Employers May Be Required to Subsidize Backup Childcare

By Tony Oncidi, Kate Gold and Michelle Lappen on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, Employee Benefits, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
Last Thursday, Assembly Bill 1179 was introduced to require California employers with 1,000 or more to provide “backup ” for children under 14. To be eligible for the benefit, employees who work in California would need to have been employed by the company for at least 30 days. If passed and signed into law, this … Continue Reading

Podcast: What the Biden Presidency Could Mean for Employers

By Tony Oncidi on Posted in New and Proposed Laws and Legislation, News, U.S. Department of Labor
Following last week’s historic presidential election and a forthcoming transition of power, Proskauer’s Anthony Oncidi and Laura Fant join XpertHR Legal Editor David Weisenfeld for a podcast conversation on the changes employers can expect after President-elect Biden takes office in January. Employers – listen now in order to plan ahead for what could be significant … Continue Reading

California Mandates Diversity Quotas for Corporate Boards

By Tony Oncidi and Philippe A. Lebel on Posted in Diversity and Inclusion, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
On September 30, 2020, Gov. Newsom signed Assembly Bill 979 (“AB 979”) into law.  The new statute, which adds section 301.4 to the Corporations Code, is aimed at increasing representation from communities of color and the LGBT community on the boards of publicly traded companies.  The law follows in the footsteps of earlier legislation that … Continue Reading

CalChamber Releases its Annual List of “Job Killer” Bills Proposed by the California Legislature

By Tony Oncidi and Cole Lewis on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
The California Chamber of Commerce has just identified 10 recently introduced “job killer” bills that have been proposed by the California legislature. Worth noting are the following: AB 196 (Gonzalez; D-San Diego) Establishes “Conclusive Presumption” of Injury. Conclusively presumes that contraction of COVID-19 by all “essential workers” is a workplace injury, which will greatly increase the … Continue Reading

Two Important Stragglers Among California’s New Labor Laws

By Tony Oncidi and Cole Lewis on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
Last week, we blogged about the avalanche of new labor laws that California employers will face in 2020.  Here are two late additions to the list  — just in time for Halloween!: AB 61 (Ting, D-San Francisco) grants employers and coworkers the right to petition a court to issue a gun violence restraining order, which prevents an … Continue Reading

Take That, Employers! California is Done (for Now) with this Year’s Legislative Thrashing

By Tony Oncidi, Cole Lewis and Kate Gold on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
Here’s a comprehensive list of the new employment-related statutes enacted and signed into law in the Golden State (effective Jan. 1, 2020 unless otherwise specified): AB 5 (Gonzalez, D-San Diego) makes it extremely difficult for most California employers to hire an independent contractor and would convert such workers into “employees” in the eyes of the … Continue Reading

California Enacts a Raft of New Employment Laws

By Tony Oncidi on Posted in #MeToo, Arbitration Agreements, California Labor & Employment Law, Employment Contracts, FEHA, Harassment, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation, Sexual Harassment
On Thursday, October 10, 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law several new measures that employers will need to comply with by January 1, 2020 and that will generally make it easier for employees to sue their employers.  Specifically: AB 9 extends the statute of limitations period for employees to file claims of discrimination, harassment and/or retaliation … Continue Reading

Ah, It’s Bill Passing Season in California – and No Employer is Safe!

By Tony Oncidi and Cole Lewis on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
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 … Continue Reading

California Bill Aims to Prohibit Employers from Discriminating on Basis of Hairstyle

By Tony Oncidi and Cole Lewis on Posted in Discrimination, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
A new California bill aims to make it illegal for employers to discriminate against employees based upon their hairstyles. SB 188, also known as the “CROWN Act” (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural hair), proposes amending the Education Code and Government Code to define “race or ethnicity” as “inclusive of traits historically associated … Continue Reading

“Bill Bites” – More New Labor and Employment Laws in California

By Tony Oncidi and Pietro Deserio on Posted in New and Proposed Laws and Legislation, PAGA
In addition to the #MeToo inspired legislation, which we covered in a recent blog post, Governor Brown signed several other pieces of legislation amending existing laws and imposing new requirements regarding employment. Here are our “Bill Bites,” which provide a snapshot of the new laws PAGA Does Not Apply to Construction Workers: Assembly Bill 1654 … Continue Reading

Governor Brown Signs Slew Of #MeToo-Inspired Laws

By Tony Oncidi and Pietro Deserio on Posted in Discrimination, Gender discrimination, Harassment, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation, Retaliation, Settlement, Sexual Harassment
This weekend Governor Brown signed many laws that were authored and gained traction in response to the #MeToo movement: New Restrictions On Confidentiality Of Sexual Harassment/Discrimination Settlements Senate Bill 820 prohibits confidentiality or non-disclosure provisions in settlement agreements that prevent the disclosure of factual information involving allegations of sexual misconduct – unless the party alleging … Continue Reading

California Imposes New Mediation Disclosure Requirement On Attorneys

By Tony Oncidi and Pietro Deserio on Posted in New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
Earlier this month, Governor Brown signed new legislation (SB 954), which requires lawyers to provide their clients with a printed disclosure describing the confidentiality restrictions applicable to mediation.  This disclosure must be provided to a client as soon as reasonably possible before the client agrees to participate in a mediation.  Lawyers also will be required … Continue Reading

New California Statute Shields Victims/Employers from Defamation Claims

By Tony Oncidi and Elaine H. Simson on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, Defamation, Employment Law Notes, Harassment, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation, Sexual Harassment
California Governor Jerry Brown has signed Assembly Bill 2770 (Assembly Member Irwin; D-Thousand Oaks), an act to amend Section 47 of the Civil Code.  The bill should protect both sexual harassment victims and employers against defamation claims from alleged harassers. The bill was sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce and passed the Legislature with unanimous, bipartisan … Continue Reading

Some California “Sanctuary State” Employer Obligations Are Struck Down

By Tony Oncidi and Tracey Silver on Posted in Form I-9, Immigration, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
On July 4th, U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez issued an order enjoining California from enforcing parts of the California Immigration Workers Protection Act (Assembly Bill 450), a new state law that restricted private employers from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. See our previous blog post regarding the lawsuit here. Among other things, the law … Continue Reading

Supreme Court Bars Mandatory Union Dues For Public Employees

By Arielle E. Kobetz and Tony Oncidi on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, Collective Bargaining, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation, Public Employment, Supreme Court, Union Issues
In a highly anticipated decision, the United States Supreme Court today held that it is a violation of the First Amendment to require public sector employees who are not members of a union to pay any union dues, even when a portion of those dues is attributable to the costs of collective bargaining on behalf … Continue Reading

Multiple Minimum Wage Increases and Salary-Related Ordinances Scheduled to Take Effect on July 1, 2018

By Tony Oncidi and Elaine H. Simson on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, Employment Policies, Hiring, Minimum Wage, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation, Pay equity, San Francisco, Wage and Hour
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 … Continue Reading

California Would Recognize “International Workers’ Day” as a New Holiday

By Tony Oncidi and Travis Hall on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, Employee Benefits, Employment Law Notes, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
California Assembly Member Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) has introduced legislation (Assembly Bill 3042) that would recognize “International Workers’ Day” as a public holiday for students and school employees in the state.  The bill would authorize school districts and charter schools to designate May 1 as “International Workers’ Day” with schools to be closed – and … Continue Reading

California Enacts New Protections Against National Origin Discrimination

By Tony Oncidi and Travis Hall on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, Discrimination, Employment Law Notes, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation
The California Office of Administrative Law recently approved new amendments to the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”), strengthening the protections afforded to applicants and employees, including individuals who are undocumented, on the basis of their national origin.  Although the FEHA already prohibits discrimination and harassment on the basis of national origin, these new … Continue Reading

California Legislature Mulls New Package Of “Job Killer” Bills

By Tony Oncidi and Nayirie K. Mehdikhani on Posted in California Labor & Employment Law, New and Proposed Laws and Legislation, Uncategorized
By Anthony J. Oncidi and Nayirie Kuyumjian The California Chamber of Commerce has just identified a new raft of recently introduced “job killer” bills that have been proposed in the California Legislature. This year’s list of 27 proposed laws includes measures that would impose additional penalties for an employer’s failure to pay wages; increase the … Continue Reading
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