California’s legislature has been busy this year with new or revised employment laws. Here are a few:
• Mandatory Paid Sick Leave (AB 304) – Any company with even one employee must provide paid sick leave to every employee.
• School Activities Leave (SB 579) – Broadened the reasons for unpaid time off for parents.
• Fair Pay Act (SB 358) — All employees must be paid equally for equal skill, effort, and responsibility with the same company.
• Meal Periods Health Care Industry (SB 327) – Health care industry workers can voluntarily waive one of their two meal periods.
• Reasonable Accommodation and Retaliation (AB 987) — Clarifies that an employer can’t retaliate or discriminate against an employee for requesting a reasonable accommodation for a disability or religion, regardless of whether the request was granted.
• Piece Rate Workers (AB 1513) — Requires piece rate workers to also be paid for “non-productive time” (e.g., rest breaks or gaps).
Workers’ Compensation (several bills) — Ensures all workers are covered regardless of citizenship or immigration status and has changes to the DWC-1 form and relevant posters.
About Your Columnist
CJ Westrick is a featured columnist for Women Taking Charge, the official blog of Connected Women of Influence, where she covers all things human resources and managing people in the workplace. CJ Westrick, SPHR, has been in human resources (HR) management for over 20 years and has maintained her SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources) national certification since 2002. She started HR Jungle, a human resources consulting firm, in 2006 to provide senior-level HR expertise to businesses without internal HR.
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