By year end of 2019, California hotel and motel employers must train all of their employees about human trafficking – to raise awareness, teach employees how to spot victims, and provide guidance on what to do to help. As we pointed out in our January 2019 blog about new California employment laws, SB-970 mandates that… Read More
HR & Employment Law Blog
Heads Up — July 1 Minimum Wage Increases
If you do business in any of the cities below, be sure that as of July 1, 2019, you began paying any minimum wage employees at the current increased rates. If you use a payroll service, they likely notified you and took care of it. But if you handle your own payroll in-house, make sure… Read More
Independent Contractors Remain Dangerous for California Employers
As we blogged about last year here, in May 2018 the California Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court and dramatically changed the standard for determining whether California workers could be classified as employees or independent contractors. One key question that the Dynamex court explicitly refused to decide was whether… Read More
Employers Can Use Anti-SLAAP Statute to Force Early Screening of Some Employee Claims
California’s anti-SLAPP statute — found in Code of Civil Procedure §425.16 — allows a defendant to request early judicial screening of a legal claim that targets that defendant’s protected free speech or petitioning activities. Until yesterday, it has been an open question in California as to whether or not California’s anti-SLAPP statute could be used… Read More
California Bans Hairstyle Discrimination
On July 3, 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 188 — also known as the CROWN Act — and made California the first state in the country to outlaw discrimination based on “natural hair,” including afros, braids, twists, and locks. CROWN stands for Creating a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural hair. According to… Read More
Clever Contract Language Cannot Defeat Labor Code 218.5’s Fee-Shifting Effect
Under existing California law, an employee who prevails on his/her claims against an employer for non-payment of wages is entitled to recover his/her attorneys’ fees in addition to the unpaid wages owed. But the same is not true for an employer who prevails. Under existing California law, an employer is not entitled to recover its… Read More
A New Approach to Employee Benefits?
Recruiting and retaining talent is a challenge for every employer, especially in the red-hot economy here in the Bay Area. That’s why many employers are taking a fresh look at their employee benefits and asking, “Are these benefits really adding value?” A recent article in Forbes explains how “forward thinking” employers are embracing a new theory of… Read More
Have You Completed Your Mandatory Sexual Harassment Training?
As we blogged about previously, a new law came into effect January 1, 2019 requiring California employers with five or more employees to provide sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training for all employees by January 1, 2020. Prior to this new law, only employers with 50 or more employees were required to provide at… Read More
SCOTUS Rules Employees Cannot Band Together in Class Arbitrations
In yet another split 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lamps Plus v. Varela that employees at a California business could not band together in a class-wide arbitration. Instead, the Supreme Court ruled, each employee was required to proceed independently in an individual arbitration. The Supreme Court acknowledged that the arbitration agreement that… Read More
One Day, Two Opposite Results in Arbitration Cases
On the same day, two different California appellate courts reached opposite conclusions as to whether an employer’s arbitration agreement was enforceable or not. Subcontracting Concepts v. DeMelo — Arbitration Agreement Void and Unenforceable In one case, Subcontracting Concepts, LLC v. DeMelo, the Court found that the arbitration agreement was both procedurally and substantively unconscionable and, therefore, unenforceable…. Read More
