Workers’ compensation insurance, the nation’s oldest social insurance, protects employees and employers if an employee is injured while on the job. If employees get hurt or are sick because of work, an employer must pay workers’ compensation benefits, and those benefits are typically paid through insurance. Because this insurance affects nearly all California employers and…
Under California law, which is more generous to employees than federal law, employees are entitled to specific meal and rest breaks. Indeed, California is one of the few states that require employers to give their workers both meal and rest breaks. In one of our recent landmark cases, heard by the Supreme Court of California,…
Generally speaking, joint employment, or co-employment, is the sharing of control and supervision of an employee’s activity among two or more business entities. A benefit of the increasingly popular employment practice is the ease with which joint employers are often able to hire experts in niche industries, individuals with specialist skills, and/or even replace their…
California’s “Day of Rest” statute continues to plague employers, but a recent case brings with it some good news. Under California Labor Code section 550-558.1, an employer is prohibited “from ‘caus[ing] his employees to work more than six days in seven” unless “the total hours of employment do not exceed 30 hours in any week.”[1]…
Employers, beware: New regulations expand existing transgender protections under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). FEHA protects individuals who identify as transgender and provides protections on the basis of both gender identity and gender expression — regardless of the person’s assigned sex at birth. California law also specifically protects an employee’s right to appear…
Prior to AB 2337, a law that expands the rights of certain employees, victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking were protected if: their employers retaliated against them, they took time off, they requested reimbursement for lost wages and work benefits, or sought equitable relief from the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement as it…
Many are questioning whether, under the Trump Administration, the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered) community will be given the same protections provided to it during the Obama administration. The most accurate (and surely frustrating) answer to this question is, “it depends.”
Overtime pay, or the alleged lack thereof, is an issue we regularly see pop up in the California courts. While California employers generally recognize that non-exempt employees (e.g. many hourly employees) who work overtime must receive overtime premiums on their base pay, not all are aware that these premiums may also be required on other,…
Under the California Labor Code, employers are required to adhere to various wage and hour requirements for benefit of employees. Indeed, employers must provide employees with specific information concerning the wages they are paid, and failure to do so may result in legal penalties, including a potential wage and hour class action.
The California Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) authorizes aggrieved employees to file lawsuits to recover civil penalties on behalf of themselves, other employees, and the State of California for alleged Labor Code violations. In other words, PAGA gives a private citizen the right to pursue fines that would normally only be available to…