Articles Discussing General Workplace Issues in California.

The California Assembly has passed a bill that would require workers to be classified as employees if the employer exerts control over how the workers perform their tasks or if their work is part of the employer’s regular business.

Executive Summary: After months of debate and negotiations, the California State Legislature passed the controversial AB 5 on Wednesday, September 11, 2019, bringing it one step closer to being law. If passed, the new law is expected to impact and clarify the use of independent contractors throughout the state. It is now on Governor Newsom’s desk. If signed, it will go into effect on January 1, 2020.

School is back in session and employees may soon be asking for time off to attend school related activities involving their children and grandchildren. Employees in California who work at a worksite with 25 or more employees are eligible to take off up to 40 hours a year for child-related activities, including to be the classroom parent of the day, to chaperone a field trip, or to find a new school or day care center.

The California worker classification bill, Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), advanced closer to passage just prior to the Labor Day weekend.

On Friday, August 30, 2019, the California State Senate Appropriations Committee approved controversial legislation—Assembly Bill 5 (A.B. 5)—that would potentially reclassify millions of independent contractors as “employees” under California state labor laws. The Committee’s approval moves the bill one step closer to a vote in the full senate, which is expected to approve the measure in the very near future. After months of not making his position on the bill clear, on September 2, 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) publicly announced his support for the measure in an op ed in the Sacramento Bee.

On August 30, 2019, the California Senate Appropriations Committee briefly considered AB 5, the legislature’s response to the California Supreme Court’s 2018 opinion in Dynamex v. Superior Court (Dynamex). In Dynamex, the court changed the state’s longstanding law governing worker classification and exposed thousands of California businesses to potential retroactive liability

Despite having its anti-arbitration rulings reversed several times (and counting) by the United States Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court issued another questionable anti-arbitration decision today in Oto, LLC v. Kho, furthering the Golden State’s ongoing agenda to try to disallow these agreements in the employment setting. In today’s ruling, the Court reversed an order compelling arbitration of an employee’s administrative wage claim that had been filed with the Department of Labor Standards Enforcement (“DLSE”). The Court could not hold that such disputes are categorically exempt from arbitration (because the Court already had its hand slapped on this issue by the U.S. Supreme Court a few years ago), so the Court found another way to invalidate the agreement by holding that it was too procedurally unconscionable to be enforced. In layman’s terms, this basically means that the Court found that the manner in which the agreement was presented to the employee (the print was purportedly small and hard to read and the employee was not given sufficient time to review the agreement or ask questions) was unfair and deprived the employee of meaningful choice in signing the agreement.

As businesses prepare for the effective date of the California Consumer Privacy Act, many are conducting data mapping to identify the personal information they collect, who it belongs to, how they use it, with whom they share it and whether they sell or disclose it.

It is back to school time for school children, which means that parents are more likely to request time off to attend to child care or other school activities. And in California—parents have leave entitlements which employers should be mindful of.

As Bay Area employers are well aware, San Francisco has several local employment-related ordinances that provide additional benefits to individuals performing work within the geographical boundaries of the City. One such benefit is paid parental leave.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), considered the most expansive U.S. privacy laws to date, is set to take effect January 1, 2020. In short, the CCPA places limitations on the collection and sale of a consumer’s personal information and provides consumers certain rights with respect to their personal information. Wondering whether they will have to comply, many organizations are asking if the law will apply to them, hoping that being too small, being located outside of California, or “only having employee information,” among other things, might cause them not to have to gear up for CCPA.

With the resumption of the current legislative session on August 12, 2019, the California Senate Appropriations Committee briefly considered Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), the legislature’s purported solution to the California Supreme Court’s opinion in Dynamex v. Superior Court (Dynamex). In Dynamex, the Supreme Court abruptly changed longstanding law governing worker classification, and exposed thousands of California businesses to potential retroactive liability.

Under current California law, an employer with an establishment in California must report a serious work-related injury, illness or death that occurs at the employer’s place of employment or in connection with their employment to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health by telephone or email within 8 hours after the employer knows or with diligent inquiry would have known of the death or serious injury or illness.

Assembly Bill (AB) 5, currently pending in the California legislature, would impose the “ABC” test on California businesses and workers, dramatically altering the legal standards applied in evaluating whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. If AB 5 is enacted in its current form, on January 1, 2020, approximately two million independent contractors in California could be considered employees under state law. The state’s workplace laws and regulations along with local city laws and rules will then apply to these newly classified workers, and give rise to potential back pay claims for misclassification. Employers will face very difficult choices, many of which are not appealing.

In this podcast, Michael Lotito and Jim Paretti of Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute discuss pending California legislation – Assembly Bill 5 or “AB 5” – which is fast-tracking its way through the state legislature. The bill would codify portions of last year’s California Supreme Court decision in Dynamex v. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County, in which the court instituted the “ABC test” for determining whether a worker is an independent contractor under state law. The speakers explain how AB 5 – if enacted in its current form – could dramatically alter the legal landscape of California’s employment classification law.