on October 7, 2016
This Friday’s five summarizes five new laws that
were just approved by the Governor last week, and California employers need to
heed going into 2017:
The new law prohibits employers from asking or
taking into consideration juvenile convictions.
The law states, “employers [are 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.” Effective January 1, 2017
Existing law generally prohibits an employer
from paying an employee at wage rates less than the rates paid to employees of
the opposite sex in the same establishment for equal work for work performance
that requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility that are performed under
similar working conditions. This law now establishes that an employee’s
prior salary cannot, by itself, justify any disparity in compensation. It
is important to note the bill was modified to take out language that would have
prohibited employers from obtaining an applicant’s prior salary.
Current law prohibits an employer from paying
any of its employees at wage rates less than the rates paid to employees of the
opposite sex for substantially similar work. This law expands the
prohibition of a wage differential based on an employee’s race or ethnicity for
substantially similar work.
This law prohibits employers from doing any of
the following:
1.
Request more or different documents than are required under Federal law.
2.
Refuse to honor documents tendered that on their face reasonably appear to
be genuine.
3.
Refuse to honor documents or work authorization based upon the specific
status or term of status that accompanies the authorization to work.
4.
Attempt to reinvestigate or reverify an incumbent employee’s authorization
to work using an unfair immigration-related practice.
For any violations, workers may file a complaint
with the Department of Labor Standards Enforcement and can recover penalties up
to $10,000. The law is effective January 1, 2017
Employers with 25 or more employees must provide
employees written notice about their rights under the domestic violence
protections under California law. The Labor Commissioner must develop a
noticed employers can use by July 1, 2017. Employers do not have to
provide the notice until the Labor Commissioner posts the notice.
(Bonus – It is California, and I could not limit
the list to only five) SB 1241 – Arbitration Agreements Venue and Choice
of Law
This law restricts employers from requiring
employees who primarily reside and work in California to adjudicate claims
outside of California when the claim arose in California, or deprive employees
of California law with respect of claims arising in California. Employers
should carefully review their arbitration agreements with California employees
to ensure that the agreement does not have a choice of law provision that
applies another state’s law to the agreement or require any claims be adjudicated
outside of California. The effective date for the law is
January 1, 2017.
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