Mariko Yoshihara
LOBBY DAY
Thank you to all of the CELA members who made it to Sacramento last month to lobby on court funding and our top legislative priorities. Over 70 members participated in Lobby Day this year, where we dispatched in small teams to meet with nearly 80 legislative offices! This year, we discussed the need to prioritize court funding in the state budget, to protect PAGA from several menacing legislative attacks, and to expand our leave laws so that more new parents have job protection to bond with a new baby. Most importantly, our teams conveyed to legislators and their staff the kind of work that we do to ensure that all workers are treated fairly in the workplace and paid properly for all of their work.
KEY BILLS
In the next few months, committee hearings will be ramping up to review the hundreds of bills that were introduced earlier this year. Just last week, the Senate Labor Committee approved our parental leave bill, SB 63 (authored by Senator Jackson), on a party-line vote. The bill will move next to the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing this month. We can also expect the hearings for the bills proposing to amend the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) to come later this month.
Below is a partial list of bills we are tracking and actively working on. If you have experience or feedback on any of the bills listed below, please email mariko@cela.org. For a complete list of bills we are tracking, please visit www.cela.org/legislation.
AB 263
(Rodriguez D) Emergency medical services workers: rights and working conditions.
Summary: This bill would require an employer that provides emergency medical services as part of an emergency medical services system or plan to authorize and permit its employees engaged in prehospital emergency services to take prescribed rest periods. This bill also would require the employer to provide these employees with prescribed meal periods. This bill is attempting to codify and extend the holding of the California Supreme Court decision, Augustus v. ABM Securities Services.
AB 281
(Salas D) Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004: penalties.
Summary: This bill would allow an employer to cure any violation of the Labor Code under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 before an aggrieved employee may bring a civil action to recover specified civil penalties. The bill would provide that an aggrieved employee may be awarded civil penalties based only upon a violation by the employer “actually suffered” by that employee.
AB 387
(Thurmond D) Minimum wage: health professionals: interns.
Summary: This bill would expand the definition of “employer” for purposes of the minimum wage requirements to include a person who directly or indirectly, or through an agent or any other person, employs or exercises control over the wages, hours, or working conditions of a person engaged in a period of supervised work experience to satisfy requirements for licensure, registration, or certification as an allied health professional, as defined.
AB 450
(Chiu D) Employment regulation: immigration worksite enforcement actions.
Summary: This bill would impose various requirements on public and private employers with regard to federal immigration agency immigration worksite enforcement actions. Except as otherwise provided by federal law, the bill would prohibit an employer from providing a federal immigration enforcement agent access to a place of labor without a properly executed warrant and would prohibit an employer, or a person acting on behalf of the employer, from providing voluntary access to a federal government immigration enforcement agent to the employer’s employee records without a subpoena. The bill would require an employer to provide an employee, and the employee’s representative, a written notice containing specified information, in the language the employer normally uses to communicate employment information, of an immigration worksite enforcement action to be conducted by a federal immigration agency at the employer’s worksite, unless prohibited by federal law. This bill contains other related laws and provisions.
AB 569
(Gonzalez Fletcher D) Discrimination: reproductive health.
Summary: This bill would amend provisions of the Labor Code to prohibit an employer from taking any adverse employment action, as defined, against an employee based on the use of any drug, device, or medical service related to reproductive health by an employee or employee’s dependent or requiring an employee to sign a waiver or other document that purports to deny any employee the right to make his or her own reproductive health care decisions, including the use of a particular drug, device, or medical service.
AB 817
(Flora R) Compensation: rest or recovery periods.
Summary: This bill would permit an employer providing emergency medical services to the public to require employees to monitor and respond to pagers, radios, station alert boxes, intercoms, cell phones, or other communication methods during rest or recovery periods without penalty, to provide for the public health and welfare. The bill would require mandated rest or recovery periods interrupted for emergency response purposes to be rescheduled. The bill would state that it is declaratory of existing law.
AB 1008
(McCarty D) Employment discrimination: prior criminal history.
Summary: This bill would provide it is an unlawful employment practice for an employer to include on any application for employment any question that seeks the disclosure of an applicant’s criminal history, to inquire into or consider the conviction history of an applicant until that applicant has received a conditional offer, and, when conducting a conviction history background check, to consider, distribute, or disseminate specified information related to prior criminal convictions, except as provided.
AB 1099
(Gonzalez Fletcher D) Compensation: gratuities.
Summary: This bill would require an employer that permits a patron to pay for services performed by an employee by debit or credit card to also accept a debit or credit card for payment of gratuity. The bill would require payment of a gratuity made by a patron using a credit card to be made to the employee not later than the next regular payday following the date the patron authorized the credit card payment. Because a violation of these provisions would be a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
AB 1209
(Gonzalez Fletcher D) Employers: gender pay differentials.
Summary: This bill would require an employer that is required to file a statement of information with the Secretary of State and that has 250 or more employees to collect specified information on gender pay differentials. The bill would require the employer to publish the information collected on an Internet Web site that is available to the public by July 1, 2020, and to submit it to the Secretary of State, subject to the occurrence of a specified contingency.
AB 1429
(Fong R) Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004.
Summary: This bill would limit the violations for which an aggrieved employee is authorized to bring a civil action under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 and would require the employee to follow specified procedures before bringing an action. The bill would cap the civil penalties recoverable under these provisions at $10,000 per claimant and would exclude the recovery of filing fees by a successful claimant. The bill would require the superior court to review any penalties sought as part of a settlement agreement under these provisions.
AB 1430
(Fong R) Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004.
Summary: This bill would revise the procedural provisions under the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 to require the agency, after receiving notification of an alleged violation, to investigate the alleged violation and either issue a citation or determine if there is a reasonable basis for a civil action.
AB 1565
(Thurmond D) Work hours: overtime compensation: executive, administrative, or professional employees.
Summary: This bill would exempt from overtime compensation an executive, administrative, or professional employee, as defined, if the employee earns a monthly salary equivalent to either $3,956 or an amount no less than twice the state minimum wage for full-time employment, as defined, whichever amount is higher.
SB 63
(Jackson D) Unlawful employment practice: parental leave.
Summary: This bill would prohibit an employer, as defined, from refusing to allow an employee with more than 12 months of service with the employer, and who has at least 1,250 hours of service with the employer during the previous 12-month period, to take up to 12 weeks of parental leave to bond with a new child within one year of the child’s birth, adoption, or foster care placement. The bill would also prohibit an employer from refusing to maintain and pay for coverage under a group health plan for an employee who takes this leave.
SB 66
(Wieckowski D) Income taxes: deductions: punitive damages.
Summary: This bill, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2018, would disallow, under both laws, a deduction for amounts paid or incurred for punitive damages, as provided.
SB 490
(Bradford D) Wages: Barbering and Cosmetology Act: licensees.
Summary: This bill would require commission wages paid to any employee who is licensed under the Barbering and Cosmetology Act to be due and payable at least twice during each calendar month on a day designated in advance by the employer as the regular payday and authorizes the employee and employer to agree to a commission in addition to the base hourly rate.
SB 491
(Bradford D) Civil rights: discrimination: enforcement.
Summary: This bill would specify that nothing in the California Fair Employment and Housing Act shall be construed to limit or restrict efforts by local entities to enforce state law prohibiting discrimination against classes of persons covered by the act in employment and housing.