New and Proposed Laws and Legislation

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On December 9, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti signed the “Fair Chance Initiative” into law. The new law, also referred to as the “Ban the Box” ordinance, restricts employers in the City of Los Angeles from asking job applicants about criminal convictions until after a conditional offer of employment has been made. Although some exceptions apply in fields such as law enforcement and child…

We recently blogged about Governor Brown signing S.B. 1241, which is now codified as Section 925 of the California Labor Code. The law, which affects venue and choice of law provisions in agreements entered into as a condition of employment, will begin applying to agreements entered into, modified, or extended beginning on January 1, 2017. The text of the law (posted directly below) might appear relatively straight forward, but certain ambiguities and questions concerning the law’s implementation raise several issues, which are discussed in this blog post.

We invite you to review our newly-posted October 2016 California Employment Law Notes, a comprehensive review of the latest and most significant developments in California employment law. The highlights include:

Newly Enacted California Statutes

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In 2015, the Legislature enacted significant amendments to California’s Equal Pay Act (Labor Code § 1197.5) to address gender wage inequality. This year, the Legislature enacted additional amendments to the statute prohibiting wage inequality based upon race or ethnicity for substantially similar work. (SB 1063.) Additionally, the Legislature enacted a further amendment specifying that an employee’s prior salary cannot, by itself,…

This bill prohibits an employer from asking an applicant for employment to disclose, or from utilizing as a factor in determining any condition of employment, information concerning or related to an arrest, detention, processing, diversion, supervision, adjudication, or court disposition that occurred while the person was subject to the process and jurisdiction of juvenile court law. “Adjudication” includes the crimes of murder, arson, rape, kidnapping,…

This bill applies to contracts entered into, modified, or extended on or after January 1, 2017 and prohibits an employer from requiring an employee who primarily resides and works in California, as a condition of employment, to agree to adjudicate outside of California a claim (in either litigation or arbitration) arising in California or deprive the employee of the substantive protection of California law with…

An employer seeking a writ of mandate contesting the Labor Commissioner’s ruling regarding the failure to pay minimum wage must post a bond with the Labor Commissioner in an amount equal to the unpaid wages assessed under the citation, excluding penalties. The bond must be issued in favor of the unpaid employee, and the proceeds of the bond, sufficient to cover the amount owed, would…