The New Year usually means new laws for California employers. This year, a new privacy law goes into effect with new mandates for employers to ensure that workers have more control over the collection and use of their personal information.
Continue Reading New Year Brings New Privacy Laws to California Employers
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
By September 30, 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to sign Senate Bill 1162, which would amend California Labor Code section 432.3, expanding employers’ pay disclosure and record keeping requirements in California.
Continue Reading California Expected to Adopt New Pay Disclosure Requirements for Employers
Editor’s Note: The California legislature failed to enact the proposed CCPA exemption amendments to Assembly Bill 1102.
On August 16, 2022, California Assembly Member Cooley introduced amendments to Assembly Bill 1102 that would extend the California Consumer Privacy Act’s (“CCPA’s”) temporary exemptions for HR and B2B data for an additional two years – until January 1, 2025. Under the CCPA, these exemptions are set to expire on January 1, 2023, when the amendments to the CCPA made by the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”) become operative.
Yesterday, a California State Assembly Committee killed a bill that would have extended collective bargaining rights to a larger group of state employees – namely, legislative staffers. Existing state law excludes certain state employees from collective bargaining. The Legislature Employer-Employee Relations Act would “provide employees of the Legislature the right to form, join, and participate in the activities of employee organizations of their own choosing for the purpose of representation on all matters of employer-employee relations.” If passed, the bill would extend collective bargaining rights to nearly 2,000 California legislative employees. California’s Public Employment and Retirement Committee rejected the bill in a 2-3 vote this Wednesday, due to unresolved “procedural, legal, and administrative problems,” according to the Committee Chair.
Continue Reading California Legislature Votes ‘No’ On Legislative Staffer Unionization
On June 8, 2022, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued an Order with definitions for “close contact” and “infectious period” that conflict and abrogate the definitions for these terms within the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s (Cal/OSHA) current COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standards (ETS). Employers must comply with the new CDPH definitions, even where they differ from the text of the California ETS or federal Centers for Disease Control guidance.
Continue Reading New “Close Contact” and “Infectious Period” Definitions Modify Compliance with Cal/OSHA’s COVID-19 ETS
San Francisco has significantly expanded its Family Friendly Workplace Ordinance to guarantee flexible or predictable work arrangements for employees with qualifying caregiver responsibilities when the employee provides notice of their preferred arrangement, unless the employer can demonstrate an undue hardship to the employer.
Continue Reading San Francisco’s Family Friendly Workplace Amended Ordinance Gives Greater Flexibility
On June 15, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision on Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana (Case No. 20-1573) reversing the California Court of Appeal’s decision to affirm the denial of Viking’s motion to compel arbitration Moriana’s “individual” PAGA claim and to dismiss her other PAGA claims.
Continue Reading BREAKING: Supreme Court Reverses California Court of Appeal in Viking River Cruises v. Moriana
On May 7, 2022, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (“Cal/OSHA”) released guidance, in the form of updated FAQs and fact sheets, concerning the revised COVID-19 Prevention Emergency Temporary Standards (“ETS”) that were adopted on April 21, 2022, and became effective on May 6, 2022. This ETS applies to non-remote workers in California, except those who work alone and those covered by the Aerosol Transmissible Diseases standard, and will remain in effect until December 31, 2022.
Continue Reading Cal/OSHA Releases Guidance on New COVID-19 ETS Impacting Employers and Workers
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