California’s 2022 COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave becomes effective tomorrow, February 19, 2022 (for background and basics about the new law, see our prior post here). This week, the Labor Commissioner published additional resources just before the law becomes effective. Below is a summary of the notice requirements (and with a link to the
Employers need to prepare and plan on how to defend claims brought before the California Labor Commissioner. With some planning, the process is a lot less daunting. Here are five issues employers must understand in defending Labor Commissioner claims:
1. Understanding the claims made by the employee.
Employers usually become aware of a complaint to
On April 16, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-51-20, which provides new paid sick leave to certain food service workers. Citing a need to fill a “gap” left by the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which applies solely to employers with fewer than 500 employees, this new Executive Order provides up to 80 hours of “COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave” to defined food sector workers.
(Zaller Law Group is hosting a free webinar on Friday, April 24, 2020, to discuss this new Executive Order and answer your questions. Join us for Understanding California’s New Paid Sick Leave Requirements For Food Sector Employees.)
Here is what you need to know.
Executive Order N-51-20 applies to employers with 500 or more employees in the United States, including full-time and part-time workers but not including independent contractors. Employees on leave of any kind are counted, but employees furloughed or laid off are not counted unless and until they are reemployed.
The Executive Order expressly applies to any “Delivery Network Company” (companies that use a website or mobile app to enable local delivery of products/food from third-party merchants; think Postmates or GrubHub) and any “Transportation Network Company” (companies that provide transportation services using online apps/platforms that connect passengers with drivers using a personal vehicle; think Uber or Lyft) that employs 500 or more employees.
As with the FFCRA and FMLA, common employees of joint or integrated employers must be counted together.
There is one exception: if, as of April 16, 2020, the employer already provides a “supplemental benefit” such as paid leave that provides the same or greater benefit provided by this Executive Order, then the employer does not have to provide the COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave.
The Executive Order applies to “Food Sector Workers,” which it defines as any person who satisfies one of the following criteria:Continue Reading California’s COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave Order: What Employers Need to Know
Happy Friday! This Friday’s Five provides five legal requests and/or notices that, if ignored, can create huge liability for a California employer.
1. Requests for personnel records and time records
There are many different Labor Code provisions that obligate the employer to provide current and former employees with a copy of their personnel files and/or
California employers are required to provide non-exempt employees with certain information upon hire as required by the Wage Theft Protection Act. The law became effective in 2012 and is codified at Labor Code section 2810.5. Many employers use the Labor Commissioner’s template (embedded below) to meet their legal requirement, and will pre-populate the items in
The EEOC recently disclosed its fiscal year 2015 performance report. The report is a good reminder to employers of the issues that they may likely face EEOC scrutiny. Here are five key statistics employers should pay attention to:
1. EEOC obtained more than $525 million in discrimination suits.
Of this amount, the parties settled disputes
I can hear the questions already, just five new laws taking effect on January 1, 2016? No, there are many more, as I have previously written about, but here are five additional new laws employers need to understand going into 2016.
1. Family members of whistleblower are granted protections and some employers are excluded
Earlier this week Uber appealed a California Labor Commissioner ruling against it holding that a driver was misclassified as an independent contractor. In this video, I briefly discuss the ruling and the lesson it holds for employers.
Misclassification of employees as independent contractors can carry many damages and penalties. For example, Sections 226.8 and
Is your company in an industry that is likely to be targeted by the Department of Labor (DOL) for FLSA violations, or by the California Labor Commissioner for California Labor Code violations? A review of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour statistics for fiscal year 2014, in connection with California’s Division of Labor Standards
You may recall from your college business law class of the “American rule” regarding attorney’s 
fees: generally in the United States each side is responsible to their own attorney’s fees, and unlike other countries, the loser does not have to pay the other party’s attorney’s fees. Employers can basically ignore this general rule