Over the past six months several new bills have passed the legislature or been enacted by the Federal Government which will impact employers in the state of California.
First, employers are reminded that the new Federal salary level for exempt status employees goes into effect December 1, 2016 and requires that individuals who may otherwise qualify for exempt status must be paid a minimum of $913 per week ($47,476 per year).
In addition to the above Federal requirements for overtime exemption, employers in California are reminded that the minimum wage in California will increase starting January 1, 2017 to $10.50 per hour.
Earlier this year, California also extended paid sick days to “in-home support service workers”. This is not set to commence until July 1, 2018, but employers with such employees should be aware of the upcoming change.
Also, midway through the year California exempted from itemized wage statements the requirement that exempt employee hours be listed. However, employers are reminded that the new paid sick leave laws require that paystubs provide for accrued sick leave to be shown under this Labor Code requirement or face penalties.
Next, previous law had created the “domestic worker bill of rights” which regulated the hours for domestic work employees who acted as personal attendants and provided overtime compensation for those individuals for the first time. That law was set to “sunset” (end) on January 1, 2017. If this had occurred, then those bill of rights would have disappeared. However, the Legislature extended the law so that personal attendants and other domestic work employees now share the same protections as all employees in California.
Applicants for employment have also been extended additional benefits and employers are now prohibited from asking an applicant for employment to disclose (or from utilizing as a factor in determining any condition of employment) information concerning or related to an arrest, detention, processing, diversion, supervision, adjudication, or court disposition that occurred while the person was subject to the process and jurisdiction of juvenile court law.
Finally, the State legislature has passed law requiring the registration by employers of “property service workers” and covers employees including janitors or other individuals whose work predominately includes final clean-up of debris, grounds, and buildings near the completion of construction, alteration, demolition, installation or repair work project, including but not limited to, street cleaners. The new legislation imposes a variety of requirements on employers of such individuals but most notably the registration of same beginning in July of 2018.