California - Wage & Hour

Next week, on July 3, 2015 the ordinances collectively known as the “Retail Workers Bill of Rights” - passed unanimously by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in November 2014 - will go into effect in the City of San Francisco and the City will begin enforcing its provisions. The ordinances requ

In a wage-and-hour class action filed by food and beverage vendors working in California entertainment arenas, the California Court of Appeal has ruled that a state Labor Code provision making it unlawful for any employer to “engage” in the willful misclassification of an individual as an independen

On May 19, 2015, the Los Angeles City Council approved a proposal for a gradual establishment of a citywide minimum wage of $15.00 per hour by July 1, 2020. Once adopted, Los Angeles will join other large U.S. cities, including Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco, to establish local minimum wage ordi

On April 17, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Miranda v. Coach, Inc., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51768 struck a strong blow against any argument that the exclusion for the time an employee spends undergoing post-shift security screenings from their hours worked und

Earlier this week, Secretary of Labor Perez announced that her agency is still working hard on revising the regulations governing the existing white collar overtime exemptions. These regulations were originally expected to be published in early 2015. However, that did not happen. Secretary Perez now

Executive Summary: A new California Court of Appeal decision has invalidated a 22-year-old healthcare industry exception that had given the industry some flexibility with respect to how it provided its employees working extra-long shifts with meal breaks. The decision is expected to have serious and

Reversing a trial court’s awarding of a $90 million judgment in a class action case for alleged rest period violations under California law, the California Court of Appeal has ruled that a security company had provided its security guards with proper rest periods, even though they were required to r

The recent California Court of Appeal decision in Mies v. Sephora U.S.A., Inc., Case No. A139410 (1st App. Dist., Feb. 2, 2015) (unpublished) joins a growing number of cases finding the existence of uniform corporate policies, standing alone, is insufficient for class certification. Mies upheld the

On January 29, 2015, the California Court of Appeal, Second District, published a landmark decision in Augustus v. ABM Security Services. Specifically, the Augustus court held that while California law prohibits employers from requiring employees to work during rest breaks, it does not require emplo

Executive Summary: On January 29, 2015, a California appeals court published a modified version of an opinion examining, in part, an employer's obligation under the state's rest break requirements. Critically, the opinion concludes that the rest break requirement only prescribes that an employee not

Holding that “hours worked” under California Labor Code and Industrial Welfare Commission (“IWC”) Wage Order No. 4-2001 (“Wage Order 4”) include all time spent at the employer’s workplace and under the employer’s control, such as sleep time, the California Supreme Court has ruled that security guard

An employer-friendly decision rings in the New Year in California. In Koval v. Pacific Bell Telephone Co., plaintiffs alleged “systematic company guidelines” restricted employee activities during meal and rest breaks and “prevented employees from fully realizing the [meal and rest] breaks to which t

Starting on August 13, 2014, employers doing business in the City of San Francisco, California have had to comply with sweeping amendments to San Francisco Police Code, Article 49, and Administrative Code, Article 12 ("the amendments," "the ordinances" or the "FCO"), which significantly restrict the

In addition to federal and state laws, San Francisco currently has ten labor and employment laws that apply only to employees working within the City. On December 5, 2014, the eleventh San Francisco-specific employment law was enacted, expanding the rights of some retail workers employed by specifie

he required compensation levels for employees exempt from overtime rate of pay requirements under the California computer software professional exemption will increase by 2.2 percent from current levels beginning January 1, 2015, the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) has announced.

A City of Oakland ballot measure increasing the minimum wage for most employees, requiring paid sick leave and mandating payment of employer-levied service charges to employees has passed with over 80 percent of the vote. Measure FF’s provisions raising the minimum wage and requiring paid sick leave

In a significant decision that provides support for employers who are pushing back against plaintiffs’ attempts to litigate unmanageable wage and hour claims on a class-wide basis, a California federal court denied a motion for class certification in Ordonez v. RadioShack, Inc., a putative class act

In Rhea v. General Atomics, the California Court of Appeal issued an important ruling confirming that employers may require salaried exempt employees to use accrued vacation/PTO time for partial day absences in any increment, including increments of less than four hours, without violating the salary

Employers with at least 50 full-time employees in the San Francisco Bay Area must offer commuter benefits, such as payments for commuter transit passes made with employees’ pre-tax earnings, to any employee who works at least 20 hours per week no later than September 30, 2014.

Last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded, in Dilts v. Penske Logistics, LLC, that the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 19942 (FAAAA) does not preempt the application of California’s meal and rest break laws to motor carriers because these state laws are