California Employers Must Fully Document Meal and Rest Breaks

No state is likely more protective of employees than California nor more likely to have more employment-based claims in its courts. In our last 20-plus years of defending business in such lawsuits, nearly all have included worker allegations of meal and/or rest break deprivation.

This meal-and-rest suit “pandemic” is a combination of our state’s highly technical break rules, the lash-back anger of former workers out of a job (whether or not justified), and, in too many cases, an employer’s lack of thorough documentation of its provision of such breaks.

California employers must provide every not-exempt-from-overtime worker off-duty unpaid meal and paid rest breaks based on the number of hours that employee works in a given day. As we have detailed in the linked blogs below, the rules vary for such workers as specified in the 17 Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) Wage Orders covering different industries and occupations.

For an employer’s failure to provide an employee a required meal period or rest break, that business must pay that worker one additional hour of pay/day for any missed meal periods and one hour/day for any missed rest breaks. The employer must include this additional pay in that employee’s next paycheck. See IWC Orders and Labor Code section 226.7.

The Supreme Court of California’s Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court decision (2012) clarified the meaning of “employer provided” meal periods and rest breaks. Employers are not responsible for policing workplaces to make sure employees take their meals and rest breaks. However, employers must set out and back-up clear policies consistently encouraging and supporting employee prerogatives to take their entitled times away from their labors during the workday.

Yet, even against a conscientious employer careful to observe these rules, meal and rest break claims commonly find their way into employment cases because they are relatively easy to assert and difficult to defend if management has failed to anticipate the need to methodically document its compliant practices.

One common employer error is neglecting to ensure workers clock out for their minimum 30-minute off-duty meals and back in at meal conclusion. The remedy is obvious: impose the clock out-and-in requirement and regularly confirm compliance.

Documenting a company’s provision of the minimum ten-minute off-duty rest periods is not so easy since these are on the clock. However, management can and should implement a forms system for its workers to acknowledge in writing that they have taken – and were not deprived of — such breaks (as well as meals) over some period of weeks just passed, with space provided to specify any exception. There are timekeeping software programs that include such features.

Such procedures are not just good practice, enabling management and employees to do their parts in the provision of meal and rest periods. They are also workable preventative measures against the risk and expense of the way-too-frequent litigation on these issues.
See also,

• Square Meal is the Deal – California Supreme Court Prohibits Meal Break Time Rounding (April 1, 2021)
• Cautionary Tales Episode 27 – Walmart Hit with Six Million Dollar Verdict for “Discouraging” Off-Site Meal Breaks (May 23, 2019)
• Required Meal Periods and Rest Breaks Revisited – Off-Duty Time During a California Work Day (April 12, 2018)
• Brinker’s New Rules for Meal and Rest Breaks – Employers are No Longer the Lunch Police The Necessity of Management Training (May 18, 2012)
• Brinker: California’s Meal Break Breakthrough – Employers are No Longer the Lunch Police (May 1, 2012)

For further information, contact one of our attorneys Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth or Helena Kobrin.
Tim Bowles
May 13, 2021

Strengthened Agreements with California Owner-Operators Vital to Maintain Their Independence

A federal appeals court has ruled that trucking companies must classify owner-operators as employees unless the relationship meets California’s highly restrictive “ABC” criteria for independent contractor status. Thus, haulers not in a position to change their independent relations with owner-operators must swiftly determine if they can meet the detailed “business-to-business” exception to the ABC test.

“Assembly Bill (AB) 5,” effective January 1, 2020, imposed a three-part “ABC test” for classifying independent contractors, with prong B almost certainly fatal to the traditional relationship between trucking companies and small owner-operators: “a person [i.e., the owner-operator] performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business.”

The California Trucking Association quickly took action, winning a January 16, 2020 injunction for interstate drivers, a San Diego judge ruling that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 (F4A) overrode AB-5.

However, in California Trucking Ass’n (CTA) v. Bonta (Bonta) (April 28, 2021), a Ninth Circuit panel overturned that injunction, agreeing with the state that California’s ABC criteria did not improperly interfere with the federal government’s exclusive powers over the prices, routes, or services of the interstate transportation of property.

Unless overturned in turn by the U.S. Supreme Court, the decision requires trucking companies to hire owner-operators as employees unless the parties can meet the ABC test (again, a virtual impossibility for the traditional relationships) or can meet an exception the California law provides to that test.

While not yet confirmed by any court decision, Labor Code 2776 (effective September, 2020) may provide such an exception for hauling companies and their independent operators provided the relationship can meet the strict, detailed “business-to-business” criteria of that section.

To qualify for the exemption, the service provider [owner-operator] must:

• be free from the contracting business’s control and direction both under the contract and in fact;
• be customarily engaged in an independently established business of the same nature as the work performed;
• advertise and hold itself out to the public as available to provide the same or similar services;
• negotiate its own rates and set its own hours and location of work;
• obtain any required business license and/or tax registration; and
• refrain from performing construction-type work that requires a license from the Contractor State Licensing Board.

In addition:

• the service provider’s [owner-operator’s] employees may deliver such contracted services directly to the contracting business’ [hauling company’s] customers so long as they do so under the service provider’s name and the service provider regularly contracts with other businesses;
• The service provider’s written contract with the contracting business must specify the payment amount, including any applicable rate of pay, for services to be performed, as well as the due date of payment for such services;
• The service provider must maintain its own separate business location (can be a personal residence);
• The service provider must be allowed to contract with other businesses without restrictions. Thus, a service provider working exclusively on a large job for a single contracting business does not have to literally perform work for other businesses simultaneously to qualify for the exemption; and
• Consistent with the nature of the work, the business service provider provides its own tools, vehicles, and equipment to perform the services.

Even if a trucking company – owner/operator relationship can meet all the criteria of this exception, the parties must still satisfy the requirements of the traditional “Borello” factors to properly classify that owner-operator as independent.

Take away: if they are to maintain the independence of owner-operator relationships in California, trucking companies must be sure to meet all the criteria of an exception of this state’s ABC test. Otherwise, best practice is to reclassify such owner-operators as a hiring company’s employees.

See also,

• What’s New in 2021: California’s Newest Independent Contractor Law Part I – Revamped Business-To-Business Exceptions (September 17, 2020)
• Dodging the Bullet: The Industries and Professions Not Subject to California’s New Independent Contractor Restrictions (October 9, 2019)

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

Helena Kobrin
Tim Bowles
May 7, 2021

Know and Comply: California’s Itemized Paystub Requirements

Failing to list each required paystub item – nine basic ones and up to another seven for piece pay recipients – for every worker and in every payroll period can subject a California employer to potentially devastating damages and civil penalties. For example, a trucking company employing 50 drivers and five office staff could find itself facing up to $1,000,000 in such damages and penalties for the simple – and inadvertent – omission of its address on the stubs over the space of just 12 months.

A. The First Nine Required Pay Stub Items: Labor Code 226(a) specifies the basic items for all earnings statements (paystubs):

(1) Gross wages earned;
(2) Total hours worked (except salaried exempt employees);
(3) Piece rate units and rate, if applicable;
(4) All deductions, including taxes, disability insurance, and health and welfare payments (deductions ordered by the employee may be aggregated and shown as one item);
(5) Net wages earned;
(6) The inclusive dates of the pay period;
(7) The name of the employee along with the last four digits of his or her social security number (listing full number is a violation) or an employee identification number;
(8) The name and address of the legal employing entity; and
(9) All applicable hourly rates in effect during the pay period and the corresponding number of hours worked at each hourly rate by the employee.

B. Required Listing of Employee’s Paid Sick Days Benefit: Under Labor Code 246(i), most employers are also required to list:

(10) Written notice of the amount of available paid sick leave on the employee’s pay stub or a separate writing provided with the employee’s payment of wages.

An employer which provides unlimited sick leave (no maximum cap) may meet this notice requirement by indicating “unlimited” sick leave on such wage statements or separate writings.

C. Further Required Paystub Listing of Rest and Recovery Pay for Certain Employers: By Labor Code 226.2, an employer utilizing a piece work (production-based) compensation system must list three further items on each pay statement or stub:

(11) Total hours of compensable rest and recovery periods in the applicable pay period;
(12) Rate of compensation for such periods; and
(13) Gross wages paid for such rest and recovery periods during that pay period.

Under Labor Code 226.2(a)(2)(B), and unless a piece work-paying employer includes an hourly minimum wage base rate in its compensation system, that employer will also have to list yet three more items on each pay stub for affected workers:

(14) Total hours of other compensable nonproductive time in the applicable pay period;
(15) Rate of compensation for such time; and
(16) Gross wages paid for that time during the pay period.

This state’s Labor Commissioner lists samples for ● a basic nine-item paystub; and ● a 16-item stub for piece work compensation plans.

See also:

• What’s Even Newer in 2021 California Expands COVID-19 Paid – Detailed, Retroactive Requirements for Employers with 26 or More on Payroll (April 9, 2021)
• Minimum Wage Laws, a History (April 2, 2021)
• Workplace Rhythm & Cues – Our Employee Policy Handbook & Forms for 2021 – Including Updated COVID-19 Guidelines (January 21, 2021)
• What’s New In 2021: California Minimum Wage Increases (December 23, 2020)

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

May 6, 2021

Hotels, Security Services and Others Must Offer Openings to Pandemic-Affected Former Staff

New California Labor Code 2810.8 requires all hospitality and business services employers — e.g. hotels; private clubs; event centers; airport-related hospitality operations or service providers; and janitorial, building maintenance or security services provided to office, retail or other commercial buildings — to offer new positions to qualified former employees laid off due to COVID-19, through 2024.

Governor Newsom announced: “As we progress toward fully reopening our economy, it is important we maintain our focus on equity…by assuring hospitality and other workers displaced by the pandemic are prioritized to return to their workplace.”

Employees qualify if: ● employed in the hospitality or business services field by the employer for at least six months in the 12 months preceding January 1, 2020; ● worked “at least two hours in a particular week”; and ● were laid off due to the pandemic (including a public health directive, government shutdown order, lack of business, or a reduction in force). Former union employees fitting these criteria are eligible unless explicitly waived in a valid collective bargaining agreement.

Covered employers must:

• Within five business days of establishing an open job position, offer covered employees in writing, either by hand or to their last known physical address, and by email and text, all available positions for which they qualify (i.e., they held the same or similar position at the time of most recent layoff); and

• Give recipients at least five business days from date of receipt to accept or decline.

Employers may make simultaneous, conditional employment offers to multiple covered employees, but the position must be ultimately offered to whoever has seniority (based on hire date).

If the employer “declines to recall a laid-off employee” due to “lack of qualifications” and instead hires someone else, the employer must provide a written notice to the laid-off employee within 30 days describing “the length of service with the employer of those hired in lieu of that recall, along with all reasons for the decision.”

Recordkeeping: Employers must maintain all relevant records for at least three years for each laid off employee including name, job classification, hire date, last known address and other contact information, and copies of the written notices and all records of communications concerning this job recall procedure; and comply with the law’s anti-retaliation provisions.

Enforcement: California’s Division of Labor Standards Enforcement will directly field employee complaints and award damages, which can include hiring and reinstatement rights, recouping lost pay and benefits, civil penalties of $100 per affected employee, and ongoing damages of $500 per day per employee.

Employers should promptly familiarize their hiring managers with the new law and any similar local government ordinance(s); document the reason(s) for every employee’s separation, such as voluntary quit, retirement, layoff (specify if COVID-related or not) and termination for cause; and implement a compliant rehire process, prepare sample notices, and confirm accurate record-keeping before filling any job vacancy.

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

See also:

• What’s Even Newer in 2021 California Expands COVID-19 Paid Sick Leave –Detailed, Retroactive Requirements for Employers with 26 or More on Payroll (April 9, 2021)
• Stay – Away “Exclusion” Pay – Required Pandemic Wages for Positive Test or Workplace Exposure (March 18, 2021)
• One Certain Constant: Change – New Retroactive Paid Pandemic Leave Requirement – Revisions Coming 2021 Handbook & Forms (January 21, 2021)

Cindy Bamforth
April 30, 2021

Haulers and Other Employers May Not Pay Purely by the Mile or Other Production

“Piece work” pay or “piece rate” is compensation for an employee’s unit of production. Until two key 2013 California Supreme Court decisions (Gonzales v. Downtown L.A. Motors and Bluford v. Safeway), this arrangement had long-worked to benefit workers and management in many industries. Trucking companies commonly paid drivers by the mile or by the delivery, auto repair shops paid mechanics by the task accomplished, and agricultural enterprises paid field workers by the bin or other unit measure.

A production-based system enables business to set workers’ pay rates proportional to the enterprise’s overall income generated from that production while employees, where paid well above industry norms for their efforts, tend to be more invested in company success.

Production-Based Piece Pay Hits a Wall: However, the Gonzales and Bluforddecisions found that pure production structures violated California’s required minimum wage payment “for every hour worked.” Piece rate alone by definition did not pay for the daily hours an employee spends on paid rest breaks or on performance of other required tasks (so-called “non-productive” compensable time, e.g., staff meeting, preparation or clean-up time).

From the many years whole industries had appropriately paid by the piece up to that time, these two decisions created the crushing prospect of retroactive wage liability going back as far as 2009. Seeking to restore balance, the California Legislature enacted Labor Code 226.2, effective January 1, 2016. This section:

● provided employers a way to protect against such claims by a specific “safe harbor” formula of back pay to December 31, 2015;

● required piece rate-paying businesses from January 1, 2016 to pay at least the applicable minimum wage (state or higher local standard) for each and every hour worked, whether that time is for production, other tasks or rest breaks; and

● required such businesses to also pay a specially calculated premium for every rest or recovery period to which such employee is entitled for each day of labor.

Production, Piece Pay is Still Possible with Good Planning, Policy: The 2016 law does not outlaw piece pay. It only requires that employers structure such plan carefully to comply with the minimum wage for “every hour worked” concept. Thus, a company intent on maintaining the incentives to high production may construct “hybrid” production-based plans which:

● start with a foundation of guaranteed minimum wage for each hour worked;

● provide an additional piece rate calculation on top of that foundation;

● pay the specially calculated premium for every daily rest or recovery period to which an employee is entitled; and

● comply with all section 226.2 rules on additional paystub entries for piece work compensation systems.

See also:

• California Piece Rate Law: No Time to Relax on Rest-Recovery Premium Pay(September 30, 2016)
• Navigating Piece Work Pay in California – Employers Urgently Must Revise Wage Systems, Including Possible Hourly-Plus-Piece Hybrid Plan (August 12, 2016)

For more information on such matters, please contact Tim Bowles, Cindy Bamforth orHelena Kobrin.

Tim Bowles
April 23, 2021

California’s Major Exemptions from Overtime Pay

“Exempt” in California workplace-speak commonly means an employee classified as exempt from overtime pay. Such workers may also be exempt from other rights and benefits accorded hourly workers, including provided meal and rest periods and “reporting time pay” (a minimum two hours of wages daily once on the job).

With criteria specified in California Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) Wage Orders, the three most common exemptions are executive, administrative and professional. The concept is that such high-level overseers of organization and production are the most skilled and responsible for the success of the enterprise and thus can command appropriately higher pay for such expected results without regard to the time required.

All three types have the same “salary” basis requirement: a lump-sum wage equivalent to no less than two times the state minimum wage for full-time (40 hours per week) employment. For 2021, those minimums are: (a) for employers with 25 or fewer employees, salary no less than $1,040 per week, $4,507 per month, or $54,080 per year; and (b) for employers with 26 or more employees, salary no less than $1,120 per week, $4,853.33 per month, or 58,240 per year.

Each of these three exemptions have distinct so-called “exempt duties” as below. To qualify for exemption in a given seven-day workweek, the individual must be “primarily” engaged in such duties, i.e., at least 51% of his or her time during that period. However, a properly salaried individual engaged 51%-plus of a workweek’s time in exempt duties for any combination of the three (e.g., 30% time on executive, 21% administrative) will also be exempt from overtime, meal/rest periods, etc.

Executive Exempt Duties

• Has personnel managerial authority and responsibilities for the entire company or at least one of its departments or subdivisions, for example planning, recruiting, allocation of work priorities, coordination, documentation (e.g., statistics, performance evaluations) and production results;

• Customarily and regularly directs the work of two or more other employees;

• Has the authority (or provides substantial input) to hire or fire others;

• Customarily and regularly exercises discretion and independent judgment in such duties (versus merely applying one’s memory in following prescribed procedures).

Administrative Exempt Duties

• Has authority and responsibilities over performance of either ● office or non-manual work directly related to management policies or general business operations; or ● educational establishment administration or academic instruction; and

• Customarily and regularly exercises discretion and independent judgment (versus merely applying rote techniques/procedures, making decisions of little consequence or working in the production aspects of the business); and

• Carries out any one or more of the following:

1. Regularly and directly assists a proprietor or other senior executive who has delegated part of his/her discretionary powers to the employee;

2. Performs, under only general supervision, work along specialized or technical lines requiring special training, experience or knowledge (such as tax, insurance, and sales research experts, credit managers, purchasing agents, buyers, and personnel and safety directors); or

3. Executes, under only general supervision, special assignments and tasks (such as buyers, field representatives and location managers for motion picture companies).

Professional Exempt Duties, Qualifications

• Engaged in the licensed practice of law, medicine, dentistry, optometry, architecture, engineering, teaching or accounting; or

• Engaged in an occupation commonly recognized as a “learned or artistic profession”;

• Customarily and regularly exercises discretion and independent judgment in his/her position.

California provides overtime exemption for workers meeting other detailed duties and compensation requirements, including certain physicians, computer programmers and truck drivers. The Department of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) provides a comparison chart.

See also:

• What’s New in 2021: California Minimum Wage Increases (December 23, 2020)

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

Cindy Bamforth
April 22, 2021

EEOC 2020 Report Retaliation, Disability Claims Predominate

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) 2020 Enforcement and Litigation Report tallies its workplace discrimination charges processed between October, 2019 through September, 2020.

Retaliation charges top the list as they have in recent years, with 37,632 claims constituting 55 percent of the 67,448 charges the EEOC received, followed by disability, race, sex and age.

The EEOC recovered just over $106 million for claimants over the reporting period, resolving 165 lawsuits and filing 93 new ones.

Retaliation and disability also top the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing’s (DFEH) latest list of complaints filed for 2019. The DFEH received 22,584 complaints that year, settling 710 cases for a total $14,834,753.

An educated workforce is management’s best frontline defense to prevent unlawful practices, including regular “zero-tolerance” sexual harassment training. California law requires two hours of such training for managers, supervisors and executives and one hour for non-supervisory employees every two years. See, Deadline Nigh: January 1, 2021 – Workplace Harassment Prevention Training Webinar (November 2021).

Thorough training should cover all forms of discrimination, harassment and retaliation, including for example race, gender, religion, age, sexual preference, national origin, and disability.

Another essential is up-to-date anti-discrimination, harassment and retaliation policies to promote and maintain a professional and productive work environment.

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

See also:

• Workplace Discrimination Prevention-California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, A History (March 26,2021)
• Live and Let Live – Preventing Political Backlash in the Workplace (October 23, 2020)
• Cautionary Tale Episode 37: Workplace Culture Clash – California Challenges Cisco Systems for Color (“Caste-Based”) Discrimination (September 4, 2020)

Helena Kobrin
April 16, 2021

Pandemic-Driven Form I-9 Documentation Rules Extended to May 31, 2021

Employers must verify identity and work authorization for U.S.-based citizens and noncitizens using “Form I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification” (I-9 Form). Potential consequences for noncompliance can include civil fines of up to $ 23,331 per occurrence as well as criminal prosecution and imprisonment.

Last year, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that employers and workplaces operating remotely due to COVID-19 could perform I-9 document inspections remotely over video link, fax or email so long as they obtained, inspected and retained copies of the documents within three business days of hire and entered “COVID-19” as the reason for the physical inspection delay in the Form’s additional information field.

The DHS recently announced extension of this flexibility from April 1 to May 31, 2021.

Thus, employees hired on or after April 1 and who work exclusively in a remote setting due to COVID-19 are temporarily exempt from Form I-9’s physical document inspection requirements until they undertake non-remote employment “on a regular, consistent, or predictable basis,” or until DHS terminates this policy.

Employers who avail themselves of this option “must provide written documentation of their remote onboarding and telework policy for each employee.”

Once normal operations resume, all employees using remote verification must report to their employer within three business days for an in-person document verification, at which time the employer should add “documents physically examined” with the date of in-person inspection to the Form’s additional information field.

Affected employers must monitor the DHS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) websites for further updates.

See also:

• Oy Vey, Now What? Employers Must Use New I-9 Form Starting May 1, 2020 (April 25, 2020)

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

Cindy Bamforth
April 15, 2021

Detailed, Retroactive Requirements for Employers with 26 or More on Payroll

Effective March 29, 2021, California Labor Code 248.2’s “COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave” law (SPSL) requires employers with 26 or more total employees, i.e., nationwide, to provide up to 80 hours of supplemental paid sick leave benefits to eligible/covered California workers through September 30, 2021. The new law also covers providers of in-home supportive services (see California Labor Code 248.3).

SPSL revives and significantly expands last year’s COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave law (Assembly Bill [AB]1867), which applied mostly to food sector workers and employers with over 500 employees.

As explained in the Labor Commissioner’s FAQs, the new SPSL includes:

Eligibility

A covered employee must be unable to work or telework for any of the following reasons:

• Caring for yourself: The employee is subject to a government-directed COVID-19 quarantine or isolation period, has been advised by a healthcare provider to quarantine, or is experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and seeking a medical diagnosis; or

• Caring for a family member: The employee is caring for a family member subject to COVID-19 quarantine or isolation or has been medically advised to do so, or is caring for a child whose school or place of care is closed or unavailable due to COVID-19; or

• Vaccine–related: The covered employee is attending a vaccine appointment or is experiencing vaccine-related symptoms.

Employers may not request confirming medical certification for any of these grounds.

Pay Amounts, Rates and Timing

• Covered, eligible employees may take up to 80 hours of COVID-related paid sick leave (not to exceed $511 per day and $5,110 in total) immediately upon an oral or written request to their employer.

• Part-time employees with a regular weekly schedule must be paid the number of hours normally scheduled to work over two weeks.

• Part-time employees with a variable schedule must be paid 14 times the average number of hours worked per day over the past six months.

• Non-exempt employees must be paid the highest of: ● employee’s pay rate for the workweek in which leave is taken; ● state minimum wage; ● local minimum wage: ● or average hourly pay for the preceding 90 days (excluding overtime pay).

• Exempt employees must receive the same rate of pay as wages calculated for other paid leave time.

• Paid leave taken in 2020 under AB 1867 or the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) does not count towards the new SPSL leave bank.

Retroactivity: Employers must make retroactive payments for prior leave taken under any of the above eligible reasons from January 1, 2021 upon the covered employee’s oral or written request. Retroactive payments must be made “on or before the payday for the next full pay period” after receiving the request.

Model Notice/ Wage Statement:

• Employers must provide written notice to all covered employees. The Labor Commissioner’s model notice in English and Spanish may be used for this purpose.

• Itemized wage statements must list the amount of available SPSL separately from regular paid sick leave. See FAQ No.20 for more information.

Leave Interactions:

• Employers may not require a covered employee to use other paid or unpaid leave before using SPSL.

• However, employers may require employees to first exhaust their SPSL bank before paying COVID-19 related exclusion pay under Cal/OSHA’s COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). See, Stay-Away “Exclusion” Pay Required Pandemic Wages for Positive Test or Workplace Exposure (March 18, 2021).

• Employers may also credit any paid leave (except for regular non-COVID-related California paid sick leave) taken by a covered employee between January 1, 2021 and March 28, 2021 for any of the above eligibility reasons.

Prohibited Retaliation/Discrimination: Retaliation or discrimination against a covered employee requesting or using SPSL is strictly prohibited.

California employers should review new section 248.2 and the accompanying FAQs to confirm compliance steps, including closely coordinating with payroll companies, downloading and distributing the model notices, and training managers on the new law.

See also:

• Pandemic Leave 2.0 – Feds Promote Expanded Paid Leave with Tax Credits, Through September 30, 2021 (March 25, 2021)
• One Certain Constant: Change – New Retroactive Paid Pandemic Leave Requirement(March 19, 2021)
• What’s New in 2021: Paid Pandemic Leave in the New Year – Some Benefits Optional, Some Mandatory (January 15, 2021)

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

Cindy Bamforth
April 9, 2021