Employers, you may want to take a seat for this… Recently, the Supreme Court of California ruled that under Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Order No. 7-2001, “all working employees shall be provided with suitable seats when the nature of the work reasonably permits the use of seats.” The court held that employers must examine the…
With the prevalence of class action lawsuits in an employee-friendly state like California, employers must be aware of proper time card rounding policies and what work is being conducted off the clock by their employees. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal recently issued a pro-employer decision approving the use of time card rounding and solidifying…
With the seemingly endless claims surrounding employee misclassification (think Uber, Lyft, and the now out-of-business HomeJoy), many employers are understandably cautious about how they classify their workers. Unfortunately, there is no single test that enables an employer to quickly or easily determine whether an individual can/should be hired as an independent contractor/consultant/freelancer or as an…
As we have discussed previously in this blog, wage and hour lawsuits continue to be prevalent. Employers big and small have been facing an upward trend in wage-hour lawsuits over the past 10-15 years, and there is currently no end in sight. In the year 2000, for example, there were approximately 2,000 wage-hour claims filed…
As we discussed at length in this post, this year we will see substantial changes to FEHA that will affect business owners across the country, including in California. To get specific, FEHA’s new regulations set forth that, as of April 1, 2016, employers must have anti-discrimination and harassment policies that: · Are in writing. · …
2016 is a busy year in the often-changing world of California employment law. We have discussed many of the updates employers need to be aware of here (think minimum wage increase, the Fair Pay Act, changes to Unruh, and more). The newest change that California businesses need to be aware of involves changes to the…
2016 brought with it a host of new legislation for California employers. With the passage of the Fair Pay Act, new piece rate legislation, family time off, and the expansion of Unruh to give stronger protection to immigrants, to name a few, it is understandable if employers are having a hard time keeping up. Unfortunately,…
When it comes to whistleblower claims, employers in the healthcare and defense industries must consider an additional piece of legislation: the federal False Claims Act (FCA). Based on the sharp increase in FCA whistleblowers bringing major actions against health care organizations and other businesses in recent years, the need for a sharpened awareness is not…
As we discussed in this post, Governor Brown recently signed into law California’s Fair Pay Act, which amends Labor Code section 1197.5. The Act, which becomes effective on January 1, 2016, is intended to strengthen the state’s existing equal pay laws by eliminating loopholes that prevent effective enforcement and by empowering employees to discuss their…
As an ardent college football fan, the recent firing of (now former) USC football coach Steve Sarkisian has been of interest to me. On one hand, this makes for an attention-grabbing turn of events for USC football. On the other, the school’s reaction to Sarkasian allegedly showing up drunk to practice has some wondering: Should…