Gavin Newsom signs laws requiring companies to report COVID-19 infections, provide workers’ comp
California will require employers to let their employees know if they had any potential exposure to COVID-19 at their workplaces under a new law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed on Thursday.
It was one of two new laws Newsom signed to improve coronavirus protections for workers. The second is meant to ensure that more Californians are eligible automatically for workers’ compensation if they become infected with COVID-19.
Labor advocates have pushed for the bills for months, encouraging the state to do more to protect frontline workers and those considered “essential” in coronavirus pandemic, such as farmworkers and grocery employees.
The advocates have criticized companies, especially in the agriculture industry, for failing to report COVID-19 outbreaks at their worksites.
One of the new laws, Assembly Bill 685, requires employers to provide written notice to all employees and employers of subcontractors who were at the same worksite as an individual who is ordered to self-isolate or has tested positive for COVID-19. Employers must give the notice within one business day of finding out that their subcontractor at the worksite or employees has tested positive or is ordered to self-isolate.
Companies must inform those notified on COVID-19 related benefits such as sick leave, as well as how the employers plan to keep the workplace safe and clean. Under the bill, if there is an outbreak, companies must notify their local public health agency within 48 hours.
The California Chamber of Commerce lobbied against the bill and called on Newsom to veto it. The business organization said in a letter to the governor large employers “may be forced to send daily emails to every single employee in California.”
The bill also does not distinguish between employers who are taking appropriate measures to protect their workers, and those who are not, the chamber said in its Sept. 4 letter.
But Assemblywoman Eloise Reyes, D-San Bernardino, said her bill will increase protections for workers.
“Workers in essential sector were put in harm’s way, because they didn’t receive information about other workers with COVID-19,” she said at the ceremony. “”Workers had to show up for each day despite the danger.”
The other bill, Senate Bill 1159, codifies an executive order Newsom issued that presumes employees sick with COVID-19 caught the coronavirus at work, unless employers can prove otherwise. The order had expired in July.
Employees who got sick or died from COVID-19 can qualify for workers’ compensation if they are first responders or certain health care employees.
Employees can also qualify if their workplaces experienced an outbreak, defined as four or more cases at a specific work location within a 14-day period for companies with 100 or less employees. For bigger companies, 4% or more of their employees at a specific work location is to contract COVID-19 within a 14-day period for their workplace to be considered as having an outbreak.
The bill will sunset on Jan. 1, 2023.
The chamber criticized the bill, saying the provision about the outbreak “would cause the workers’ compensation system to absorb an unknown number of COVID-19 infections that were not work related.” The bill could cost the state workers’ compensation system billions of dollars, the chamber said.
But state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, said his bill is necessary to protect essential workers such as grocery clerks and gas station attendants.
“It’s ultimately a matter of doing what is just and being humane,” Labor Secretary Julie Su said in Newsom’s Sept. 17 bill signing ceremony. “Together, those bills give workers a choice and a voice.”
This story was originally published September 17, 2020 at 1:25 PM with the headline "Gavin Newsom signs laws requiring companies to report COVID-19 infections, provide workers’ comp."
