California - Wage & Hour

Since passing the California Fair Pay Act (“CFPA”) on October 6, 2015, California has remained a trailblazer in its efforts to address and decrease gender pay inequity. The CFPA requires all employers pay employees performing “substantially similar work” the same wage regardless of gender, ethnicity

A California court recently issued a decision clarifying when certain commuting time does not constitute work time under state law. In Hernandez v. Pacific Bell Telephone Company, the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, held that an employer's provision of a company vehicle to empl

On September 20, 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 2605. This new law provides that unionized employees at petroleum facilities who hold safety-sensitive positions are exempt from the requirement that employees be relieved of all duties during rest periods. The bill

California has enacted new legislation aimed at clarifying its law banning an employer from inquiring about a job applicant’s salary history information

Executive Summary: Under California law, employers are required to pay employees for “all hours worked” when subject to the employer’s “control.” This raises the question: if an employer uses a timekeeping system that automatically rounds employee time punches up or down to the nearest quarter hour,

Today, the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in Rodriguez v. Taco Bell Corp., upholding the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Taco Bell on class claims for alleged meal break violations. In this case, Taco Bell authorized and permitted employees to take meal breaks during which t

Whether you celebrated the Fourth of July with fireworks, hot dogs, hamburgers, or reciting the Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,

It’s summertime in the City of Santa Monica and with sunny days and cool ocean breezes also comes an increase in the minimum wage commencing on July 1, 2018. Each year on July 1, Santa Monica employers must comply with the City’s minimum wage law, which was enacted in 2016 and currently runs through

In this podcast, Bruce Sarchet and Corinn Jackson, both with Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute, consider the compliance twists and turns of California’s salary history ban, which took effect on January 1, 2018. They look at if and how employers can consider salary history when making employment a

The California Supreme Court’s adoption of a strict ABC test for purposes of the wage orders is likely to cause significant problems for California businesses that use independent contractors. Of particular concern is the “B” prong of the test and the contours of the putative employer’s business. Wh

On May 7, 2018, the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement (OLSE) published revised rules concerning the city’s generous Paid Sick Leave Ordinance (PSLO). The new rules come more than 10 years after the original groundbreaking rules were published in 2007. In the interim, a statewide pa

In 2010, Massachusetts enacted the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) Reform Act, which includes a “ban-the-box” component. Among other things, the law prohibits an employer from requiring an applicant to check a box if he or she has a criminal history.1 The law also prohibits an employer f

The California Supreme Court recently decided the question of how an employee’s overtime pay rate should be calculated when the employee has earned a flat sum bonus during a single pay period.1 In Alvarado v. Dart Container Corp. of California, there was no dispute that the bonus needed to be factor

The California Supreme Court has held that, under state law, when an employee earns a flat sum bonus during a pay period, the overtime pay rate will be calculated using the actual number of non-overtime hours worked by the employee during the pay period. Alvarado v. Dart Container Corp., 2018 Cal. L

Executive Summary: On March 5, 2018, the California Supreme Court issued a ruling clarifying how employers must handle flat-sum bonuses (i.e., additional compensation that does not change depending on the number of hours worked by an employee) in the calculation of overtime. Under this ruling, an em

Dear Littler: We need to hire some key personnel for our new tech company. We intend to offer them equity in the enterprise as compensation. The equity should be very valuable in the long run, and the deal we have in mind is reasonable for our industry. But we figured we should double-check with a l

In November 2017, the California Labor Commissioner’s office, Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (“DLSE”), published updated guidance on employer provided paid 10-minute rest breaks.

Beginning with contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2018, direct (general) contractors in California will be held jointly liable for their subcontractors’ unpaid employee wages, fringe benefit or other benefit payments or contributions under Assembly Bill 1701, signed into law by Governor J

California’s legislature is close to passing three bills to expand the state’s fair pay laws. The bills, introduced in early 2017, were designed to expand upon, or clarify, the amended California Fair Pay Act (CFPA).

The City of San Francisco (SF) is the latest governmental entity to join the trend towards prohibiting employers from asking job seekers about current or prior salary or wage rate or pegging starting pay to prior pay. The SF Ordinance is based on the following premise: