As employees start requesting time off for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, it’s a good time for California employers to revisit the state’s unusual rules on vacation and paid time off (PTO). California does not require employers to offer paid vacation at all, but once an employer does, the benefit is treated as earned wages
In my final scorecard on the Governor’s signing decisions, AB 1883 got two sentences and one piece of homework: ask your camera-analytics and call-monitoring vendors whether any feature scores “sentiment” or “engagement,” and turn it off for employees. That is still the homework. But at yesterday’s Zaller Law Masterclass on the new laws for
In last week’s final scorecard on the Governor’s signing decisions, I listed SB 947, the “No Robo Bosses Act of 2026,” among the technology bills that became law. It needs a fuller treatment. Governor Newsom signed it on September 30. The law adds Part 5.5.5 to the Labor Code (§§ 1520–1526.7) and makes California
Earlier this month I presented a program for the Beverly Hills Bar Association titled “Defending Businesses to Minimize Litigation Exposure.” The material was built around the questions I get from business owners and HR teams every week: where is the liability actually coming from in 2026, what quietly creates it, and what can an employer
Every wage and hour case that comes into our office starts the same way. Before we talk strategy and long before mediation, we ask the client for one thing: the raw time and payroll data. Not a summary. The punch-level time records, the payroll register with every pay code, and the wage statements. That data
Scaled Comp’s August Settlement Pulse recorded about 225 California PAGA and wage-and-hour settlements totaling $157.4 million. The medians tell you where the market sat. They don’t tell you why one employer paid six times what another did for nearly the same number of pay periods, what a $6.5 million fund is actually buying, or whether
The Legislature adjourned on Monday night, August 31, 2026, and everything it passed is now on Governor Newsom’s desk. He has until September 30 to sign or veto each bill. This is his last signing period before his term ends in January, so there is no next year for him to reconsider anything — what
Most executives operate on a comfortable assumption: the company is the employer, so the company bears the wage and hour liability. Form the entity correctly, keep your corporate housekeeping in order, and your personal assets stay out of the line of fire. In California, that assumption is wrong. Labor Code section 558.1 allows a plaintiff
As we move through 2026, it remains the perfect time for California employers to return to the fundamentals. With evolving employment laws, local ordinances, aggressive enforcement, and high volumes of wage-and-hour and PAGA claims, getting the basics right continues to separate smooth operations from costly litigation and penalty exposure.
The 2024 PAGA reforms remain central:
Getting served with a wage and hour class action or PAGA lawsuit is one of the worst days a California business owner or executive can have. The complaint typically alleges nearly every wage and hour violation in the Labor Code, claims to be brought on behalf of every employee you have had over the last