In February 2025, a bill introduced in the California Senate aims to strengthen enforcement against employers who fail to pay workers their legally owed wages. Senate Bill 355 (SB 355), authored by Senator Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), would grant the…

In February of 2025, California State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced SB 310, a bill aimed at improving workers’ access to justice when employers pay their wages late or not at all. Currently, workers typically file wage claims with…

The Harvard-UCSF Report The Harvard Kennedy School and the University of California at San Francisco have issued a report that shows rampant wage violations occurring in California workplaces. A copy of the report can be downloaded here. Some highlights from…

One of the common employer defenses we come across when representing employees in wage claims is the “independent contractor defense”. The argument goes, since the worker was only an independent contractor and was never an employee, the worker falls completely…

Senate Bill 525 is a legislative measure that enhances the protections for healthcare workers, especially those who are on-call or on standby. This bill is designed to ensure that healthcare professionals are fairly compensated for the periods when they are…

In 2023, significant updates were made to California’s Family and Medical Leave Act (CFRA) through legislative amendments (Assembly Bill 1041). The key updates include: These changes piggyback on a major change in 2021. Before 2021, CFRA applied only to employers…

We often get asked if “fat-shaming” or discrimination based on body size is illegal in the workplace. The answer is unfortunately not simple. What Does the Law Say? California’s legal framework, specifically the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), provides…