California’s minimum wage will increase on January 1 to $13 per hour for employers with 26 or more employees and $12 for employers with 25 or fewer employees. California is the first state in the nation to commit to raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour statewide by 2022 for large businesses, and by 2023 for small businesses. The 2016 law increases the minimum wage over time consistent with economic expansion, while providing safety valves to pause wage hikes if negative e

The Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) reports that 422 Californians died on the job in 2018. There were 422 fatal injuries on the job in California in 2018, compared to 376 in 2017 and 2016, 388 in 2015, and 344 in 2014. California’s rate of fatal workplace incidents per 100,000 workers remains stable with slight fluctuations since 2008, and has consistently been lower than the national rate. The data is from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), which is c

The California Court of Appeals - Second District - has held that if an employer has a break policy that is compliant with the applicable wage order but silent as to certain requirements, the omission of those requirements does not support class certification in the absence of evidence of a uniform unlawful policy or practice. Further, where an employer has a uniform written break policy that on its face is unlawful, but in practice the policy has not been applied to company

The California Court of Appeal - Second District - has clarified that a task does not become exempt merely because the manager undertakes it in order to contribute to the smooth functioning of the store. While a factfinder must categorize concurrent performance of exempt and nonexempt work based on the manager’s purpose in undertaking the activity, there is no requirement that the concurrent performance of exempt and nonexempt activities must be considered nonexempt. Thus, an

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal has held that when the parties to a putative class action negotiate a settlement before a class has been certified, the district court must apply a higher level of scrutiny for evidence of collusion or other conflicts of interest before approving the settlement as fair. (See, Roes v. SFBSC Management, LLC - filed Dec. 11, 2019 - 2019 S.O.S. 17-17079.) In, Roes v. SFBSC Management, LLC, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal reversed the district

The California Court of Appeal -- Sixth District -- has held that the addition of the word person to California Government Code §12940(h) was to ensure that the catch-all retaliation subdivision included all entities covered by the preceding subdivisions; there is no legislative history indicating the Legislature also intended by that addition to allow an employee fired by a religious entity employer to circumvent the religious entity exemption by characterizing the employer

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has held that a corporate franchisor is not an “employer” of a franchisee’s employees under California common law; a franchisor also is not an “agent” of a franchisee who can be held liable for wage-and-hour violations under an ostensible-agency theory. (See, Salazar v. McDonald’s Corporation - filed Dec. 11, 2019 - 2019 S.O.S. 17-15673. Indeed, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court properly ruled that McDonald

As stated by the California Labor Commissioner's Office: "hours worked on holidays, Saturdays, and Sundays are treated like hours worked on any other day of the week." (See, www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_holidays.htm). "California law does not require that an employer provide its employees with paid holidays, that it close its business on any holiday, or that employees be given the day off for any particular holiday. If an employer closes its business on holidays and gives its empl