Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope everyone is getting some time to relax and enjoy some time with their families (and eat some great food).  Entering the holiday season, it is a good time to review employer’s obligations to accommodate requests for time off for holidays and best pay practices during holiday leaves.  This Friday’s Five covers five reminders for employers about holiday leaves and pay: 1. California employers are not required to provide employees time off…

In O’Grady v. Merchant Exchange Productions, Inc., the California Court of Appeals held that a mandatory service charge could potentially be found to be a gratuity that must be distributed to service employees.  The issue in the case is whether a “service charge” can be a “gratuity” that Labor Code section 351 requires to be distributed, only to non-managerial employees actually serving customers. Plaintiff, Lauren O’Grady, is a banquet server and bartender at the…

Being named as a defendant in a class action or Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) lawsuit can be overwhelming, especially for a growing company. However, with planning, a company can minimize the impact of litigation on its existing operations and put forth the best defense. Here are five steps a company can take as part of this planning process, upon being notified of an existing lawsuit. 1. Contact employment counsel. A lawyer who has experience…

How to conduct a termination is not covered in management class, or any class for that reason.  Yet the termination process is one of the more common business decisions that will receive the most scrutiny and is likely the most legally challenged decisions in the workplace.  In addition, terminations trigger immediate legal obligations that the company must be ready to deal with on a moment’s notice.  Just as companies focus on the hiring process to…

With new legal requirements facing California employers by January 1, 2020, this Friday’s Five focuses on five initial steps that employers can begin implementing now: 1. Minimum Wage and Exempt Employees Salary Threshold: Adjust pay levels for increasing minimum wage and ensure exempt employees are paid minimum threshold salaries to qualify as exempt. Effective January 1, 2020, the California minimum wage for employers with 25 employees or less will be $12.00/hour, and for employers with…

Fires are again affecting California and Los Angeles.  As of this morning, October 25, 2019, 50,000 people have been evacuated in northern Los Angeles County due to the Tick fire.  Given the evacuations and electrical grid shutdowns by Pacific Gas & Electric to prevent power lines from starting fires, employers need to understand their obligations regarding pay and leave issues during times of natural disasters. 1. Reporting time pay obligations California law requires an employer…

California has finalized all new employment laws for 2020.  Most of the new employment laws are are effective on January 1, 2020.  In my prior post I wrote about a few of the new laws (click here to view), but now that the legislative year is closed, I wanted to cover five additional key employment laws that California employers need to understand and be aware of going into 2020: AB 25 – Employees’ …