Last week, in Jones vs. Riot Hospitality Group LLC, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a plaintiff’s employment discrimination suit because the plaintiff was found to have destroyed evidence. During the litigation in the trial court, the employer became concerned that the plaintiff had destroyed text messages between herself and other… Read More
Heads Up! Employers Now Required to Use a New Form I-9
In July of this year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) announced a new version of Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. The new version of Form I-9 is meant to streamline the employment eligibility verification for both the employer and the employee. As of November 1, 2023, all employers are required to start using the updated… Read More
California Expands Employee Whistleblower Protection
On May 22, 2023, the California Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision expanding employee whistleblower protection. In People ex rel. Garcia-Brower v. Kolla’s Inc., the Court held that the definition of the term “disclosure” in California Labor Code section 1102.5 includes reporting of a violation of a state or federal statute, or a violation of or… Read More
Updates to San Francisco’s “Safer Return Together Order” Effective August 20, 2021
Keeping up with the ever-changing COVID-19 landscape can be difficult, and the Delta variant seems to be escalating the timing for officials to get more guidelines in place. On August 12, 2021, there were some major changes made in San Francisco by the Department of Health, which will quickly go into effect. These updates were… Read More
Post-Pandemic Benefits: Employers Are Changing Their Benefits Priorities
The pandemic has changed everyone’s lives in so many ways. We likely will not realize all of those changes for a long time. Work life has changed for nearly everyone during this time, and our relationships to work, and how they relate to our personal lives, have been put under the microscope. In a recent… Read More
How COVID-19 is Shaping the U.S. Workforce
A recent article by Howard Schneider and Jonnelle Marte, published by Reuters, takes a closer look at how the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the economy and workforce of the United States. Many of the changes we all assumed would be temporary have become indefinite or permanent, and that is having a noticeable impact. The authors… Read More
Transitioning To A Permanent Remote Workforce? Here Are A Few Things To Consider
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of everyone’s lives. Many of the major changes have taken place at the workplace. Employers were forced to scramble to create systems to allow employees to work remotely. Initially, this was a huge challenge for many employers, particularly those that had never allowed employees to work remotely prior… Read More
Mandatory Sexual Harassment Training Materials Now Online
On May 10, 2019, we blogged about the updated requirements for California employers providing sexual harassment training to their employees, as defined in SB 1343. You can read that blog post here. SB 1343 requires that all employers who have 5 or more employees provide a minimum of 2 hours of sexual harassment prevention training… Read More
Unusual Times Call for a New Approach to Company Reorganization
The COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath have created a whole new world of challenges for employers. Many companies are facing the necessity of cost-cutting and the inevitability of reducing their workforce. A recent article in Harvard Business Review suggests an alternative approach to cost-cutting, rather than the typical top-down approach. Authors Patrick Daoust and Paul… Read More
The Essential Ingredient Now for Employers: Compassion
Many Bay Area counties have now extended the COVID-19 shelter-in-place order through May 31st. This new order affects employers and employees in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties, as well as those in the city of Berkeley. The extension of the stay-at-home order will no doubt spark even more… Read More
