California’s City of Santa Monica’s City Council has adopted an ordinance that enacts minimum wage and paid sick leave requirements for covered employees as well as new regulations pertaining to service charges and surcharges. Ordinance Number 2509 became effective on February 25, 2016, although its provisions will not be implemented until July 1, 2016.
The City Council authorized the City Manager to establish a working group to review and recommend technical adjustments to the adopted Ordinance.
We discuss key provisions below.
Minimum Wage Rates for Non-Hotel Sector Employees
Employers with at least 26 covered employees shall pay no less than the following hourly wages:
- July 1, 2016 – $10.50
- July 1, 2017 – $12.00
- July 1, 2018 – $13.25
- July 1, 2019 – $14.25
- July 1, 2020 – $15.00
Employers with up to 25 employees will have an additional year to satisfy each of these pay rates. Therefore, hourly pay increases for smaller employers will start on July 1, 2017, at $10.50 per hour, reaching $15.00 per hour by July 1, 2021.
Continue Reading Santa Monica, California, Joins Patchwork of Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave Laws
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As California employers are aware, the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (Labor Code section 245, et seq.) went into effect this year. Under the Act, employers may choose between granting sick leave under an “up-front” method or an accrual method. Employers are permitted to offer more sick leave than the Act requires, but must meet certain minimum leave requirements. As employers prepared for July 1, 2015, the date on which employees became eligible to use and accrue sick leave under the new law, many were struck by how little guidance the new law provided for the realities of the workplace.