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Julia Trankiem

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Note: All bills become effective January 1, 2018 unless stated otherwise.

AB 168 – Ban on Salary History Inquiries

NEW LAW: Effective January 1, 2018, California employers cannot ask a job applicant about his or her prior salary or seek out an applicant’s salary history through a third party. Employers may consider prior salary information that an applicant voluntarily discloses (but don’t forget that under Labor Code Section 1197.5, employees may not use an applicant’s salary history alone to justify a pay disparity). Furthermore, employers will now be required to provide a pay scale for a position whenever a job applicant inquires.

The intent of this law is to narrow the gender wage gap by preventing employers from basing offers on prior salary information and, thus, perpetuating historical lower pay for female employees. In that regard, California has followed a recent trend of “salary history ban” legislation; San Francisco banned salary history questions earlier this year and other jurisdictions, including New York City, Philadelphia, Puerto Rico, Delaware, Oregon, and Massachusetts, have all adopted similar laws.

REED SMITH RECOMMENDS: All recruiters and interviewers should be informed of the ban on salary history inquiries, and any job application materials or interview scripts which ask for such information should be revised immediately. Employers may still ask an applicant how much he or she would like to be paid or expects to be paid, which will provide a sense of the employment market and an applicant’s salary expectations without violating this new law. Employers should also prepare basic informational forms providing the pay scale for open positions or positions that may become open within the next few years so that this information is readily available if requested by job applicants. Finally, given the pay scale requirement of AB 168 and the potential liability facing employers for any gender wage gap following the passage of California’s Fair Pay Act in 2016, employers should seriously consider conducting a compensation audit to internally evaluate whether any gender-based wage discrepancies exist.
Continue Reading California’s Employment Law Class of 2017: The Summarized Laws and Recommendations for Compliance

On July 13, 2017, in a decision with serious repercussions on the scope of PAGA discovery, the California Supreme Court overruled the Court of Appeals in Williams v. Superior Court to allow state-wide discovery of Marshalls employees’ contact information, without the plaintiff first having to show any evidence to support his own individual claims or the existence of a company-wide policy.

Plaintiff was a Marshalls employee who brought an action under the California Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) for meal and rest break violations, timely wage payment, and wage statement violations. At the start of discovery, the plaintiff sought employee contact information pertaining to the approximately 16,500 non-exempt workers across all Marshalls locations in California.  Although the trial court and the Court of Appeals held that incremental discovery was more appropriate and denied the plaintiff’s request for any employee contact information outside of his own work location until after undergoing “six productive hours of deposition,” the California Supreme Court disagreed.

Instead, the Supreme Court, in a lengthy opinion, shut down each of the Court of Appeals’ objections to the plaintiff’s request for state-wide discovery.   First, the Supreme Court held that “[i]n pursuing such [representative] discovery, the strength or weakness of the plaintiff’s individual claim is immaterial.”  Second, the Supreme Court stated that state-wide discovery was proper absent any company-wide or uniform policy as “[a] uniform policy may be a convenient or desirable way to show commonality of interest in a case where class certification is sought, but it is not a condition for discovery, or even success, in a PAGA action…”
Continue Reading California Supreme Court Expands Scope of PAGA Discovery

On May 2, 2017, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) issued a Workplace Harassment Guide, which offers recommendations for employers on how to prevent and address harassment in the workplace. While the Guide focuses on workplace harassment, it also is a useful tool for how to handle other workplace issues, including discrimination…

Los Angeles’ Minimum Wage Ordinance, passed last summer, begins its steady increase to the city’s minimum wage on July 1.  The minimum wage will eventually increase to $15.00 by the year 2020 for large employers.  Smaller employers will enjoy a one-year reprieve.  With an estimated 800,000 people currently earning the minimum wage in Los Angeles, this legislation will have very real and practical ramifications on employers throughout the city.
Continue Reading Los Angeles City Minimum Wage Increase Set to Take Effect July 1, 2016

Earlier this week, the California Supreme Court, in Kilby v. CVS Pharmacy, clarified that the suitable seating requirement in several California wage orders may entitle employees to a seat when their tasks can be accomplished while seated. Specifically, the language states: “All working employees shall be provided with suitable seats when the nature of the work reasonably permits the use of seats.” There has been no interpretation as to what seats are “suitable,” who determines the “nature of the work,” or under what circumstances the “nature of the work” “reasonably permits” suitable seats.

The Ninth Circuit asked the California Supreme Court to weigh-in and interpret this language after its application arose in two federal appeals involving separate industries. In the underlying federal appeals cases, clerks/cashiers at CVS and tellers at a bank alleged that their employers failed to provide them with adequate seating.
Continue Reading California Supreme Court Takes a Stand About Employees Sitting

California employers may finally rejoice: there is now an employer-friendly state court decision, Higgins-Williams v. Sutter Med. Found., 237 Cal. App. 4th 78 (2015). The case takeaway is straightforward: an employee’s claimed inability to work under a supervisor because of the supervisor’s causing the employee anxiety and stress during standard oversight of the…

On July 13, 2015, Governor Brown signed Assembly Bill 304 – an amendment to California’s recently effective (as of July 1, 2015), statewide sick-leave law, known as the California Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (the Act). The Amendment is effective immediately. It adds significant new compliance options for employers, in addition to clarifying various ambiguities in the original Act. Below, we highlight the Amendment’s most important changes for employers.

Additional Accrual Options

The Amendment adds a third sick-leave accrual option for all employers: employers may accrue an employee’s sick-leave entitlement on a regular basis as long as it results in the employee earning at least 24 hours of sick leave by his or her 120th day of employment (or other 12-month accrual period).

  • Before the Amendment, employers were only permitted to accrue employee sick leave either (1) at an hourly rate (one hour for every 30 hours worked), or (2) granting a full 24 hours all at once at the start of the 12-month accrual period (i.e., frontloading)

Although the two pre-Amendment accrual options are still available to employers, the new, third option obviates employers’ need to tie sick-leave accrual to hours worked; sick leave can instead be tied to pay periods or other easy-to-measure benchmarks. The new accrual option will be particularly helpful for employers that wish to combine sick-leave policies with new Paid Time Off (PTO) policies, as most employers do not have PTO accrue on an hourly basis. For employers that had PTO policies in effect before January 1, 2015, the Amendment also allows for a fourth accrual option: such employers may continue existing PTO accrual methods as long as: (1) the accrual occurs on a regular basis; (2) the accrual results in each employee earning no less than one day (or eight hours) of sick leave or PTO within each three-month period of employment; and (3) employees are eligible to earn at least three days (or 24 hours) of sick leave or PTO within each nine-month period of employment. Note, however, that if an employer changes its accrual method under a pre-existing PTO policy (other than changes that merely increase the employee’s accrual amount or rate), it must then use one of the other accrual options going forward.Continue Reading New Amendment to California Sick-Leave Law Takes Effect

The California Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (“Healthy Families Act”) is fully effective July 1, 2015, including the significant potential for class-action liability for non-compliance. It is critical that employers ensure that their sick leave policy is current, given the ever-developing legal guidance. We have created a helpful list of common areas of confusion with this new law.

(1) General Background on the Healthy Families Act

The Healthy Families Act provides sick leave for absences from work for: (1) the diagnosis, care, or treatment (including preventive treatment) of an existing health condition of the employee or the employee’s family member, and (2) the employee being the victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. Family member is expansively defined to include children, parents, foster parents, legal guardians, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, spouses, and domestic partners.

The law requires employers to include information regarding accrual and use of sick leave with their employees’ wage statements. Further, employers must preserve these sick leave records for three years. Moreover, relevant posters and individual notices should have been posted and delivered as of January 1, 2015. New hires must also receive pertinent individual notices explaining their rights under the Healthy Families Act.

(2) Employees Must Provide “Reasonable” Notice.

The Healthy Families Act limits employers to requiring only “reasonable advance notification” of employee use of sick leave. Where unforeseeable, an employer may only require notice when “practicable.”Continue Reading California Sick Leave To Go into Effect July 1 – Be Aware of These Common Traps

A California state law that became effective January 1, 2015, substantially undermines the business decision to utilize temporary workers. A significant number of California employers who use temporary workers must now share responsibility and liability with the staffing agencies that provided these workers when claims arise under any of the following:

  • The payment of wages

…

For employers, a healthy workforce can mean improved productivity, lower absence rates, and a reduction in health insurance costs. In an effort to realize these rewards, many employers have implemented wellness programs, including programs that build in incentives for employee participation. One popular type of program asks employees to undergo health screenings, also known as…