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:
On October 4, 2023, Governor Newsom approved a new law, SB 616, that increases the amount of paid sick leave that nearly every employer in California must offer to employees. Here are five key issues California employers need to understand about the new law and to comply with its requirements:
1. New requirements under
As employers and employees adapt to the new realities of working from home on a permanent or modified basis, employers need to be aware of the employment law issues that arise with such arrangements. This Friday’s Five covers five items employers should review for employees working from home:
1. Confidentiality and security.
Employers are able
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
[Update: On February 9, 2022, the Governor signed SB 114 into law – see our updated article here on the new California supplemental paid sick leave requirements enacted by this law].
This week, Assembly Bill 84 (AB 84) was published setting forth the parameters of a proposed law for another COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave
Cal/OSHA Emergency Temporary Standards (“ETS”) apply to most workplaces in California, with very few exceptions. Enacted in November of 2020, the ETS sets requirements for California employers related to COVID-19 protocols for exposures at the workplace and measures to take if employees are exposed to or catch COVID-19 at the workplace. We have written about
This Friday’s Five focuses on five California employment related news items that got my attention this week:
1. California considering reinstating COVID paid sick leave in 2022.
As California’s supplemental paid sick leave expired in September 2021, and Governor Newsom decided not to extend it by executive order. Now there are discussions of bringing COVID
On June 24, 2021, Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an Order mandating COVID-19 Vaccine Leave (“Vaccine Leave”) for employees who work in the City of Los Angeles. The requirements of the Order apply retroactively to January 1, 2021. The Order is currently set to terminate on its own on September 30, 2021, with minor exceptions for
On Friday, we replayed our March 23 webinar covering various topics including the American Rescue Plan’s renewal of FFCRA benefits and California’s brand new COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave (SB 95). In both the original run and the replay, we got tons of great questions from employers about these two new laws. Below are
(Thanks to Veenita Raj who co-wrote this week’s Friday’s Five)
An employer’s obligation to provide mandatory paid sick and family leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) ended on December 31, 2020. The FFCRA applies to employers with 500 or fewer employees. The payroll tax credits for employers who voluntarily decided to continue