Apr 04 2008

Employment-related Bills 2008

Published by Jon-Erik G. Storm

SB 674 (Dutton) - Incentives for employers who provide health care and other benefits.
SB 737 (Caleron) - Legislature’s intent to clarify meal and rest period law.
SB 940 (Yee) - Temporoary employees must be paid more frequently.
SB 953 (Wyland) - Ministerial changes to alternative workweeks.
SB 1192 (Margett) - Would reverse Murphy.  Wage premiums are penalties.
SB 1244 (Alquist) - No retaliation if a family member or co-worker files a wage claim.
SB 1283 (Harman) - Some leniency in final paychecks for outside accounting departments.
SB 1489 (Kuehl) - Ministerial changes to leave laws.
SB 1490 (Padilla) - Independent contractors may request a determination from the EDD regarding their status when hired.
SB 1539 (Calderon) - Interpretation of IWC orders re: meal periods mandatory after 5 hours.
SB 1583 (Corbett) - Advising someone to hire independent contractors makes you jointly liable for the remedies against the principal.

AB 1989 (Swanson) - Expands WARN act to include offshoring.
AB 2075 (Fuentes) - Off-the-clock hours would be equivalent to signing flase wage release.
AB 2134 (Swanson) - Would conform state and federal family leave.
AB 2279 (Leno) - Reverses Ragingwire: no discrimination based on medical marijuana usage.
AB 2421 (Huff) - Investigation and prosecution of complaints of employment of unauthorized workers.
AB 2530 (Duvall) - Would exclude certain transportation employees from meal period orders.
AB 2716 (Ma) - Paid sick leave for everyone.
AB 2719 (Jeffries) - Would exclude employees investigating workers compensation fraud from meal period orders.
AB 2874 (Lieber) - Removes penalty limits for violations of CRA2005.
AB 2879 (Leno) - Labor Commissioner audit triggers.
AB 2888 (La Malfa) - Sex offenders cannot work in certain fields with minors, fines related thereto.
AB 2918 (Lieber) - Would restrict usage of credit information as a condition of employment.

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Apr 20 2007

Legislative Response to Murphy v. Kenneth Cole?

Published by Jon-Erik G. Storm

In my rundown of the bills pending before the legislature related to employment, I came across SB 737. I am going to find out more in the coming days, but I just thought I’d post this in light on Monday’s ruling in Murphy. In the past, bills like this that are “empty shells” have been used to draft legislation after the cutoff for certain steps in the legislative process. Perhaps this bill was waiting on Murphy….

Existing law authorizes the Industrial Welfare Commission to adopt or amend working condition orders with respect to break periods, meal periods, and days of rest for any workers in this state consistent with the health and welfare of those workers. Other provisions of existing law prohibits an employer, except as provided, from employing an employee for more than 5 hours per day without providing the employee a meal period of not less than 30 minutes, or from employing an employee for more than 10 hours per day without providing the employee with a 2nd meal period of not less than 30 minutes.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to address issues related to meal periods and rest periods in employment.

UPDATE: I just spoke with a staffer of Senator Calderon, who introduced this bill. I asked whether it was proposed in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Murphy case. The response was that this was a “spot bill” (his term for the shell I mentioned above) that would end up being used as a vehicle for a compromise between employee and employer groups on rest breaks and meal periods. When asked whether the statute of limitations was part of this, the staffer responded that there were a “multitude” of different issues being negotiated.

I will be paying special attention to all of the developments related to SB 737.


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