It’s October, and while it doesn’t feel like fall in Southern California, it is the time of the year for office Halloween parties. Some offices choose to avoid potential legal issues by skipping holiday parties altogether, including Halloween parties. However, some more festive employers look at Halloween and other holidays as an opportunity for team-building.…
California’s new Fair Pay Act, which became law on Tuesday, October 6, is posed to be a litigation game-changer for companies that do business in California. Signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, the Act is intended to “strengthen” the state’s existing equal-pay law by forbidding employers from paying employees less than their opposite-sex counterparts…
New x-mod formulas have been approved and employers should be focusing on limiting the number vs. cost of claims. Changes are afoot in how experience modifications are going to be calculated. An experience modification or “X-Mod” is a percentage calculated by the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (“WCIRB”) based on an employer’s payroll, number of…
The payment of wages to employees in California is governed by the California Labor Code and regulations promulgated by the Industrial Welfare Commission. These laws and regulations are enforced by the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement. These laws set forth the basic standards for minimum wage, overtime, tips, meal and rest breaks, and time worked. …
An ongoing issue for many California employers relates to minimum wage laws. Often, businesses violate wage and hour laws without knowing it. Unfortunately, ignorance is not a defense should a disgruntled employee decide to take legal action against you. California minimum wage Although there are some exceptions, almost all employees in California must be paid…
With summer just around the corner, many businesses are looking forward to the inexpensive and/or free labor provided by unpaid interns. What many businesses may not know is that courts are cracking down on what businesses are able to ‘get away’ with in terms of unpaid internships, as more and more unpaid interns file related…
Think you can fire an employee for posting obscenities aimed at a supervisor? Think again. According to a recently published NLRB decision, an employer violated Section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor Relations Act by firing an employee for an obscenity-laced spiteful Facebook post directed towards a supervisor on the grounds that the employee’s…
The importance of an employee handbook cannot be overstated. In the past, employers would hire their staff and give verbal instructions about the expectations of their job, if they provided any at all. Today, however, with employment laws changing frequently (often each July and January) and with more and more lawsuits arising out of policy…
In a landmark decision affecting workers’ wages, the California Supreme Court recently held that employees who are merely “on call” at the employers’ behest are, in fact, “working” and must be paid their full wages. This is the first case to determine that simply being on call, i.e. being ready to work, is actually working…
Your new employee starts work on September 1, 2015 (yes, a few months down the road, but let’s just imagine…). On December 1, 2015, they request several days paid sick leave. Your first reaction may be to say “not yet” but under a new law known as the Healthy Families Act of 2014 (which goes into effect July 15, 2015), you will be required to provide paid sick leave to certain California employees who have worked 30 days. In other words, once your employee works 30 days, as an employer, you are required to provide sick time of up to 3 days. Of course, an employer can
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