Independent Contractor Status in California Now Falls Under Radically Different Rules The California Supreme Court has issued a landmark decision drastically redefining who can be classified an independent contractor. Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court. The new criteria potentially expose tens of thousands of businesses who have relied on the old rules to legal […]
Figuring Out the Final Paycheck When a worker’s employment ends, what should be included in a final paycheck is determined by California’s laws, the employer’s specific policies in place during the employment period, and the circumstances of the employment ending. When an employer terminates a worker without advance notice, all wages and earned but unused […]
How to Handle Assistive Animals in the Workplace Upon arriving to work on Monday morning your customer service manager asks if she can bring her monkey to the office. Must management grant her request? It depends. If she needs the monkey to reasonably accommodate her disability, then the employer will most likely have to grant […]
Effectively Manage Paid Vacations No California employer is obligated to provide paid vacation time to its workers. However, such benefit is a common practice, promoting morale and productivity. Once a company grants paid vacation (for example, one week annually), it is considered an accruing benefit, i.e., an employee earns it gradually throughout the working year. […]
Compton School District Failed to Accommodate Disabled Teacher The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) requires employers with five or more on payroll to engage in an “interactive process” with a worker requesting accommodation of a disability. The employer must have timely, good faith and ongoing discussions to explore if and how to reasonably […]
Learn California’s Specific Pay Stub Requirements to Avoid Penalties Attorneys for employees alleging underpayment or other wage irregularities will regularly add a pay stub violation claim to the mix. By definition, if an employer has erred in wage calculations, it has messed up the earnings statements. California law on the specific information that must be […]
Anti-Harassment Agency Randomly Surveys California Employers On April 10, 2018, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace (The Task Force) announced that it will telephonically interview randomly-selected California employers on their anti-harassment policies including employer-sponsored training and other anti-harassment complaint procedures. Formed in […]
When It’s Time to Call Your Lawyer No-one likes lawyers … until you need one. Experienced and knowledgeable business managers are usually capable of handling basic employment issues. Yet, laws governing the workplace tend to change frequently and companies can face formal complaints, liabilities and large attorney bills if significant employee disputes or decisions are […]
Five Rules for California California law requires most non-exempt employees to receive overtime pay for time worked beyond forty hours in any one workweek or after eight hours in one workday. A workweek is any seven consecutive days, starting with the same calendar day each week beginning at any hour, so long as the cycle […]
CareerBuilder Publishes Annual Survey and List of Most Bizarre Hiring Interviews According to a nationwide CareerBuilder Survey released February 22, 2018, “around half of employers (49 percent) know within the first five minutes of an interview if a candidate is a good or bad fit for a position, and only 8 percent make up their […]