The California worker classification bill, Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), advanced closer to passage just prior to the Labor Day weekend. Please recall, AB 5, which is Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez’s proposed legislation regarding worker classification (discussed below and in a prior article by Jackson Lewis here), was referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee suspense file on August 12, 2019.  On Friday, August 30, the Appropriations Committee passed AB 5 and returned the bill…

On August 30, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill (SB) 778, which amends Section 12950.1 of the California Government Code. SB 778 extends California employers’ obligation from January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2021, to comply with sexual harassment trainings as outlined under California Government Code section 12950.1. Please recall, per Govt. Code section 12950.1, an employer with 5 or more employees must provide at least 2 hours of interactive training regarding sexual harassment…

By way of background, in Palacio v. Jan & Gail’s Care Homes, Inc. (2015) 242 Cal.App.4th 1133, the Fifth District Court of Appeal considered the interplay between subdivisions 11(A) and 11(E) of Wage Order No. 5. Subdivision 11(A) allows employers and employees to agree that meal periods will be on duty and to revoke these voluntary agreements at any time and states: No employer shall employ any person for a work period of more than…

The California Supreme Court recently held that the tort claim of conversion is not an appropriate vehicle for plaintiffs seeking recovery of unpaid wages. In Voris v. Lampert (Cal. 2019) Case No. S241812, the plaintiff brought suit against three start-up ventures and two individual defendants to recover wages which had been promised to the plaintiff but never paid. The operative complaint raised twenty-four causes of action including: breach of oral contract, quantum meruit, fraud, failure…

It is back to school time for school children, which means that parents are more likely to request time off to attend to child care or other school activities. And in California—parents have leave entitlements which employers should be mindful of. California Labor Code section 230.8 provides such time off for certain employees to participate in these activities. Employers who employ 25 or more individuals in one location are required to provide this leave to…

As Bay Area employers are well aware, San Francisco has several local employment-related ordinances that provide additional benefits to individuals performing work within the geographical boundaries of the City. One such benefit is paid parental leave. Currently, employers who have 20 or more employees (located anywhere) are required to provide eligible San Francisco employees with up to 6 weeks of supplemental compensation when an employee takes time off to bond with a new child and…

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), considered the most expansive U.S. privacy laws to date, is set to take effect January 1, 2020. In short, the CCPA places limitations on the collection and sale of a consumer’s personal information and provides consumers certain rights with respect to their personal information. Wondering whether they will have to comply, many organizations are asking if the law will apply to them, hoping that being too small, being…