California employers must revamp their sick leave policies ahead of the New Year. On October 4, 2023, Governor Newsom signed SB 616 into law, thereby amending the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014. The new law goes into effect January 1, 2024.
Continue Reading Significant Paid Sick Leave Increases for California Employers
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
HuntonAK Labor and Employment partner Emily Burkhardt Vicente was honored as a finalist for Mentor of the Year by the Los Angeles Business Journal at their 2023 Women’s Leadership Symposium and Awards.
Continue Reading Emily Burkhardt Vicente Selected as LABJ Mentor of the Year Finalist
HuntonAK Labor and Employment partner Emily Burkhardt Vicente was honored by the Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2023 Diversity, Equity + Inclusion Awards as a nominee for Diversity, Equity + Inclusion Executive of the Year.
Continue Reading Emily Burkhardt Vicente Nominated As DE&I Executive of the Year
California’s new bereavement leave law, which became effective beginning January 1, 2023, requires most employers to allow their employees to take up to five days of leave upon the death of certain family members.
Continue Reading California Now Requires Bereavement Leave
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
HuntonAK Labor and Employment partner Emily Burkhardt Vicente was named as a 2022 “Go-To Thought Leader” by the National Law Review.
Continue Reading Emily Burkhardt Vicente Named as ‘Go-To Thought Leader’
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
In January 2021, the Ninth Circuit upheld a 2018 ruling by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”), which found that federal law preempts California state meal and rest break laws as applied to drivers of property-carrying commercial motor vehicles. A few months later, the United States Supreme Court denied a petition challenging the Ninth Circuit’s decision. We previously wrote about the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, and the Supreme Court’s denial, in a post that you can read here.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Confirms FMCSA Preemption of California’s Meal and Rest Break Laws Applies Retroactively