Seyfarth Synopsis: The Fair Employment and Housing Council issues regulations to implement California’s employment and housing anti-discrimination laws, including the FEHA, the CFRA, and the Unruh and Ralph Civil Rights Acts. The FEHC also conducts inquiries and holds hearings on various civil rights issues. The latest FEHC meeting was held on December 11, 2017. Our own correspondent was there, and
Continue Reading Our Ear in the Crowd: FEHC Hears Comments on New Regulations
2017 Labor & Employment Legislative Update: It’s Finally Over! (For Now…)
Seyfarth Synopsis: New statutory obligations for California employers in 2018 will include prohibitions on inquiries into applicants’ salary and conviction histories, expanding CFRA to employees of smaller employers, expansion of mandatory harassment training to include content on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation, and new immigration-related restrictions and obligations.
California Governor Jerry Brown spent his last day to sign
Continue Reading 2017 Labor & Employment Legislative Update: It’s Finally Over! (For Now…)
2017 Labor & Employment Legislative Update: House of Origin Deadline
Seyfarth Synopsis: Pay equity and Ban The Box bills lead the list of bills approved to continue their quest (moving to the other house of the California Legislature) to become California law.
Friday, June 2, marked the last day for bills in the California Legislature to pass out of their house of origin—the Senate or Assembly—and continue the legislative process
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2017 California Labor and Employment Legislative Update: What to Watch
Seyfarth Synopsis: Back from Spring Break, and Back to Work: Our List of L&E Bills to Watch in the remainder of the 2017-2018 California Legislative Session.
California Legislators were, as always, very busy in the first few months of the 2017-18 Legislative Session, introducing well over 2000 bills by the February 17th bill introduction deadline. But, in comparison to prior
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FEHC Discusses Regs On Transgender Identity and National Origin Discrimination
Seyfarth Synopsis: On March 30, 2017, the California Fair Employment and Housing Council (“FEHC”) considered proposed regulations on transgender employees. The FEHC also discussed draft regulations on national origin discrimination in the workplace.
Transgender Identity. On March 30, 2017, the FEHC, convened in Sacramento for its second meeting of the year, voted unanimously to adopt proposed regulations on transgender identity
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More Alphabet Soup: A SF-Style Retail Workers Bills of Rights, A Proposed OSHA Regulation for Healthcare Workers, and an Update to the ABCs of the ACA
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
Continue Reading More Alphabet Soup: A SF-Style Retail Workers Bills of Rights, A Proposed OSHA Regulation for Healthcare Workers, and an Update to the ABCs of the ACA
Cal/OSHA Considers Changes to Its Policy on “Repeat” Violations — With Significant Implications for Employers
Consider this not-so-hypothetical example. An employer in California receives a citation from Cal/OSHA for a relatively minor safety violation involving no employee injuries. Maybe the citation was for inadequate training on a particular workplace hazard. The citation carries with it a penalty of $500. The employer could appeal the citation, and spend perhaps thousands of dollars to challenge the citation through a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge; or, it could write a check for $500, agree to fix the violation, and be done with it. In this light, the former response may seem extravagant, while the latter response could be seen as a rational business decision.
Now, fast forward two years from the date that the employer spent $500 to make that previous violation go away. The employer abated the prior violation by adequately training its employees shortly after paying the penalty. A newly-hired employee, however, failed to receive training on the same workplace hazard and suffered a serious injury when exposed to the hazard. After its investigation, the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (the investigative and prosecutorial arm of Cal/OSHA) cites the employer for a “repeat” violation. A “repeat” violation carries with it a significant increase in penalties: that $500 penalty now transforms into a serious, repeat violation with a penalty of up to $36,000. If the untrained employee had been killed, the employer would face a repeat penalty amount of up to $50,000, and the employer (and the responsible managers) would face potential criminal liability.
This is not a fanciful scenario. Under Cal/OSHA, employers are required to have an Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) in place to identify and respond to particular hazards in a workplace. In addition, the IIPP regulation mandates that employers train their employees on the hazards in the workplace. Yet, employers may be lulled into settling a Cal/OSHA citation by a short-term cost-benefit analysis of a particular citation and its accompanying penalties. But, except perhaps where an employer is in financial distress, the penalties should not be an employer’s chief concern. Instead, the focus should be on answering these questions:
Continue Reading Cal/OSHA Considers Changes to Its Policy on “Repeat” Violations — With Significant Implications for Employers
California Really Is Different: How Employers’ Obligations Differ Under Cal/OSHA With Respect to Reporting Serious Workplace Injuries
This blog post was originally published in Seyfarth Shaw’s Environmental & Safety Law Update.
California is one of 22 states and jurisdictions that has its own OSHA Plan covering private sector employers. The federal OSHA law, of course, continues to provide a minimum level of safety, or “floor,” under which these state regulations may not fall. But above this
Continue Reading California Really Is Different: How Employers’ Obligations Differ Under Cal/OSHA With Respect to Reporting Serious Workplace Injuries