As usual, the new year will bring a slew of new California employment laws. Following is a summary of many of the more significant new and widely applicable employment laws that will take effect in California on Jan. 1, 2022,...more
12/20/2021
/ Cal-OSHA ,
California Family Rights Act (CFRA) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Independent Contractors ,
Minimum Wage ,
Non-Disclosure Agreement ,
Notification Requirements ,
Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wage Theft
On Sept. 29, 2021, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) general counsel issued General Counsel Memorandum GC 21-08, in which she announces that she believes certain college student-athletes are “employees” under the...more
On Sept. 22, 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 701 (AB 701). Effective Jan. 1, 2022, it will become the first state law of its kind to regulate and set parameters around the use of production quotas at...more
On July 15, 2021, the California Supreme Court decided a closely watched case, Ferra v. Loews Hollywood Hotel, LLC, and unanimously held that employers are required to pay meal and rest break violation premiums at the same...more
On July 9, 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order aimed at restricting the use of noncompete agreements by private employers.
The order calls on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to adopt new rules to...more
At a press briefing on July 7, 2021, the White House announced that President Joe Biden plans to issue an executive order aimed at restricting the use of noncompete agreements by private employers....more
On May 5, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) eliminated a Trump administration end-of-term rule for determining whether workers should be classified as independent contractors or employees under the Fair Labor Standards...more
The ADA and Website Accessibility – A Brief Background: Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in the activities and services of places of public accommodation....more
Over the last decade, courts have permitted California employers to use timekeeping policies that round employee time punches (e.g., to the nearest 10th of an hour) if the rounding policy is facially neutral and used in a...more
On Dec. 10, 2020, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a decision in BMW Manufacturing Co. regarding whether various rules and policies in an employer’s handbook violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)....more
Effective Jan. 1, 2021, California employers with five or more employees will be required to provide family and medical leave to their employees under a newly enacted version of the California Family Rights Act (CFRA). The...more
On June 15, 2020, by a vote of 6-3, the U.S. Supreme Court held that an employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Prior to the court’s historic...more
6/17/2020
/ Altitude Express Inc v Zarda ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Civil Rights Act ,
EEOC v RG & GR Harris Funeral Homes ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Gender Identity ,
Hiring & Firing ,
LGBTQ ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Orientation ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII ,
Transgender
California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) is now offering employers and their employees free online training courses to satisfy California’s sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training...more
On May 6, 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Executive Order N-62-20 (EO N-62-20), which creates a rebuttable presumption, for purposes of receiving workers’ compensation benefits, that employees who test positive for...more
Even while imposing “shelter in place” orders, the vast majority of states have authorized and encouraged essential businesses to remain open. As states relax their restrictions in the coming weeks and months, non-essential...more
The COVID-19 pandemic presents unique challenges for employers whose employees are represented by labor unions. Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), unionized employers must negotiate with a collective bargaining...more
To curb the rapid spread of COVID-19, over half of U.S. states and numerous local governments have adopted shelter-in-place orders, most of which require residents to remain at home, except to provide or receive essential...more
On March 12, 2020, the California Supreme Court held in Kim v. Reins International California, Inc. that employees who settle and release their individual wage and hour claims still have standing to bring a representative...more
On May 31, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California awarded a $102 million judgment against a national retailer for failing to comply with California’s meal break and wage statement laws. The bulk...more
On Feb. 4, 2019, the California Court of Appeal decided Ward v. Tilly’s, Inc., holding that employers must provide “reporting time pay” when requiring employees to call in prior to a potential shift to learn whether they must...more
On Jan. 29, 2019, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a strikingly broad decision, raised the bar for employers’ compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). In Gilberg v. California Check Cashing Stores, LLC,...more
As 2019 quickly approaches, a number of new California laws impacting employers are set to take effect. As a response to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, a number of these new laws address sexual harassment in the...more
12/27/2018
/ Arbitration ,
Board of Directors ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Criminal Records ,
Diversity ,
Employee Training ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
FEHA ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Lactation Accommodation ,
Paid Family Leave Law ,
Payroll Records ,
Salary/Wage History ,
Settlement Agreements ,
Sexual Assault ,
Sexual Harassment ,
State Labor Laws ,
Statute of Limitations
In a 5-4 opinion in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis and two companion cases, the U.S. Supreme Court on May 21, 2018, held that class and collective action waivers in employees’ arbitration agreements are enforceable under the...more
5/23/2018
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Epic Systems Corp v Lewis ,
Ernst & Young v Morris ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Murphy Oil v NLRB ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Remand ,
Reversal ,
Savings Clause ,
SCOTUS
On April 30, 2018, the California Supreme Court issued a long-awaited opinion in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, clarifying the legal standard for distinguishing between employees and independent contractors....more
Earlier this week, just one day before Equal Pay Day, the 9th Circuit issued an en banc opinion in Rizo v. Yovino, holding that a prospective employee’s pay history cannot justify a wage disparity as a “factor other than sex”...more