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The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) requires employers with five or more on payroll to:
The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) requires employers with five or more on payroll to:
Policy Drafting Tips and Best Practices:
Take-Aways:
Implement and regularly review your handbook to include a pregnancy disability leave policy, and educate and train your supervisors on these laws.
We publish this series to educate employers on best practices for a well-written handbook that assists applicants, employees, and management alike. To purchase our 2023 template handbook - which contains the above policy and much more - and accompanying forms or for more information, please contact Office Manager Aimee Rosales at 626.583.6600 or email her.
See also:
Cindy Bamforth
August 2, 2023
Employees and former employees routinely file internal grievances and/or lawsuits alleging that their employer did not take their claims of harassment or discrimination seriously. While this does not automatically mean the bad behavior occurred, only a foolish employer shrugs off such issues at the outset. Doing so, and especially disciplining the complainant for making the complaint, usually leads to an additional claim - for retaliation.
Employees and former employees routinely file internal grievances and/or lawsuits alleging that their employer did not take their claims of harassment or discrimination seriously. While this does not automatically mean the bad behavior occurred, only a foolish employer shrugs off such issues at the outset. Doing so, and especially disciplining the complainant for making the complaint, usually leads to an additional claim - for retaliation.
As a reminder, protected classifications in California include: race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, age (40 and over), mental and physical disabilities, sex, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, and military or veteran status. Harassing or discriminating against an employee because the person falls under one or more of those classifications is strictly illegal.
If any worker tells an employer that others, including co-workers, supervisors, executives, independent contractors, or customers, engaged in discrimination or harassment against that employee or another in violation of a protected class, the wise employer will conduct a thorough investigation, with written reports and findings and appropriate discipline and/or performance improvement plan for documented offenders.
The California Civil Rights Department (formerly the Division of Fair Employment and Housing) has a Harassment Prevention Guide that can help employers implement an effective anti-harassment program and conduct a proper investigation.
Take Aways:
Employers should always take harassment and discrimination investigations seriously and should conduct their investigations "by the book." Having guidance from experienced employment counsel can help avoid pitfalls and result in a properly completed investigation.
For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.
See also:
Helena Kobrin
July 28, 2023
California has numerous government agencies concerned with employment and labor issues. Until its disbanding 20 years ago, they included the Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC), the source ofthe 18 Wage Orders, largely by industry, still enforced in the state.
California has numerous government agencies concerned with employment and labor issues. Until its disbanding 20 years ago, they included the Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC), the source of the 18 Wage Orders, largely by industry, still enforced in the state.
Under section 5, Schedule 5 of AB 102, the state appropriations bill for 2024, the revived IWC must convene by January 1, 2024 and use its three-million-dollar budget to create "industry-specific wage boards and adopt orders specific to wages, hours, and working conditions" in those industries. The IWC must issue its final recommended Wage Orders by October 31, 2024.
Per AB 102, the new Wage Orders "shall not include any standards that are less protective than existing state law," so employers may be in for a ghoulish Halloween surprise.
Take Aways:
Employers should be prepared for a new onslaught of government regulation by Halloween 2024.
For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.
See also:
Helena Kobrin
July 21, 2023
Tuesday, July 18 dawns and we venture forth, 7:00-ish, on the only road to town.
Our journey continues: see, Liberian Rain; A West African Chronicle, July 15-30, 2023 (July 17, 2023)
***
Tuesday, July 18 dawns and we venture forth, 7:00-ish, on the only road to town.
Last I knew, in March, this was a narrow two-lane potential death sentence, no shoulders, under construction, just sheer excavated drop-offs either side. Now - and apparently after the president threatened his roads-and-bridges minister with criminal prosecution -- it is transformed, a wide boulevard adequate in theory to fit ten cars abreast. Yet it is now unpaved and tightly cratered, vehicles as corpuscles in a free-flowing stream, no lanes, just vying for position while mindful of traffic oncoming, dodging and weaving in the driving rain. Ah Liberia, how I have missed you.
Jay, at the wheel, the wipers whipsawing, holds forth on not-so-long-ago pandemic times. As the West fell into fetal position, pundits intoned, "We are all in this together." Comforting perhaps, but just what part of "together" enfolds these shores? Not much brother. Hey, Africa! Good luck and Godspeed. See you on the other side, hopefully.
We give homage to the God of Caffeine, Kaldis Koffee on Tubman Boulevard. In the civil wars (1989-2003), teen warriors ate the hearts of their captives and, story went, became bulletproof. "Protection Huge!!!" blared one unhinged 15-year-old fighter-cannibal to the camera in Liberia: An Uncivil War. No, this morning's triple mega-size Americano isn't quite the same, but one can't deny a certain vapor of African-style invincibility obtained therefrom.
Yet, will we require greater fortification? Today - and for the week - we workshop the faculty of the Cuttington University School of Graduate and Professional Studies (CUGS), professionals at the highest levels of Liberian education. What will they do with a couple of whippersnappers, neither of us formal "educators" per se. Will they pass us off as trespassers or will we connect?
I float the ice-breaker that somehow clicks across every international boundary. "I am a lawyer. Do you know what that means?" Silence, pause. "That means you can trust me." Scattered laughter, lots of ah's. Of course!
I venture that genius is in simplicity, the boil-down to workable truths running through life. We are not here to preach that you swallow these contents whole. While we will speak from subjective certainty, it is up to each of you to apply and find whether the material is of use.
Thus, we proceed through four rousing days. Closing Friday afternoon, a PhD-credentialed professor stands and proclaims the workshop first struck him as too elementary. Yet, now seeing the power in Study Tech's clean simplicity, he is renewed, recommitted to his citizen's/educator's duty and armed with these tools to engage and inspire.
I wrap, also heart on sleeve. At 94, my dad died this year. One lifetime is not an infinity. Mortality - at least as one owns a name and physical existence - is part of what we have signed on for. While I regard myself a young 73 (audible gasps - what, he's that old?!) -- blessed with an essential vitality and retaining, so far as I know, all marbles - my father's passage is the reminder: time is a commodity.
To help is to live. I have had that opportunity in post-genocide West Africa for nearly 20 years but how much is enough? Perhaps jarringly, but fortunately, there is never an "enough."
So, in whatever space remains this round, there is a new urgency. Over this week, and across oceans, cultures and time, we share that sentiment. ... and so we work, together.
Back in TownJuly 18, 2023
Tim Bowles
Friday, July 21, 2023
Monrovia, Liberia
California employers with five employees or more must provide eligible workers with unpaid job-protected family and medical leave under theCalifornia Family Rights Act(CFRA). Employers with 50 or more employees must also comply with the corresponding federalFamily and Medical Leave Act(FMLA).
California employers with five employees or more must provide eligible workers with unpaid job-protected family and medical leave under the California Family Rights Act(CFRA). Employers with 50 or more employees must also comply with the corresponding federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
Policy Drafting Tips:
Take-Aways:
Implement and regularly review your handbook to include a family and medical leaves policy, and educate and train your supervisors on these laws.
We publish this series to educate employers on best practices for a well-written handbook that assists applicants, employees, and management alike. To purchase our 2023 template handbook - which contains the above policy and much more - and accompanying forms or for more information, please contact Office Manager Aimee Rosales at 626.583.6600 or email her.
See also:
Cindy Bamforth
July 20, 2023
Then, 40 miles on, is my accustomed enclave: RLJ Kendeja beach resort hotel, back in town, tucking in at 3:25. There are two Liberian seasons: dry and rainy. July is the latter, thus these regular Old Testament cascades that roar in terror off tin roofs. Yet, for those of us underneath, dry and familiar, a comfort.
While I have not yet quit this Day Job, 45 years of lawyering to date, the pay from African after-hours labors has been more than its equal. To wit: My Pro-Bono Life: Purpose is Prime: Why West Africa? Why Literacy? (February 20, 2023); and A Greater Shade, Liberian Literacy, On The Ground (March 30, 2023). And so, once more ...
***
It is now 2:00 a.m. on a Monday (July 17), Jay and I splashing over the rain-cratered Robertsfield - Monrovia highway. It has been a 30-plus hour procession of vans, mega-baggage hauling, security gauntlets, late and missed flights, hasty plan Bs, gate waiting, blessed aisle seats, and at last back to ground, headed west. Out there in the full blackness are the small settlements, the stick-and-thatch, dirt floor dwellings hopefully holding off the deluge.No one should be out at this hour but here are several nonetheless, in twos and threes on foot, abruptly illuminated below the knees through the drizzle. Headed ... where?Then, 40 miles on, is my accustomed enclave: RLJ Kendeja beach resort hotel, back in town, tucking in at 3:25. There are two Liberian seasons: dry and rainy. July is the latter, thus these regular Old Testament cascades that roar in terror off tin roofs. Yet, for those of us underneath, dry and familiar, a comfort.
I am again sufficiently conscious by Tuesday mid-day for an hour-plus welcome-back update with Jay over sinus-piercing pepper wings. He kicks things off with an intro - more like down the rabbit hole - to the alternative cosmos of AI writing tools.
On a for-free application, we plug in "summary of and goals for the Applied Scholastics African Literacy Campaign," pressing "generate" for a 500-word essay in "college essay" style. Before I can place another chicken bit between my fingers, the screen announces, in part:
"... an initiative aimed at addressing the issue of illiteracy in various African countries. The campaign is designed to provide individuals, particularly children and adults, with the necessary tools and resources to develop their reading and writing skills ...
"In conclusion, the [campaign] is dedicated to addressing the issue of illiteracy in Africa. Through effective educational programs, partnerships, innovative teaching methods, and awareness-raising efforts, the campaign strives to improve literacy rates and empower individuals to become active participants in their communities."
OK, that's not a little redundant and, if I may ask, are there other individuals around besides "children and adults"? Yet, capturing our essence in way less than a minute? The dizzy speed-of-light is surreal enough. To the walking pace universe just beyond the hotel's security gate -- what the supposedly civilized West piously points to as the developing world - AI must seem a hallucination.
We have never pretended this task might be viewed as foolish or fruitless by some. Thank goodness we don't have to ask those people for permission. Folks, despite the angle of climb, what's the wrong thing to do? Answer: nothing. And not for nothing have our contributors again trusted us to fulfill the prime pre-requisite: show up.
And so, here we are again, present and ready to roll. Onward.
Tim Bowles
Paynesville, Liberia
Tuesday, July 18, 2023
I knew I was in trouble when Florence Morris, Mother Florence, grabbed me by the collar. And that was only my first day in Liberia, May, 2006, fighting an intestinal insurgency while stifling inside the tiny, tightly packed house, her Global Cares Mission Academy for 150-plus local kids and orphans.
I knew I was in trouble when Florence Morris, Mother Florence, grabbed me by the collar. And that was only my first day in Liberia, May, 2006, fighting an intestinal insurgency while stifling inside the tiny, tightly packed house, her Global Cares Mission Academy for 150-plus local kids and orphans.
One might ask, what the hell was I doing in Liberia? Good question. Wasn't that kind of a dangerous place, ruled over by child soldiers and racked by genocide? Another good question.
Well, yes, it was a little unconventional, at least for a 50-something Pasadena lawyer, to venture forth into a West African coastal nation then occupied by some 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers. But no, not that dangerous, if you consider Liberia's 13 years of civil war had just ended, all the guns reportedly turned in (at least those not buried in backyards, just in case).
Joseph Jay Yarsiah and his war time story-on-steroids got me to Liberia, from our meeting in Ghana a few months previous. The idea was that possibly we could do something together in human rights and education. No real plan, just something.
... and so, on that first day, why not visit an orphanage? They had heard an American was coming and were waiting. ... and so, out of the blindingly hot sun and into the gaze of wall-to-wall African youth. As one: "Good morning, sir!!" Me back: "Good morning, how are you??!" Again, as one: "We are fine, sir! And how are you!" Blow away.
Then, invited to a back room and squeezed into a 4th grader desk from which there was no escape, 4'10" Mother Florence came over and, in front of her five or six staff (i.e., witnesses), seized me by the collar. "You are from America and you are going to help us!"
My stunned, lame lawyerly answer was something like "boy, thanks for asking, a definite maybe on that."
Roll forward two decades. Once again last month, and for the umpteenth time, I have journeyed out to "The Continent" and back, collaborations affirmed with the highest possible leadership levels and delivery down to ground with the grassroots.
From that first notion that perhaps Jay and I, together with his inspired 20-something cohort, could make a difference has grown, training educators and "educatees" across West Africa in the breakthrough learning-for-competency tools of L. Ron Hubbard, his "Study Technology." Only by fulfilling the right to education are any human rights possible.
The "impossible" task of raising humanity to a better state seems not so imposing when, in front of people who have survived the bottoms of despair and suffering, one sees the lights come on: that effective education is possible.
Perhaps Mother Florence is to "blame." Back in the day, she had enough gumption to state the obvious. Help is needed and help is really all anyone can offer.
And so, we work, growing each year, engaging every educational level in Ghana and Liberia, Global Cares included. Huge thanks to the many thousands - volunteers, donors, advisors, supporters - who make this work possible.
Onward. So much more to come!
Tim Bowles
June 14, 2024
See also,
In the face of a particularly intense string of 100-plus degree days ahead,Cal/OSHA'sJuly 12, 2023 news releasereminds employers to safeguard workers from heat illness,referencing the particular areas of the state likely to be hit the hardest.
In the face of a particularly intense string of 100-plus degree days ahead, Cal/OSHA's July 12, 2023 news release reminds employers to safeguard workers from heat illness, referencing the particular areas of the state likely to be hit the hardest.
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.
Cal/OSHA regulations require all employers with "outdoor areas of employment" to take heat illness prevention measures starting at 80° F, with escalation to high heat measures at 95°F for employers in agriculture, construction, landscaping, oil and gas extraction, and transportation of heavy industrial and commercial products that include loading and unloading.
The July 12 release directs employers to take five protective measures for outdoor workers:
The agency also cautions employers to correct unsafe heat conditions for indoor workers as part of their Injury and Illness Prevention Programs (IIPP) and to encourage outdoor workers to understand and exercise their illness prevention rights, such as cool-down rest time as necessary.
Cal/OSHA provides heat illness prevention training materials with its Heat Illness Prevention web page and the Heat Illness Prevention tool.
Take-Aways:
Heat illness prevention is a major priority to avoid serious illness or death of workers. The Cal/OSHA website has good resources to assist. The five above actions must be part of heat illness prevention measures in policy and in practice starting at 80 degrees.
For further information, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.
See also:
Tim Bowles
July 14, 2023
Ending the employment relationship can be relatively painless if properly conducted in adherence to a well-written handbook policy and legally compliant procedures.
Ending the employment relationship can be relatively painless if properly conducted in adherence to a well-written handbook policy and legally compliant procedures.
Policy Drafting Tips and Best Practices:
Take-Aways:
Implement and regularly review your handbook to include a resignations and terminations policy.
We publish this series to educate employers on best practices for a well-written handbook that assists applicants, employees, and management alike. To purchase our 2023 template handbook - which contains the above policy and much more - and accompanying forms or for more information, please contact Office Manager Aimee Rosales at 626.583.6600 or email her.
See also:
Cindy Bamforth
July 13, 2023