As California employers recover from the whirlwind of the 2020 Legislative Session, one bright spot is the Governor’s veto of Assembly Bill 3216, which would have established statewide recall rights and right of retention for laid-off employees. The Governor stated he had a concern of creating a “patchwork of requirements in different counties.” While some employers felt relief over the veto, many employers doing business in cities that already issued right of recall ordinances…

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (“DFEH”) recently released  Frequently Asked Questions  (“FAQ”) for California’s Fair Chance Act. The Fair Chance Act, commonly referred to as California’s “ban the box” law, imposes restrictions on when and how employers may inquire about and consider an applicant’s criminal history, including prohibiting employers with five or more employees from asking about an applicant’s criminal history until after a conditional offer of employment has been made. The…

On September 29th, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law AB 1281, an amendment to the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) that would extend the current exemption on employee personal information from most of the CCPA’s protections, until January 1, 2022. The exemption on employee personal information was slated to sunset on December 31, 2020.  It is important to highlight that under the current exemption, while employees are temporarily excluded from most of the…

On September 30, 2020, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 3075 (“AB 3075”) which expands the information corporations must include in the corporation’s statement of information filed with the California Secretary of State. Specifically, AB 3075, requires a corporation to include whether any officer or any director or in the case of a limited liability company, a member or manager, has an outstanding final judgment issued by the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (“DLSE”) or court…

On September 30, 2020, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2479, which extends until January 1, 2026, the exemption from the rest period requirements for specified employees who hold a safety-sensitive position at a petroleum facility and are required to respond to emergencies.  Before the passage of this legislation, the exemption was scheduled to remain in effect until January 1, 2021. The exemption provides that the requirement that employees be relieved of all duties during…

On September 30, 2020, the Governor signed Assembly Bill 323 (“AB 323”), which is intended to support local journalism. Part of the new law focuses on California’s official advertising, requiring the Department of General Services publish by July 1 each year information relating to payments of placement marketing and outreach advertising material by each state agency. The latter part of the bill expands exemptions of the application of Assembly Bill 5 (“AB 5”) to newspaper…

On September 30, 2020, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1512 (“AB 1512”), which for the first time allows employers to require their unionized security officers to take on-duty rest breaks.  Historically, employees could agree to take on-duty meal breaks (with certain prerequisites), but the law was silent as to on-duty rest breaks.  In enacting AB 1512, the legislature recognized that security officers must be able to respond to emergency situations without delay, must carry and…