Julia Y. Trankiem

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Courts have repeatedly upheld California’s “strong public policy” prohibiting agreements that restrain individuals from “engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind.” Indeed, under Section 16600 of the California Business and Professions Code, these agreements—generally referred to as noncompete agreements—are generally void. California now seeks to enshrine additional laws strengthening its prohibition on noncompete agreements.
Continue Reading California Seeks to Strengthen Its Policy Invalidating Noncompete Agreements

California employers: take notice. On July 24, 2023, the Office of Administrative Law approved changes to the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) regulations governing how California employers can use and consider criminal history in employment decisions. These new changes, modifying Cal. Code Regs. Tit. 2, § 11017.1, go into effect on October 1, 2023.
Continue Reading California Employers: Updated Regulations for Use of Criminal History in Hiring Decisions Go into Effect October 1, 2023

As we reported in September, effective January 1, 2023, employers face a host of pay disclosure and recordkeeping obligations.  The DLSE, the agency in charge of implementing the new law (codified at California Labor Code section 432.3), recently published guidance on the parameters of the new law.…

Continue Reading California Pay Transparency Law—Recent DLSE Guidance

Among the new employment laws in effect this new year is the expansion of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”) to include “reproductive health decision-making” in the list of classifications protected by the FEHA. Accordingly, the FEHA now expressly prohibits discrimination, harassment, and retaliation based on employees’ reproductive health-decision-making. …
Continue Reading FEHA Expanded to Include “Reproductive Health Decision-making” as Protected Category

On September 18, 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill (“AB”) 2188, which prohibits employer discrimination based on employees’ use of cannabis off the job and away from the workplace. …
Continue Reading New California Legislation Protects Workers’ Personal Marijuana Use

Assembly Bill 1651 or the Workplace Technology Accountability Act, a new bill proposed by California Assembly Member Ash Kalra, would regulate employers, and their vendors, regarding the use of employee data.  Under the bill, data is defined as “any information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular worker, regardless of how the information is collected, inferred, or obtained.” …
Continue Reading California Assembly Proposes Data Privacy Law for Workers

Governor Newsom has signed SB 331 (the “Silenced No More Act”) into law.  As discussed in our prior blog post, SB 331 will expand the existing restrictions on the confidentiality provisions recently put into place by SB 820 (which restricts the usage of confidentiality provisions in agreements related to sexual assault, harassment, or harassment) to also restrict the usage of confidentiality provisions related to all claims of harassment, discrimination, or retaliation under the FEHA. …
Continue Reading California Enacts Expanded Restrictions on Confidentiality Provisions