SB 95 – Resurrection of Supplemental Paid Sick Leave for COVID-19

Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 95 on March 19, 2021.  SB 95 requires California private and public employers with 25 employees or more to provide “Supplemental Paid Sick Leave” for qualifying leave events between January 1, 2021 and September 30, 2021.  SB95 became effective on March 29, 2021, and is retroactive to January 1, 2021.  This means that employees can...

I Care Too Much

In 2008 I witnessed a superstar, talented, attractive, has-it-all woman, who was approximately my age, shaving her head, attacking paparazzi with an umbrella, having a shotgun wedding in Las Vegas (and an annulment soon thereafter), walking barefoot in public, and participating in other erratic behavior detailed in the tabloids.  The result of these “Oops, I Did it Again” behaviors was...

9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules that employer per diem payments may function as wages rather than reimbursement for purposes of calculating an employee’s overtime rate of pay in accordance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Plaintiffs worked as traveling clinicians for Defendant’s healthcare staffing company.  In addition to receiving designated hourly wages, Plaintiffs also received a weekly per diem benefit, which Defendant claimed was provided as a reasonable reimbursement for work-related expenses while traveling, thus were not wages.  Plaintiffs sued Defendant, claiming that their weekly per diem benefits operated as wages and were improperly excluded...

It’s Time to Redistrict

After the completion of the U.S. census every 10-years, public agencies with officers elected from geographical districts must “redistrict.”  This requires review of the recent Census population data and, if necessary, adjustment of voting area boundaries to keep them as nearly equal in population as possible, allowing for certain variances due to geography, topography, communities of interest, etc., all as...

The Scoop on Mandating Vaccines in the Workplace

Recently, it was reported that a local California law firm was requiring its employees to obtain a Covid-19 vaccine. This was reportedly the first law firm to do so.  The policy in question “encourages” all employees to get the vaccine as soon as they become eligible. The policy continues to require employees to practice public health safety guidelines when in...

California Pay Data Reporting – SB 973

California employers of 100 or more employees must report pay and hours-worked data by establishment, job category, sex, race and ethnicity to the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) by March 31, 2021, and annually thereafter.  The “snapshot period” for reporting is a single pay period between October 1 and December 31 of the Reporting Year.  An employer has...