During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, California enacted a temporary right to recall for hospitality employees, codified as Labor Code section 2810.8 (see our related post describing the law here). This law covers laid-off employees who were employed for the 6 or more months preceding January 1, 2020, and whose layoff was due to a reason related to the COVID-10 pandemic. The law was scheduled to expire on December 31, 2024.

Covered employers include hotels with fifty or more guest rooms, airport hospitality operations and service providers, certain event centers, and ...

California’s COVID-19 notice requirements under California Labor Code § 6409.6, requiring employer notice to employees of COVID-19 exposures in the workplace, will expire at the end of 2023.

However, although these state notice requirements will expire, under Cal/OSHA’s COVID-19 non-emergency regulations, employers must still notify employees and independent contractors who had a close contact with a COVID-19 case, as well as any employer with an employee who had a close contact, as soon as possible.  Local health department requirements may also apply.

The end of 2023 ...

The California Office of Administrative Law approved the California Civil Rights Council’s proposed amendment to the California Fair Chance Act, effective October 1, 2023. In addition to providing employers with further guidance on how to handle job applicants with a criminal history, the amendment also expands which employers and job applicants fall under the scope of the FCA.

Originally enacted in 2018, the FCA aims to remove unnecessary difficulties for individuals with criminal backgrounds to find employment. Specifically, the FCA prohibits an employer with five or more ...

Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), employees have “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”  In Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113 (2023), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) adopted a new, stricter standard for assessing workplace policies for the purpose of protecting these employee rights.  Under the new standard, a work rule is ...

Earlier this year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division (WHD) entered into a memorandum of understanding “to maximize and improve the enforcement of” the laws administered by the two agencies.  The purpose of the MOU is to foster better collaboration between the agencies through “information sharing, joint investigations, training, and outreach.”

Taking immediate effect, the organizations have agreed to broader information and data sharing between each other.  Notably, either organization “may share ...

Since 2011, the Wage Theft Prevention Act has required California employers to provide certain written information to new employees at the time of hiring and within seven days of any change. The Labor Commissioner provides a form Notice to Employee Labor Code Section 2810.5 for this purpose. 

Beginning January 1, 2024, Assembly Bill 636 will amend Labor Code 2810.5 to require employers to include in the 2810.5 Notice information regarding any federal or state emergency or disaster declaration issued within 30 days before hire that applies to the county or counties in which the ...

Unfortunately, incidents of workplace violence are taking place with increasing frequency.  In an effort to give employers additional tools to combat these issues, the California Legislature has given us Senate Bill 553.  Effective January 1, 2024, SB 553 amends Code of Civil Procedure section 527.8 to permit any employer that employs someone who has suffered unlawful violence or a credible threat of violence from any individual that can reasonably be construed to be carried out or to have been carried out at the workplace to seek a temporary restraining order on behalf of the employee ...

Q: I was involved in a now closed receivership. I want access to some of the records of the entity that was in receivership and some emails and information I believe was sent to the receiver or her counsel. I contacted the former receiver. She said the entity’s records she had have been destroyed and if I want emails or information she or her counsel have, I would have to subpoena them and pay for the cost of locating and producing the items. Is this appropriate?

A: Probably. It depends on what the order approving the receiver’s final account and report, or other orders, state about record ...

The California Legislature recently passed Assembly Bill 933, a bill expanding privileged speech to expressly include communications regarding factual information pertaining to incidents of sexual assault, harassment or discrimination.

Currently, California statutes list specific types of oral and written communications that are privileged and therefore cannot be the basis for a claim of defamation against the speaker.  Privileged categories include, among other things, statements made in pursuit of a lawsuit or made in the proper discharge of an official duty.  ...

The National Labor Relations Board recently issued a final rule broadening who may be considered a joint employer of another employer’s employees under the National Labor Relations Act.

Under the former rule, passed in February 2020 during the Trump administration, an entity is considered a joint employer of a separate’s employer’s employees only if the two employers “share or codetermine the employees’ essential terms and conditions of employment, which are exclusively defined as wages, benefits, hours of work, hiring, discharge, discipline, supervision, and ...