The California Labor Commissioner has clarified employers' legal obligations by once again revising its official Frequently Asked Questions Guidance ("FAQs") and notice template ("Template") for aid in complying with California's Wage Theft Prevention Act of 2011 ("CAWTPA"). As we previously reported (see Act Now Advisories "California Labor Commissioner Releases FAQs and Notice Template to Comply with the California Wage Theft Prevention Act" and "New California Laws Increase Penalties for Employee Misclassification and Wage Theft"), last year's CAWTPA amended certain existing Labor Code sections and added several new ones. Most notably, in addition to criminalizing specific wage payment violations, the statute created a new mandate for California employers to provide each new employee with a written notice, upon hire, containing such information as the regular rate of pay, overtime rate(s), and regular pay day.
FAQs Are Revised to Address Prior Uncertainties
Although the new law became effective on January 1, 2012, the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement ("DLSE") did not propound FAQs until the final week of December 2011. This initial attempt at guidance, however, seemed to raise more questions than it answered, so the DLSE issued revisions within weeks. Even those revisions raised serious concerns that the FAQs and Template went far beyond the requirements of the law and invited the potential for another round of class action lawsuits against employers.
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