California requires all employers to provide lactating employees with reasonable time and adequate space to express breast milk in private at or near the employee’s usual work area. The location, which cannot be a bathroom, must have access to electricity or alternative devices to operate an electric or battery-powered breast pump and be safe, clean, and hazard-free, with a place to sit and a surface to place a breast pump and personal items. The company must also provide access to a sink with running water and a refrigerator or another cooling device for storing milk.

California Labor Code section 1034 also requires all employers to develop and implement a lactation accommodation policy including:

• The right to request lactation accommodation;
• The process for initiating and responding to the request; and
• The right to file a Labor Commissioner complaint for any perceived noncompliance.

Policy Drafting Tips and Best Practices:

• Include the above points in the policy;
• Describe how the employer’s lactation room or location complies with the law;
• Consider attaching a copy of the Labor Code sections 1030-1034 to the policy; and
• Distribute the policy to all new hires and to any employee who makes an inquiry about or requests parental leave.

Take-Aways:

Implement and regularly review your handbook to include a lactation accommodation 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 officemgr@tbowleslaw.com.

See also:

• Mom Discrimination – Black Employee Charges Walmart’s Unequal Treatment (March 3, 2022)
• What’s New in 2020 Freedom of Expression – Higher Workplace Standards to Assist Lactating Moms (January 17, 2020)
• EEOC Settles Female Miner Discrimination Case for $690,000 (June 27, 2019)

Cindy Bamforth
August 10, 2023

California leads the nation in restricting the kinds of workers validly classified as independent contractors/“non-employees.” See, e.g., California’s Independent Contractors – An Endangered Species by Newly Enacted “AB 5” (October 4, 2019).

Los Angeles has now gone further, directing that many contracts for freelance services within its city limits must be in writing. This “Freelance Worker Protection Ordinance” provides for recovery of the contract’s or labor’s value, double damages for failure to pay on time, and attorney fees.

A “Freelance Worker” is an individual or entity composed of no more than one person hired to provide services in the city for compensation. A Freelance Worker has no employees. A “Hiring Entity” is regularly engaged in business or commercial activity (including non-profits), with exception for those hiring “app-based transportation and delivery drivers to provide prearranged services.”

The ordinance covers work performed for the Hiring Entity on or after July 1, 2023 valued at $600-plus either by an individual job or cumulative jobs in a calendar year.

The contract must contain:

• name, mailing address, phone number, and, if available, email address of each party
• itemization of all services to be provided, their value and rate and method of compensation; and
• the payment date or how that date will be determined. If the contract does not specify the due date, payment must be made within 30 days after the services are delivered

Any Freelance Worker waiver of the ordinance’s requirements “shall be deemed contrary to public policy and shall be void and unenforceable.”

The Hiring Entity may not retaliate against a Freelance Worker asserting rights under the ordinance.

A Freelance Worker may complain to the city’s Office of Wage Standards and/or file suit to enforce the ordinance or recover damages and attorney fees. Those damages may include:

• “the value of the contract or the work performed, whichever is greater”
• up to twice the amount not paid by the due date; and
• an additional $250 for Hiring Entity refusal to provide a requested written contract

Take-Aways:

In addition to validly classifying workers as independents by this state’s highly constrictive standards, businesses must take care to confirm in writing -- and to timely pay on -- even one-event or single “gig” one-person services performed within L.A. city.

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

See also:

• Preference Doesn’t Matter Incorrect Classification Leads to Massive Liability (May 5, 2023)
• Cautionary Tale Episode 62 – Department of Labor $5.6 Million Judgment for Drivers Miscast as Independent Contractors – Feds Fed Up with Truckers Misclassification (February 3, 2023)
• Employee or Independent Contractor? Employers Who Misclassify Workers Put Themselves at Risk (September 16, 2022)

Tim Bowles
August 4, 2023

The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) requires employers with five or more on payroll to:

• Provide unpaid pregnancy disability leave (PDL) when an employee is medically disabled due to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions as determined by the employee’s healthcare provider for up to four months of leave per pregnancy (i.e., the working days normally worked in one-third of a year or 17 1/3 weeks);
• Reasonably accommodate medical needs related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related conditions (such as temporarily modifying work duties, providing a stool or chair, or allowing more frequent breaks);
• Transfer to a less strenuous or hazardous position (if available) or duties if medically needed; and
• Refrain from discriminating, harassing, or retaliating based on pregnancy.

Policy Drafting Tips and Best Practices:

• Determine whether PDL will be paid or unpaid;
• Have the employee submit a PDL request form with estimated start and end dates;
• Require a medical certification form to confirm the need for PDL, reasonable accommodation, or transfer. See, e.g., https://calcivilrights.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2022/09/Pregnancy-Certification-Health-Care-Provider_ENG.pdf;
• Explain whether vacation and sick pay benefits will continue to accrue while on PDL;
• Always permit the employee to use any accrued vacation/PTO benefits during her leave at her discretion;
• Determine whether to require the use of any available sick leave during PDL;
• Always continue group health coverage at the same level and under the same conditions for the duration of the leave;
• Reinstate the employee to her former position or, to the extent permitted by law, to a substantially similar position;
• Reasonably accommodate the medical needs related to the pregnancy, childbirth, or related conditions; and
• Never deny PDL or refuse to extend it beyond the maximum allotted time or refuse to reinstate an employee after taking PDL without first consulting with experienced legal counsel.

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:

• Family and Medical Leaves Policy (July 20, 2023)
• Attendance and Absence Policy – Show Up Standards (June 22, 2023)
• Build Trust – Workplace Policy Handbook & Forms for 2023 (July 5, 2023)
• Pregnancy Accommodation in California – New, Simpler Certification Form for Disability Leave, Transfer and Other Reasonable Accommodation (November 15, 2018)

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.

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:

• Build Trust: Workplace Policy Handbook & Forms for 2023: Rules Tools (July 5, 2023)
• Boogie Downer: Misogynistic Music as Workplace Sexual Harassment: Ear Pollution Resolution (June 16, 2023)
• Cautionary Tale Episode 52: Predator Extinction Program: EEOC Sues Chipotle for Sexual Harassment of Teen Workers (March 18, 2022)

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 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:

• California Minimum Wage Rates Update: Bottom Line Breakdown (June 9, 2023)
• Handbook Helper Episode 11 Right on Schedule: Work Hours and Breaks (September 23, 2022)

Helena Kobrin
July 21, 2023

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:

• Define employee eligibility under CFRA and FMLA, which includes having worked for the employer for at least 12 months and at least 1250 hours in the 12 months immediately preceding the start of the leave;
• Specify the authorized reasons for taking such leave, which can include baby-bonding leave, time off to care for certain family members’ or the employee’s own serious health condition, and other reasons specified in the laws;
• Inform eligible employees how to request FMLA/CFRA leave along with any supporting medical certification;
• Determine whether the employee must use any accrued unused vacation and/or available paid sick leave benefits as a term of the unpaid leave;
• Explain the effect of FMLA/CFRA leave on employee benefits, such as requiring ongoing payments of insurance premiums to maintain group health plan coverage and whether vacation and/or paid sick leave benefits will continue to accrue during the leave; and
• Describe the employee’s rights and responsibilities when returning from FMLA/CFRA leave.

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:

• Build Trust – Workplace Policy Handbook & Forms for 2023 (July 5, 2023)
• Attendance and Absence Policy – Show Up Standards (June 22, 2023)
• Inclusion, Expanded California’s Greater Reach on Family Leave and Paid Sick Benefits (December 9, 2022)
• What’s New In 2021 Workplace Time Outs- California’s Expanded Family and Medical Leave Significantly Impacts Small Business (November 12, 2020)

Cindy Bamforth
July 20, 2023

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

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 Town
July 18, 2023

Tim Bowles
Friday, July 21, 2023
Monrovia, Liberia

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 4^th 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,

• Now, More Than Ever Inspired by a Great Friend, Helping Global Cares in Liberia, West Africa (January 12, 2024)
• The Road Taken – Fellow Travelers on Humanity’s Highway (July 21, 2023)
• Liberian Rain – A West African Chronicle July 15-30, 2023 (July 18, 2023)