With the new year will come new laws that affect California employers. The following are the “A to Z” of changes in the laws that may affect your business in 2022.
Under existing law, if a COVID-19 outbreak occurs at a workplace, California law requires reporting to local public health agencies within 48 hours. AB 654 adjusts the timeline to 48 hours or one business day, whichever is later. Employers will also have to provide information on COVID-19 employee-related benefits to employees who were on the same premises as the potentially exposed individual within the infectious period.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has new enforcement powers. SB 606 grants Cal/OSHA authority to issue subpoenas if an employer fails to promptly provide information requested in an investigation and expands the agency’s ability to seek an injunction restraining certain uses or operations of employment. And with that bigger stick comes new targets. Effective Jan. 1, 2022, SB 606 establishes a new category of “egregious violations,” which occur under certain circumstances, including when an employer intentionally made no reasonable effort to eliminate a known violation or an employer has an extensive history of prior violations. Each instance of an employee being exposed to an egregious violation is treated as a separate violation when it comes...
A system designed to let social media users police misinformation is struggling to keep pace with false claims circulating ahead of the US midterm elections. An analysis by NewsGuard found that X’...