California employers must follow complex state and local laws when managing employee time off. With proper planning, they can either separate mandatory sick leave from vacation or paid time off (PTO) or combine them into a single policy. Each approach carries specific legal obligations.

Sick Leave:

California law requires employers to provide at least 40 hours (or five days) of paid sick leave annually, using one of two methods:

• Accrual: Employees earn one hour for every 30 hours worked. Unused time carries over, usually capped at 80 hours.

• Front Load: Employers provide at least 40 hours at the start of each year. This method avoids accrual and carryover but isn’t permitted if sick leave is part of a combined PTO policy.

Employers must comply with any applicable local ordinances, e.g., Los Angeles, San Francisco, and provide the most generous applicable benefits.

Unused sick leave is not payable at separation unless it is part of a combined PTO plan.

Vacation:

California law doesn’t require vacation time, but if offered, it is considered earned wages. Vacation benefit must accrue over time; lump sum is not permitted. Employers must pay out all accrued, unused vacation at separation and cannot impose “use-it-or-lose-it” rules. Employers must also provide separate paid sick leave benefits.

Combined PTO Policies:

Employers may combine vacation, sick leave, and personal time into one PTO bank. Benefits must accrue over time, cannot allow forfeiture, and must be paid out at separation. It must also comply with all aspects of paid sick leave law, including accrual tracking, usage rights, and recordkeeping requirements.

Pay Stub Requirements:

Employers must show available sick leave or combined PTO on each pay stub or via a separate notice each payday.

While regular pay stubs don’t need to list vacation balances, the final pay stub must include any payout details.

Take-Aways:

Regularly review and update leave policies and payroll practices to stay compliant with changing laws. A well-structured, legally sound time-off policy can reduce costly errors and foster a positive workplace culture.

For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.

See also:

• We Offer an Ounce of Prevention; Make a Wage Audit a Priority (February 15, 2024)
• Expanded Paid Sick Leave Requirements; California Employers Must Now Provide 40 Hours or Five Days of Sick Pay (October 11, 2023)

Cindy Bamforth
July 17, 2025

Under SB 1350, effective July 1, 2025, some domestic workers are now covered by Cal/OSHA employee protections.

Previously, California’s Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1973 excluded domestic workers from the health and safety protections afforded to workers generally. Now, however, employment “includes household domestic service performed on a permanent or temporary basis,” subject to three major exceptions:

1. Individuals who engage a domestic worker “to perform for the benefit of such individuals what are commonly regarded as ordinary domestic household tasks, including housecleaning, cooking, and caregiving.”

1. The employees of a family daycare home.

1. Publicly funded domestic service.

Cal/OSHA has put out FAQs to answer the many questions this new law raises. These include examples of covered workers, such as employees of homecare agencies and housecleaning companies, painters, pool servicers, roofers, and home construction workers.

Take-Aways:

If a business employer supplies persons for domestic work, such as cooking, caregiving and cleaning, or if anyone, including a homeowner, hires providers of such services as domestic construction and other home maintenance and repair activities, then they need to check into and implement any Cal/OSHA requirements that apply.

For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.

See also:

• Not So Safeway? Cal/OSHA Cites Supermart for Serious Hazardous Conditions in Warehouse (February 14, 2025)
• Maul Wake-Up Call: Cal/OSHA Fines LA Animal Shelter for Overcrowding, Staff Injuries (January 3, 2025)

Helena Kobrin
July 11, 2025

Cal/OSHA recently reminded employers of their obligation to prevent worker heat illness, outdoors and indoors. With temperatures rising into the 90s and 100s in some locations, such measures are necessary to prevent serious injury.

Heat illnesses are potentially fatal. The two most serious are: heat stroke (e.g., red, hot dry skin, high body temperature, muscle twitching, confusion, fainting, convulsions, unconsciousness); and heat exhaustion (e.g., dizziness, headache, sweaty skin, fast heartbeat, nausea, vomiting, weakness, and/or cramps). Heat rash and heat cramps can also occur.

Decency and concern for their employees should be sufficient to cause employers to take appropriately protective measures. If that is not enough, Cal/OSHA dictates employer duties to prevent heat illness with serious repercussions for non-compliance.

For outdoor areas, employers must take measures starting at 80° F, increasing to “high heat” precautions at 95°F for agriculture, construction, landscaping, oil and gas extraction, and loading and unloading of heavy industrial and commercial products.

Employers must protect outdoor and indoor workers with:

• Water – Provide free, fresh, pure, suitably cool drinking water so workers can drink at least 1 quart per hour and encourage them to do so.

• Training – Train all employees and supervisors on preventing heat illness (so they can avoid it and know what to do if it occurs).

• Rest – Encourage cool-down rests in the shade for at least five minutes when workers need to protect themselves from overheating, without waiting until they feel sick to cool down.

• Shade – Provide shade outdoors when temperatures exceed 80 degrees; indoors, provide a room below 82 degrees. Workers must be allowed such a cool-off area whenever they feel they need it.

• Plan – Have an effective written heat illness prevention plan for indoor and outdoor workers, including emergency response procedures.

These protections and others are outlined in Cal/OSHA’s Comparison of Indoor and Outdoor Heat Illness Prevention Standards chart, also showing where indoor and outdoor protections differ. Cal/OSHA also provides heat illness prevention training materials such as its Heat Illness Prevention tool and its Indoor Heat Illness FAQs.

Take-Aways:

Employers must take heat illness prevention obligations seriously, ensuring they provide such protections to all employees and supervisors working in high heat conditions.

For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.

See also:

• In the Hot Seat: Employer Pays Big for Ignoring Extreme Conditions (January 10, 2025)
• Chill Skill: California’s New Indoor Heat Rules July 23, 2024 (August 2, 2024)

Helena Kobrin
July 3, 2025

California’s Civil Rights Department has released the new “Survivors of Violence and Family Members of Victims Rights to Leave and Accommodations” pamphlet as required by Assembly Bill (AB) 2499.

Starting January 1, 2025, AB 2499 strengthens protections for employees affected by qualifying acts of violence, such as domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and other violent threats or acts. Employers must provide protected leave, reasonable accommodation, and prohibit retaliation against those asserting these rights.

The pamphlet, available in 15 languages, outlines employees' rights to leave, confidentiality, workplace accommodation, potential wage replacement benefits, and protection from retaliation and discrimination when they or their family members are victims of certain crimes.

Employers must distribute the pamphlet:

• At hire;
• Annually;
• Upon request; and
• When an employee reports being a victim or having affected family members.

Take-Aways:

Employers should promptly distribute this pamphlet to all workers and keep workplace policies updated.

For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.

See also:

• Keeping Peace – Workplace Violence Prevention Implementation Deadline is July 1, 2024 (June 20, 2024)

Cindy Bamforth
July 3, 2025

Beginning July 1, 2024, most California employers must establish a Workplace Violence Prevention Plan (WVPP) for each work site, provide violence prevention training, and maintain incident logs and records of investigations and hazard assessments.

Employers must annually review and update their WVPP to address new risks and employee feedback and provide retraining that covers:

• WVPP updates;
• Incident and hazard reporting procedures;
• Response protocols for threats or incidents;
• Identified hazards, corrective actions, and safety strategies; and
• An interactive Q&A with a person knowledgeable about the employer’s WVPP.

Cal/OSHA provides helpful resources, e.g., an employer fact sheet, a model WVPP, and FAQs.

Take-Aways:

Employers must update their WVPP annually to address new hazards and feedback and provide proper retraining to all employees.

For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.

See also:

• Keeping Peace – Workplace Violence Prevention Implementation Deadline is July 1, 2024 (June 20, 2024)
• Workplace Violence Prevention Plans July 1, 2024- Implementation Deadline, Resources Available (March 22, 2024)
• Workplace Violence Prevention Plan – California Employers Must Implement Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plans and Training by July1, 2024 (November 17, 2023)

Cindy Bamforth
June 26, 2025

Effective July 1, 2025, several California cities and counties will implement increases to their local minimum wage rates.  

Covered employers are required to conspicuously post the current wage notice, which can be downloaded using the links above.
For employers with remote workers in multiple locations, different minimum wage rates may apply depending on the jurisdiction. To simplify compliance, employers may choose to pay the highest applicable rate across all locations.

To keep track of interim updates, see the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.

See also:

• The PAGA Perils of Not Paying Attention  (March 14, 2025)

Helena Kobrin
Daniska Coronado
June 19, 2025

In Ames v. Ohio Dept. of Youth Services (Ames), the United States Supreme Court unanimously overturned a higher standard that some federal appeals courts were imposing on majority group members claiming workplace discrimination.

To pursue a claim, plaintiffs must make an initial prima facie showing that the facts fulfill basic legal elements. For example, to maintain a suit for unpaid wages, a worker would have to assert s/he was defendant’s employee, performed work, and was not paid or paid too little.

A federal prima facie case of employment discrimination or “disparate treatment“ requires the plaintiff to show the employer had a discriminatory motive for an action such as hiring, firing, disciplining or not promoting him or her.

In Ohio federal court, Ms. Ames, a heterosexual woman, met that prime facie standard by showing she was denied a promotion and then demoted in favor of homosexual persons in two instances. However, the trial court, upheld by the appeals court, required her to also show that “[b]ackground circumstances [] support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”

Rejecting that extra step in Ames, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote:

Title VII’s disparate-treatment provision draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs. Rather, the provision makes it unlawful “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

Justice Sotomayor also stated that “by establishing the same protections for every ‘individual’—without regard to that individual’s membership in a minority or majority group—Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone.” Courts therefore may no longer impose the additional requirement on majority plaintiffs.

Take-Aways:

Employment discrimination against any protected group, whether majority or minority, is illegal under both federal and state law. Decisions on such things as hiring, firing, compensation, and discipline must be made based on ability, education, longevity, behavior and other business-related factors, not on an employee’s or potential employee’s protected characteristics.

For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.

See also:

• Religious Discrimination is No Vacation: EEOC is Suing Marriott for Failure to Accommodate Saturday Sabbath (May 16, 2025)
• Digital Diligence: AI Hiring Tools Must Avoid Discrimination (May 15, 2025)
• Older Workers are People, Too: EEOC Settles Age Discrimination Claims Against Theatre Chain (May 9, 2025)

Helena Kobrin
June 13, 2025

“[M]en must be left without interference … to discharge or retain employees at will for good cause or for no cause, or even for bad cause without thereby being guilty of an unlawful act per se. It is a right which an employee may exercise in the same way, to the same extent, for the same cause or want of cause as the employer. Payne v. Western & Atlantic Railroad, 81 Tenn. 507 (1884).

The kernel thus planted in Tennessee some 140 years back, “at will” employment has evolved in every American state except Montana as the right of either employer or employee to terminate their relationship for any or no reason at any time, with or without advance notice.

Yet, the principle has changed significantly over the past century.

Addressing the realities of unequal bargaining power between management and rank-and-file workers, the 1935 National Labor Relations Act banned terminating employees for their union membership or other pro-union support. In the same period, organized labor’s growing influence established standing employment contracts in key industries that required “good cause” justification for a union member’s termination. Similar “good cause” requirements have evolved to protect government employees.

The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 signaled further (and overdue) protections against management’s unquestioned abilities to end employment relationships, making it illegal to terminate for the race, color, sex, national origin or religion of the worker. The Act’s principle of “classifications” protected from workplace discrimination has since grown to an extensive list under federal and state laws. These include the federal Age Discrimination Employment Act shielding employees 40-plus years old and the Americans with Disabilities Act similarly safeguarding disabled workers otherwise qualified to competently perform assigned labors.

Thus, while “at will” is still the presumed employment relationship in California, 48 other states and the District of Columbia, termination for “any reason” no longer means what it did in the 19^th Century. Termination for “any reason except those found by Congress, a state legislature or the courts to be an illegal reason” would be more accurate.

For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.

See also:

• My Way or the Highway; California At-Will Employees Bound to Lawful Policy Changes by Continuing to Work after Their Adoption (May 10, 2019)
• The Need for Written Employment Agreements; Well-Drafted Contracts Eliminate Uncertainty and Ambiguity (March 30, 2018)
• Progressive Discipline in the Workplace; Nice Idea, But Don’t Promise (July 6, 2012)

Tim Bowles
June 6, 2025

CalSavers’ mandatory state-run Roth IRA program enables employee retirement savings through automatic payroll deductions. Employers face no fees or contribution requirements, while eligible employees can opt out or change their contributions at any time.

Registration deadlines depend on the number of employees:

• September 30, 2020 (101 or more)
• June 30, 2021 (51-100)
• June 30, 2022 (5-50)
• December 31, 2025 (1-4)

Under Senate Bill 1126, California employers with up to four employees must register by December 31, 2025, unless they:

• Employ only owners;
• Sponsor a qualified retirement plan (e.g., 401(k), SIMPLE IRA, SEP IRA, etc.);
• Are a government, religious, or tribal organization; or
• Have closed or been sold.

If they miss their deadline, employers face a penalty of $250 per eligible employee, increasing to $500 after 180 days.

Take-Aways:

By year-end, small employers must either request an exemption or register to enroll eligible employees and set up payroll deductions.

For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.

See also:

• Expanding Retirement Account Opportunities (April 15, 2022)
• Mandatory Options for Retirement Funding (June 4, 2021)

Cindy Bamforth
June 6, 2025