Laws to ban sexual-harassment gag orders, place restrictions on warehouse-worker quotas, and enact stringent enforcement for workplace safety violators will take effect next month in California, setting a new layer of workforce compliance for employers to follow.
With Covid-19 at the forefront of Californians’ minds, state lawmakers in 2021 passed relatively few labor bills, said Benjamin Ebbink, a partner with Fisher & Phillips LLP in Sacramento.
“Normally we have 20 or 25 really big, significant bills, and this year we don’t,” Ebbink said. “It’s pretty much a down year.”
Among the most noteworthy: One new law will bar employers from stopping dismissed workers from talking about harassment allegations after they leave their job (S.B. 331).
The mandate “imposes significant new restrictions on severance and settlement agreements,” Karen Tynan, an attorney with Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. in Sacramento, said in an email.
Under that law, an employer must give an employee or former employee at least five days to consider a severance agreement. Many employers are used to a 21-day period, Ebbink said. The employer also must tell the worker about his or her right to consult an attorney about the severance agreement.
Another new law prevents Amazon.com Inc. and other companies from penalizing warehouse-distribution workers if they fail to meet...
IBM reached a settlement with the federal government on Friday, agreeing to pay roughly $17 million to resolve allegations of illegal diversity, equity and inclusion practices. Acting Attorney Gen...