WORKPLACE LAW -
New Bill Regarding Sick Leave
Question:
I saw your article last week about the new bill that would require employers to provide sick leave. Are there any other important pieces of legislation out there that would impact California employers such as myself? I’m just wondering what changes might be coming down the road. Thank you!
Answer:
At the moment there are several pieces of proposed legislation—in both the State Assembly and the Senate—that could have significant impacts on employers in California. While the number of proposed bills is too many to summarize here, the following are some of the more interesting Assembly and Senate bills that are currently pending before the legislature:
AB 435 (Brownley)—Wage discrimination.
Existing law prohibits any employer from discriminating in the amount of wages paid for equal work, based upon the sex of the employee. Existing law also requires employers to maintain the wage and job classification records of its employees for 2 years, and provides a 2-year statute of limitations for an employee to bring a civil action against an employer to recover wages (the statute of limitations is 3 years in the case of willful violation by the employer). AB 435 would require employers to maintain these records for 5 years. This bill would also extend the statute of limitations to 4 years for a civil action by an employee to recover wages, and to 5 years for actions in which there is willful misconduct of the employer.
AB 510 (Benoit)—Working hours.
Existing law establishes 8 hours as a day's work and a 40-hour workweek, and requires payment of prescribed overtime compensation for additional hours worked. Existing law also authorizes the adoption by 2/3 of employees in a work unit of alternative workweek schedules (AWS) providing for workdays no longer than 10 hours within a 40-hour workweek. This bill would permit an individual nonexempt employee to request an employee-selected flexible work schedule providing for workdays up to 10 hours per day within a 40-hour workweek, and would allow an employer to implement this schedule without any obligation to pay overtime compensation.
AB 1034 (Keene)—Meal periods.
Existing law requires an employer to provide an employee who works more than 5 hours per day with a meal period of not less than 30 minutes, unless the employee’s total work period is not more than 6 hours, in which case it may be waived by mutual agreement. An employee working more than 10 hours per day must be provided with a second meal period of not less than 30 minutes, unless the total daily work period does not exceed 12 hours, in which case the second meal period may be waived by mutual agreement. This bill would require that the first meal period be commenced not later than the completion of the employee’s sixth hour of work.
SB 1583 (Corbett)—Independent contractors.
Under existing law, anyone who knowingly enters into a contract for services that require an independent contractor license with a person who does not meet the legal requirements for independent contractor status is subject to a penalty of $200/person for each day of the contract. This bill would provide that a person who knowingly advises another person to treat an individual as an independent contractor in order to avoid employee status would be jointly and severally liable with the employer if the individual is later found not to be an independent contractor.
SB 1192 (Margett)—Meal and rest periods.
Under existing law, an employer is prohibited from requiring an non-exempt employee to work during a meal or rest period mandated by an applicable Wage Order, and is required to pay that employee one additional hour’s pay at the employee’s regular rate of pay for failure to provide the mandated meal or rest period. Currently, the additional hour of pay is classified as a “wage.” Because the failure to pay a wage is subject to a three-year statute of limitations (whereas the failure to pay a penalty is only subject to a one-year statute of limitations), employers are subject to the longer statute of limitations for the recovery of unpaid meal and rest period payments. In addition, employees who are suing their employers for unpaid meal/rest period wages are now able to recover attorneys’ fees, as well as waiting time penalties if the payments for the missed meals or rest periods were still due and owing at the time of termination. This bill would provide that the payment to the employee for failure to provide a meal or rest period is a statutory penalty, and does not constitute additional wages to the employee. The bill would also clarify that an employer “provides” a meal or rest period by making one available to the employee without interfering with its use.
If you are interested in this legislation, you can read the text of the above bills (including the sick leave bill, AB 2716) and follow their status on the following website: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov. If you feel particularly strongly about these or any other bills, you may wish to contact your Assembly member or Senator to voice your opinion on this legislation. You can find the information on how to contact them at the following website address:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html.
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