California legislators and regulators continue their efforts to expand employee protections, and the IRS permits a temporary subsidy for separating employees who want to sample the small business exchanges for health care. Read on for highlights.
San Francisco Retail Workers Bill Of Rights Redux: The State Legislature Is Cooking Up Trouble Outside Of San Francisco
By Kristen Verrastro and Jason Allen
The same old soup, just reheated? State Assemblymember né San Francisco Supervisor David Chiu, along with Assemblymember Dr. Shirley Weber, recently introduced statewide legislation called the Fair Scheduling Act (AB 357), a bill meant to provide more predictable and stable work schedules to food and retail workers throughout California. The full language of AB 357 has not yet been released, but the bill is expected to require food and retail establishments with 500 or more California employees to give at least two weeks’ notice of employee scheduling and provide extra pay for schedule changes made last minute.
As our loyal CalPecs blog readers know, San Francisco recently passed two ordinances—“Hours and Retention Protections for Formula Retail Employees” and “Fair Scheduling and Treatment of Formula Retail Employees”—which, together, are informally known as the “San Francisco Retail Workers’ Bill of Rights.” (Click here, here, here, and here for our previous coverage.) Then-Supervisor Chiu introduced the latter of the two ordinances. Is Assemblymember Chiu simply modifying his recipe for statewide consumption?
Stay tuned and we will keep you posted as more information is released about this proposed legislation.
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This just posted by our Seyfarth Shaw’s Environmental and Safety Law Update:
CA Proposes New Workplace Violence Regulations for Health Care Employers, Home Health Providers and Emergency Responders
By Meagan Newman, Brent I. Clark, and Mark A. Lies, II
A draft proposed regulation from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) would require health-care employers, home health and hospice providers and emergency responders to develop workplace violence-prevention plans, train their employees and keep records related to workplace violence incidents. To read on, click here.
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The Separation Anxiety Continues, But A New IRS Regulation Answers One Question
By Dana Howells and Ben Conley
On February 18, we noted in this space (“Separation Anxiety: The ABCs of Affordable Care Act & Covered California at Separation From Employment”) that employers are prohibited, in almost every instance, from reimbursing employees for individual health insurance premiums (either through the Covered California marketplace or otherwise). This is in stark contrast to employers subsidizing COBRA, which is not only permitted but encouraged by being tax free to employers and employees (subject to IRS rules prohibiting discrimination in favor of highly compensated employees, where applicable). Wouldn’t you know it, the same day we published, the IRS released additional guidance relaxing this limitation for some employers, albeit temporarily.
Specifically, the IRS created a limited transition period during which small employers (generally, those with no more than 50 full-time equivalent employees) may reimburse employees (or former employees) on a pre-tax basis for individual insurance market premiums. The transition relief only extends through the end of 2015 when, as the IRS notes, the small business exchanges should be operating more smoothly, which provides an alternative to this practice.
For larger employers wishing to subsidize individual exchange coverage for departing employees, options are limited and complex. Plans covering fewer than two participants who are current employees on the first day of the plan year are exempt from these prohibitions (meaning a plan covering only former employees could reimburse those former employees for individual insurance premiums). Employers exploring this approach should exercise caution to ensure they have established a truly separate ERISA plan (including a plan document, summary plan description and, although unlikely, an annual report where applicable) to cover this population. The exemption is not available if the reimbursements are treated as part of the active employee health plan (either intentionally or by default because the employer failed to establish a separate plan).