The California Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District recently upheld the construction industry's collective bargaining agreement exemption from the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) in Oswald v. Murray Plumbing and Heating Corporation.

Under Labor Code section 2699.6, construction employees who perform work under a valid collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in effect any time before Jan. 1, 2025 are not covered under PAGA.

To be exempted from PAGA, the CBA must expressly provide for the wages, hours of work, working conditions, premium wage rates for all overtime hours worked, and for employees to receive a regular hourly pay rate of no less than 30 percent more than the state minimum wage.

The agreement must do all of the following:

• Prohibit all of the violations of this code that would be redressable pursuant to this section, and provide for a grievance and binding arbitration procedure to redress those violations.
• Expressly waive the requirements of PAGA in unambiguous terms.
• Authorize the arbitrator to award any and all remedies otherwise available under PAGA.

Background

In the underlying case, Murray Plumbing and Heating employed Jerome Oswald as a journeyman pipefitter from 2019 to 2020.

In 2020, Oswald sued Murray, alleging various wage and hour violations.

Murray and Oswald's employment relationship was governed by a master agreement between Oswald's union and Murray's contractor association, effective from 2017 to 2026. The master agreement...

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