Here’s what new California workplace laws mean for pay, wage theft and family leave
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed several new laws last month aimed at providing workers more rights and protections to help them navigate the coronavirus pandemic, rejecting appeals from business interests who said the bills will burden employers.
Among the new laws are measures that require smaller employers to offer paid family leave and compel businesses to provide more demographic information that could help the state identify pay disparities that suppress wages for women and people of color.
But this legislative year wasn’t all good news for California unions. Newsom vetoed several of the unions’ priority bills, such as requiring hospitality employers when rehiring to offer jobs to those whom they laid off.
Here is what to know about the bills Newsom signed and vetoed in 2020, and what they will mean for California workers:
Pay gap and wage theft
Companies with 100 or more employees next year will have provide the Department of Fair Employment and Housing information about how much their workers are paid, broken down by race, ethnicity, gender and job categories.
The salary data called for under Senate Bill 973 for individual employees or companies is to be kept confidential, except as necessary for enforcement. But the bill aims to equip the state with more information to better investigate discriminatory pay practices.
“You can’t fix what you can’t see,” the bill’s author, Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, said in a press release. “With SB 973, employers will have a chance to identify inequities in their pay and hiring practices and take action to fix them.”
Meanwhile, Assembly Bill 3075 seeks to close a loophole that allowed for businesses to avoid paying wage theft judgments simply by closing their doors and reopening under a new name. In 60% of cases where the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement issued judgments against businesses, those employers were found to be “non-active,” according to a 2013 report from the UCLA Labor Center.
A new business is liable for the wage theft judgments if it uses substantially the same facilities or workforce or has substantially the same owners as the old business. Businesses, in their annual statement to the Secretary of State, must also indicate whether any officer or director has an outstanding final judgment for wage violations.
Family leave
Newsom expanded job-protected family leave of up to 12 weeks to workers in companies with 5 or more employees when he signed Senate Bill 1383. Workers can take the leave to care for themselves or seriously ill family members or for birth or adoption of a child.
The state’s program had provided the family leave only for those working in companies with 50 or more employees.
The California Chamber of Commerce deemed the bill a “job killer,” saying it will significantly burden small employers. But Newsom said the COVID-19 pandemic has made the bill more necessary.
“Californians deserve to be able to take time off to care for themselves or a sick family member without fearing they’ll lose their job,” Newsom said in a statement. “The COVID-19 pandemic has only further revealed the need for a family leave policy that truly serves families and workers, especially those who keep our economy running. ”
And Assembly Bill 2992 requires employers to provide time off for victims of crime or abuse to recover from their injuries. Before, companies were only required to provide time off to those who were victims of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.
Protection for workers
Workers will get one year to file a claim with the state if they believe their employer has retaliated them for exercising workplace rights. Before Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1947, workers only had six months to file a claim.
And under Assembly Bill 1731, work-sharing programs are automatically approved for one year if submitted by Sept. 1, 2023. Those programs allow companies to reduce hours for employees to avoid layoffs, with unemployment benefits compensating for the cuts in pay.
Newsom also signed bills aiming at providing more protections for workers against infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Assembly Bill 2043 directs the state to launch an outreach program focused at educating farmworkers on best practices to prevent coronavirus infections. Senate Bill 275 requires health care employers starting in 2023 to stockpile at least 45 days use of personal protective equipment.
What Newsom vetoed
Newsom also vetoed several bills championed by labor.
Citing impact on the state’s unemployment insurance fund, Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 1993, which would have expanded unemployment benefits for 120,000 caregivers if their dependents die. The expansion was estimated to cost $28 million a year, although about half of it would have come from the federal government.
Newsom also vetoed a highly watched bill that would have required companies in the hospitality industry when rehiring to offer jobs first to the workers they laid off. The requirement is “too onerous a burden on employers,” he said in vetoing Assembly Bill 3216.
Finally, Newsom vetoed a bill that would have given hundreds of thousands of domestic workers workplace protections under Cal/OSHA.
“Places where people live cannot be treated in the exact same manner as a traditional workplace or worksite from a regulatory perspective,” Newsom said in his veto letter for Senate Bill 1257.
But Kimberly Alvarenga, director at California Domestic Workers Coalition, said Newsom’s veto could have a “life and death consequence” for the workforce that’s mainly women of color.
“They can’t wait any longer for the health and safety of those workers,” she said. “We’ll be coming back to ensure domestic workers have the dignity and the same protections as other workers have.”
This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Here’s what new California workplace laws mean for pay, wage theft and family leave."
