California Employers, Watch For Sharp Turns Ahead
If you operate a business in California, you know how difficult it is to keep up with ever-changing legal trends. California employers should review and refresh their workplace postings each year to keep up with legislative changes and annual minimum wage increases. Various California state agencies, including the Department of Industrial Relations (“DIR”)
Continue Reading Signs You Can’t Ignore If You’re Doing Business In CaliforniaSeyfarth Synopsis: With the Governor’s September 30 deadline to sign bills behind us, we review the employment bills that made the cut to become laws, as well as those that didn’t survive the season. The most notable new laws read intersectionality into FEHA protected categories, recast victims’ time off provisions, adjust paid family leave, and impact protections for freelance workers
Continue Reading Legislative Update: Bills That Made the Final Cut For 2024Seyfarth Synopsis: Governor Gavin Newsom has approved AB 701, which will impose notice and other requirements on employers of employees subject to quotas in large California warehouse distribution centers, and has vetoed AB 616, an agricultural worker card check bill.
Acting on the first two major employment-related bills of interest to private employers, Governor Newsom on September 22, 2021 approved
Continue Reading Warehouse Quota Bill Signed, Agricultural Worker Card Check Bill Vetoed
Seyfarth Synopsis: California has long prohibited sexual harassment in various types of relationships, including employment relationships, and in other professional and business relationships which have elements of power imbalance. Although the right to sue for sexual harassment in business and professional relationships has been part of the fabric of California law for decades, in recent years, the legislature has taken
Continue Reading Prohibiting Sexual Harassment in Non-Employment Professional Relationships
Seyfarth Synopsis: On March 4, 2021, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (“DFEH”) provided some much needed clarity in its updated COVID-19 Related Guidance. The Guidance answers many pressing questions for employers regarding COVID-19, including the all-important question: Can employers mandate their employees to get a vaccine?
In short, yes, California employers may require their employees to
Continue Reading Updated DFEH Guidance on Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Policies
Seyfarth Synopsis: Headlining the number of employment-related bills California legislators introduced by the February 19th deadline are those that would extend COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave and provide other leaves and accommodations.
After last year’s pandemic-caused truncation of the 2020 legislative session—in which the governor signed only 372 new laws, the fewest since 1967—many expected the introduction of a large
Continue Reading Legislative Update: Paid Leave and Accommodation Tops 2021 Legislative Year
Seyfarth Synopsis: As employers expected, the pandemic has brought new challenges to managing a workforce, and of course, new litigation. Here we address hotspots of COVID-19 litigation in California to help employers know where they should be taking special care.
Participants on either side of recent employment litigation in California can often point to the same scapegoat: “COVID made me
Continue Reading The Ultimate Scapegoat: COVID Inspired Lawsuits in California
Seyfarth Synopsis: Employment-related cases pending before the California Supreme Court concern various questions that sometimes seem technical, but the answers they elicit will have big consequences. Questions raised by the current crop of cases include standing to sue, the availability of certain claims and remedies, federal preemption of California laws, what counts as compensable time, and—that perennial favorite—how to interpret
Continue Reading 2019 Employment Law: Cases Pending in the California Supreme Court
Seyfarth Synopsis: The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing issues a yearly report describing its complaint and litigation trends. Below is the Reader’s Digest™ version.
The DFEH recently issued its 2017 Annual Report covering its fifth year in active litigation. In 2013, the California Legislature authorized the DFEH to file lawsuits under the Fair Employment and Housing
Continue Reading DFEH Reports Age Discrimination And Retaliation Claims On the Rise
Seyfarth Synopsis: Employers, take note—the long-awaited, new FEHA regulations related to national origin are about to take effect! Come July 1, 2018, new regulations on national origin under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act reflect a broad definition of national origin, codify existing case law, and intensify already strict regulations prohibiting harassment, discrimination, and retaliation based on national
Continue Reading New FEHC Regulations: The Galactic Expanse of National Origin Law in California