BaronHR, LLC, a national staffing agency, will pay $2.2 million to settle claims it discriminated against low-wage, low-skill job applicants on the basis of race, gender, and disability in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

While Baron has also agreed to change its employment policies and practices to prevent future discrimination, its imminent shut down moots that pledge unless the company resumes business.

Los Angeles regional EEOC attorney Anna Park stated: “Hiring discrimination remains a persistent problem in low-skill, low-wage industries. Employers need to take their responsibilities seriously to ensure all applicants receive employment opportunities regardless of race, national origin, sex, or disability.”

Take-Aways:

Staffing companies can provide temporary workers as well as payroll and HR functions such as screening and onboarding. Yet, labor claims against an agency expose the businesses utilizing its workers to liability as joint employers. The BaronHR example underscores the importance of due diligence in choosing such a provider.

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

See also:

• 72 Million Reasons Not to Mess With Women: Employer Agrees to End Widespread Sex Discrimination (February 16, 2024)
• Workplace Discriminators, Expanded: Third-Party Service Companies May Be Liable as “Employers” (August 25, 2023)
• EEOC Obtains $2 Million Settlement with McDonald’s Franchisees for Tolerating Sexual Harassment (February 23, 2023)

Helena Kobrin
April 12, 2024

The California Labor Commissioner’s Office has obtained a $2 million settlement from Fresno-based restaurant Pearl B-Star, Inc. dba Lin’s Fusion for wages allegedly owed to 32 restaurant employees.

The commissioner’s Bureau of Field Enforcement (BOFE) found that workers, many of them immigrants, received wages in cash and were not compensated for overtime, split shifts, meal periods, and contract wages.

The Employment Development Department (EDD) and the Joint Enforcement Strike Force (JESF) also participated in the investigation.

Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower stated: “When enforcement agencies work together, we are best able to protect workers. In this case systemic violations were detected, the perpetrating employer was held accountable, and workers are receiving owed wages. We look forward to continuing to collaborate on many cases to protect workers and law-abiding employers.”

Take-Aways:

It is vital to comply with all applicable wage-related laws regardless of immigration status. Our firm can conduct friendly reviews of company wage, hour and documentation practices before any government agency comes knocking with real or imagined employee grievances and millions in potential damages.

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

See also:

• Freedom Between the Lines, Workplace Policy Handbook & Forms for 2024 (March 15, 2024)
• California Invests $18 Million to Prosecute Wage Theft (March 8, 2024)
• We Offer an Ounce of Prevention, Make a Wage Audit a Priority (February 15, 2024)

Cindy Bamforth
April 10, 2024

Under the January 1, 2024 version of California’s employer-provided paid sick leave Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (Act), employers may opt to provide the benefit either in an up-front lump sum for eligible employees to use during the 12-month eligibility year (the “advance method”) or via accrual over time (the “accrual method”).

Under the accrual method, the updated Act requires employers to either have eligible employees accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked (the “1:30 statutory accrual method”) or use another regularly recurring accrual method, such as per pay period, so long as employees accrue at least 24 hours by the 120^th day of the 12-month period and no less than 40 hours by the 200^th calendar day (the “optional accrual method”).

Until recently, employers were uncertain whether they were permitted to follow the 1:30 accrual for part-time employees who did not accrue at least 24 hours by their 120^th day of employment or 40 hours by their 200^th day.

The Labor Commissioner’s recently-updated FAQs resolve this ambiguity.

FAQ No. 12 clarifies:

“Although employers may adopt or keep other types of accrual schedules (other than 1:30), the schedule must result in an employee having at least 24 hours of accrued sick leave or paid time off by the 120th calendar day of employment and 40 hours by the 200th calendar day of employment. If an employer is using the 1 hour of paid sick leave accrued for 30 hours worked or something more generous (e.g. 1 hour accrued of paid sick leave for every 20 hours worked), then the employer does not have to provide 24 hours or 3 days by the 120th day of the year and 40 hours or 5 days by the 200th day.” (emphasis added)

Take-Aways:

California employers using the accrual method should use the 1:30 accrual rate for their part-time employees. Otherwise, part-timers must accrue at least 24 hours by their 120th day of employment or 40 hours by their 200th day.

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

See also:

• Freedom Between the Lines – Workplace Policy Handbook & Forms for 2024 (March 15, 2024)
• 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
March 29, 2024

We, however, suggest management not leave it to the gods (understatement). Prevention being nine-tenths of the law, if not more, best practice is a regular, thorough audit of company wage, hour and documentation practices before any class action attorney comes knocking with real or imagined employee grievances and millions in potential damages.

Having represented our fair share of businesses that had to confront – and pay many thousands to defend -- their workplace practices in a lawsuit, our lawyers bring a practiced eye for review of wage and hour policies and protocols for compliance with California’s unforgiving labor laws.

Contact Office Manager, Aimee Rosales, for more information and to set an appointment. Phone: 626.583.6600, email: officemanager@tbowleslaw.com.

See also:

• Freedom Between the Lines, Workplace Policy Handbook & Forms for 2024 (March 15, 2024)
• We Offer an Ounce of Prevention, Make a Wage Audit a Priority (February 15, 2024)

• PAGA Monster Grows More Legs, Best Protection Against Potentially Devastating Group Labor Claims is…Prevention (February 2, 2024)

March 29, 2024

As previously reported, effective July 1, 2024, most California employers must implement and maintain an effective workplace violence prevention plan (the Plan); training materials; and a violence incident log.

The law does not apply to:

• employees teleworking from a location of their choosing and control
• health care facilities covered under Cal/OSHA’s Violence Prevention in Health Care regulation
• law enforcement agencies; correctional facilities; and
• locations not accessible to the public where less than 10 employees work at any given time

To assist covered employers, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has released a model workplace violence prevention plan.
That model plan addresses the key topics:

• Emergency response procedures;
• Violence prevention, detection, evaluation and correction;
• Incident reporting procedures and post-incident response and investigation;
• Training and instruction; and
• Recordkeeping and violence incident log.

Cal/OSHA has issued an employer fact sheet regarding mandatory plans, violent incident logs, effective training programs, and recordkeeping requirements.

That agency has also published several other workplace violence prevention guidelines and fact sheets, including for agricultural operations.

Take-Aways:

Covered employers must adopt a legally complaint, comprehensive workplace violence prevention plan before the July 1 deadline.

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

See also:

• Keep Employees Safe – Workplace Murders are Cal/OSHA Violations (June 30, 2023)
• Construction Accidents Kill Two with Resulting Large Fines against the Employers (December 28, 2018)

Cindy Bamforth
March 22, 2024

[Note: previously published about a year back; annual repetition is likely not enough.]

After complimenting our preparations in a recent trial, the thus-appreciated judge then declined my pitch to place his views on our firm’s Yelp page. Nice try counsel.

A Berkeley hippie from the 60s, I went off to 70s law school determined to use eventual skill and position to beat back injustice somewhere. My class recently commemorated 45 years out in the world. Snap your fingers: boom, 45 years man.

Back when wetter behind the ears, I had a vague vision of political futures, standing before multitudes, telling it like it is, admired or at least respected by all.

Rather, by turns and circumstance, I landed in the courts, beginning as the proverbial spear carrier, second or third “chair” as we say. My mentor, the near-peerless Earle Cooley of Boston, put my supporting role succinctly: “today you stay seated and shut up, eyes forward in a gaze of strategic cunning.”

I have since had a more-than-fair share of lead work, our firm largely defending employers in the soup, also known as California civil litigation. The deal:

• If you are an owner or manager facing a former employee’s threatened or filed suit, our condolences. If it’s any consolation, you are not alone. By rough count, we see as many as 100 such cases initiated in L.A. County every week. We welcome you to a whole new universe, the legal one;

• Law practice is not a science; it is an art;

• A lawsuit is not a replay of what actually occurred between the contending parties, it is a reenactment contest with respective lawyers the directors;

• While attorney duty is to represent the client “zealously within the bounds of the law,” zeal is civilly managed passion and diligence, not unhinged, ridiculing rage. We “do” litigation surgically, not with flamethrowers. There is a time to fight like hell, but that cannot be an end in itself;

• Accordingly, it’s a rare employment case that has any business making it to trial; if it got that far, it’s likely a case that’s been mismanaged by either or both sides;

• The practical pressures on the contenders can and should commonly lead to settlement if: a) the lawyers do their work thoroughly and, vis-à-vis each other, with relative honesty; b) each lawyer can thus constructively educate all concerned: own client, opposing counsel, opposing party, possible mediator; and c) both sides can with relative rationality evaluate the good sense of resolving the matter and moving on;

• While litigation is not a little like dentistry without the Novocain, employers must consider the spent resources as an investment. A resolved suit is a lesson demanding greater awareness and better protocols to head-off trouble next time before it goes full-Perry Mason; and

• … and finally, lawyers are not management, we are advocates (fancy word for salespeople). Our clients are the decisionmakers; we can do no more than provide our best possible guidance.

45 years of this and counting? Making a living by such contention is an acquired taste to be sure, only navigated by some attempted informality on occasion. Still looking for that first judge-authored Yelp review, hopefully not too ungenerous.

And so, we work.

Tim Bowles
March 22, 2024

We have seen it way too many times. Personnel management without Labor Code-compliant policy poses a special kind of chaos, setting up the business for expensive and potentially back-breaking litigation.

There is freedom in simplicity: the clear written workplace guidelines presented in our newly updated model employee handbook and forms.

Combined with a company’s regular internal confirmations of standard, lawful personnel and pay practices, these materials are a powerful foot forward toward efficient and productive operations. See, We Offer an Ounce of Prevention, Make a Wage Audit a Priority (February 15, 2024).

Updated for 2024, our model forms include:

• Employment application and accompanying job description prototype (including key requirements for Americans with Disabilities Act compliance and California’s constitutional privacy protections);
• Pre-employment protocols (properly positioning the process to meet changing legal requirements);
• Employment agreement (including non-disclosure of private company data);
• Alternative dispute resolution agreement (also properly setting terms to match changing standards for private mediation and arbitration in lieu of court action);
• Meal and rest period acknowledgments (confirming employer provision of required breaks);
• Termination policy, checklist and standard release (to be applied as appropriate for full transition and greater protection against later, preventable suits);
• Paid sick leave benefits under federal and California directives; and
• Revised workforce COVID protocols.

Our comprehensive 80-plus page model employee handbook, 2024 edition, covers:

• Conditions of company employment (including mutual “at will” termination rights);
• Discrimination and harassment, prevention and handling (including pandemic-driven standards);
• Employee compensation;
• Employee benefits;
• Employee job performance;
• Limits of employee privacy (including valid management access to employee-maintained databases and social media guidelines);
• Paid and unpaid leaves;
• Workplace health and safety;
• Job-related injury or illness (including prevention plan priorities); and
• Drug and alcohol policy (including testing and violations procedures and standards).

CONTACT US TO ORDER NOWTo order or for more information, contact Office Manager Aimee Rosales at 626.583.6600 or email her at officemgr@tbowleslaw.com

Law Offices of Timothy Bowles
March 15, 2024

Last year we wrote about new California Civil Rights Department (CRD) annual reporting requirements for larger employers, breaking down annual pay and hours-worked data by job category, sex, race, and ethnicity. See What’s New In 2023:Reporting Payroll Profiles: Deadline is May 10, 2023 (April 6, 2023). The next required report is due on May 8, 2024.

Businesses with 100 or more employees (defined to include labor contractors), with at least one in California, must file annually with the CRD in addition to any required “EEO-1” report with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. For each employee, the state’s report must include 2023 work location (including remote), job category, sex, race/ethnicity, pay and hours worked.

The CRD has good online resources, including links to forms, a reporting portal and more, as well as an FAQ page with considerable information on the requirements.

Employers should use the current form, not any old one, and file by the deadline. The CRD is going after companies that do not file. See, Civil Rights Department Secures Nearly $100K Settlement to Resolve Cambrian Homecare, Inc. Pay Data Lawsuit.

Take-Aways:

If a company employs 100 or more employees/labor contractors, even if only one is in California, it must file its payroll data report with the CRD by May 8, 2024.

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

See also:

• 72 Million Reasons Not to Mess with Women, Employer Agrees to End Widespread Sex Discrimination (February 16, 2024)
• We Offer an Ounce of Prevention, Make a Wage Audit a Priority (February 15, 2024)

Helena Kobrin
March 15, 2024

Businesses must protect their service and product brands from those who may seek, intentionally or unknowingly, to trade on the goodwill of those brands.

Choosing and registering a strong trademark is a powerful protective action. As a shield against unauthorized use, a registered mark is among the most valuable assets of an enterprise.

Not all chosen trademarks can be registered. Some marks are too generic or descriptive of products or services, diminishing the owner’s ability to prevent others from using them. A trademark attorney can help choose a mark the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is likely to accept for registration.

Once a business succeeds in registering a mark, it must maintain that mark with required filings every few years.

Our firm is available to aid in every aspect of this process.

Take-Aways:

Use a trademark attorney to choose, register and maintain a strong trademark with the proper, timely USPTO filings.

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

See also:

• The Annals of Trademark Number 3: Selecting a Trademark Part 2 Distinctiveness (November 4, 2014)
• The Annals of Trademark Number 2: Selecting a Mark Part 1 (October 24, 2014)
• The Annals of Trademark Number 1: What is a Trademark? (October 16, 2014)

Helena Kobrin
March 8, 2024