California Legislative Changes Coming in 2021

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

2020 has been a 12 months of fixed modifications for California employers. Listed here are some massive developments that employers can’t afford to overlook in 2021.

Enlargement of the California Household Rights Act

One of many largest legislative modifications dealing with California employers in 2021 can be the growth of the California Household Rights Act (CFRA). At the moment, employers with 50 or extra workers are topic to CFRA and its federal equal, Household Medical Depart Act (FMLA). Each present workers with as much as 12 weeks of unpaid go away. When Senate Invoice 1383, goes into impact on January 1, 2021, CFRA can be expanded to cowl all employers with 5 or extra workers.

As well as, Senate Invoice 1383 expands the scope of members of the family for whom the worker can take go away. CFRA at present permits workers to take unpaid go away for plenty of functions, together with to take care of a “member of the family” with a critical well being situation. CFRA at present defines “member of the family” to incorporate a minor youngster (except the kid depends), a partner, or a mother or father. In 2021, the record of members of the family can be expanded to incorporate grandparents, grandchildren, or siblings. As well as, the definition of a kid can be expanded to cowl all grownup youngsters, no matter whether or not they’re dependent. Senate Invoice 1383 additionally offers go away resulting from a qualifying exigency associated to lively obligation or name to lively obligation of an worker’s partner, registered home accomplice, youngster, or mother or father.

To enrich this growth of the CFRA, the California legislature added qualifying exigency go away as a cause for receiving wage substitute advantages from the California Paid Household Depart Program.

Unbiased Contractors

The California legislature handed two payments this 12 months that amend Meeting Invoice 5 which set forth the necessities for classifying a employee as an impartial contractor. Meeting Invoice 2257 recasts, clarifies, and expands exemptions underneath Meeting Invoice 5, together with including exemptions for referral companies {and professional} companies, resembling photographers. Meeting Invoice 323 equally units forth exemptions for newspaper carriers from Meeting Invoice 5 necessities.

California voters additionally voted in favor of Proposition 22 which permits for the classification of people engaged in app-based transportation companies, resembling rideshare and supply drivers, as impartial contractors. Proposition 22 offers staff with minimal compensation ranges, medical insurance subsidies to qualifying drivers, medical prices for on-the-job accidents, and prohibits drivers from working greater than 12 hours in a 24-hour interval for a single firm. It requires corporations to develop sexual harassment insurance policies, conduct legal background checks, and require security coaching for drivers.

Office Equality and Variety

California handed two new legal guidelines meant to advertise equality and variety within the office. Meeting Invoice 979 requires that by December 21, 2021, publicly held companies headquartered in California should diversify their boards of administrators with administrators from “underrepresented communities.” The brand new regulation defines a director from an underrepresented neighborhood as “a person who self-identifies as Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Island, Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native, or who self-identifies as homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.”

Meeting Invoice 973 creates pay reporting necessities for employers to encourage and guarantee wage parity for ladies and minorities. The regulation requires employers who meet sure worker thresholds and should file an annual Employer Data Report (EEO-1) underneath federal regulation, to submit an annual report back to the California Division of Honest Employment and Housing (DFEH). The annual report back to the DFEH will embody the variety of workers (and hours they labored): (1) by race, ethnicity, and intercourse; (2) in every of the job classes within the federal EEO-1 Report; (3) whose annual earnings fall inside every of the pay bands utilized by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics within the Occupational Employment Statistics survey.