A new California law, Senate Bill 142 (“SB 142”), effective January 1, 2020, expands on existing Labor Code requirements for employee lactation accommodations and provides significant new consequences to employers for non-compliance.  Under pre-existing law (Cal. Labor Code 1030 et seq.), employers were required to make reasonable efforts to provide a private location, other than a bathroom, in close proximity to the employee’s work area, for employees to express milk in private and to provide reasonable break time to express milk.

SB 142 amends Cal. Labor Code section 1031 to require the following features for private lactation spaces:

  • Must be safe, clean and free of hazardous materials;
  • Contain a surface to place a breast pump and personal items;
  • Contain a place to sit; and
  • Have access to electricity or alternative devices (e.g., extension cords or charging stations) needed to operate a breast pump.

Please find the rest of this article on our Disability, Leave and Health Management blog here.

A new California law requires large insurers to report on the demographics of their governing boards and the amounts they spend with businesses owned by minorities, women, LGBT individuals, veterans, and disabled veterans. Under the new law, Senate Bill 534 (SB 534), reporting will be required on a biennial basis beginning on July 1, 2020.

SB 534 permanently replaces and expands on the required disclosures under a previous law that expired on January 1, 2019.

Please find the rest of this article on the Jackson Lewis publications page here.

Set to take effect January 1, 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), considered one of the most expansive U.S. privacy laws to date, places limitations on the collection and sale of a consumer’s personal information and provides consumers certain rights with respect to their personal information.

Organizations should be doing their best to determine if they have CCPA obligations directly as a business, because they control or are controlled by a business, or because they have contractual obligations flowing from a business.

Please find the rest of this article on the Jackson Lewis publications page here.

The California Assembly has passed a bill that would expand the California Family Rights Acts to apply to flight crew employees. Assembly Bill 1748 (AB 1748) has passed through the assembly, and is awaiting the signature of Governor Gavin Newsom.

As the law currently stands, the often atypical work schedules of many flight deck and cabin crew members of air carriers renders them ineligible for protected leave under the California Family Rights Act due to the work hour requirements of CFRA.  The new law will effectively amend California Government Code section 12945.2 to conform to the FMLA service requirement for airline flight employees.

Under this law, flight deck and cabin crew members of air carriers will be eligible for protected leave under the California Family Rights Act so long as they:

  1. They have worked or been paid for not less than 60 percent of the applicable total monthly guarantee or equivalent annualized over the proceeding 12 month period; and
  2. have worked or been paid for not less than 504 hours during the 12 months prior to their leave.

The new law will further authorize California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing to adopt regulations to calculate leave available to flight crew employees under these provisions. We will continue to monitor and provide updates on AB 1748.

With the future of the EEOC’s pay data collection efforts unclear, California’s effort to legislate its own race- and sex-based pay data reporting requirements likewise has stalled, for now.

Since July, California’s Senate Bill 171 (requiring private employers with at least 100 employees to submit an annual report of employee pay data broken down by race, ethnicity, and sex within specified job categories) has stalled.

Please find the rest of this article on our Pay Equity Advisor blog here.

On Wednesday, September 17, 2019, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB 5), limiting when businesses can classify employees as independent contractors.  The new law goes into effect on January 1, 2020.  For further information, please click this link.

Jackson Lewis attorneys are available to discuss the bill and to assist employers in determining whether and how their particular business will be affected.

Putting an end to employees’ backdoor attempts to recover unpaid wages in Private Attorneys General Act-only actions under California Labor Code Section 558, the California Supreme Court has ruled against allowing such claims. ZB, N.A., et al. v. Superior Court, No. S246711 (Sept. 12, 2019).

This is surprising, as the Court provided this much-needed guidance on its own in a case where the question originally presented was whether claims for unpaid wages under Section 558 could be compelled to arbitration.

Please find the rest of this article on the Jackson Lewis Publications page here.

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.

Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5) passed by a vote of 61-16 in the Assembly. Governor Gavin Newsom has stated his support of the bill and is expected to sign it into law. Then the new law will go into effect on January 1, 2020.

Please find the rest of this article on the Jackson Lewis Publications page here.

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

Please recall, AB 5, which is Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez’s proposed legislation regarding worker classification (discussed below and in a prior article by Jackson Lewis here), was referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee suspense file on August 12, 2019.  On Friday, August 30, the Appropriations Committee passed AB 5 and returned the bill to the Senate floor in a 5-2 vote. The Legislature has only until September 13, 2019 to pass the bill before the 2019 legislative session concludes.

If passed, AB 5 would codify the California Supreme Court’s Dynamex decision, wherein the court elected to abandon the longstanding multi-factor Borello test and adopt the “ABC Test” in determining whether an individual is an employee or independent contractor under the Wage Orders.

The ABC test elements are as follows:

(A) The person is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact

(B) The person performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and,

(C) That the person is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.

Part B of the test is particularly problematic for a number of industries, especially those with established business models reliant upon the use of contractors.

Jackson Lewis will keep you apprised of developments on this front. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any questions.

On August 30, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill (SB) 778, which amends Section 12950.1 of the California Government Code. SB 778 extends California employers’ obligation from January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2021, to comply with sexual harassment trainings as outlined under California Government Code section 12950.1.

Please recall, per Govt. Code section 12950.1, an employer with 5 or more employees must provide at least 2 hours of interactive training regarding sexual harassment to all supervisory employees and at least 1 hour of interactive training regarding sexual harassment to all nonsupervisory employees within 6 months of their assumption of a position. The deadline initially imposed was January 1, 2020. Please find a Jackson Lewis article discussing these obligations here.

SB 778 amends Govt. Code section 12950.1 to instead require that an employer with 5 or more employees provide the sexual harassment training by January 1, 2021, and once every 2 years thereafter. This bill further clarifies that an employer who has provided sexual harassment training in 2019, is compliant with the training requirements and is not required to provide it again until 2 years thereafter. Accordingly, as the training deadline extends to January 1, 2021, employers who trained in 2018 will now have the opportunity to train again in 2020, instead of 2019. This extension addresses employers’ confusion with the compliance training deadlines.

SB 778 took effect immediately on the Governor’s signing as an urgency statute.