This Friday’s Five focuses on five California employment related news items that got my attention this week:
1. California considering reinstating COVID paid sick leave in 2022.
As California’s supplemental paid sick leave expired in September 2021, and Governor Newsom decided not to extend it by executive order. Now there are discussions of bringing COVID paid sick leave back, but there are still many questions about what this would look like, and who would be paying for it. LA Democratic Assembly-member Wendy Carrillo is reported as intending to introduce a bill to provide for paid sick leave and will propose that the state use budget surplus money to pay for it. Employers will have to watch to see how this issue develops.
Just as a reminder, California employers are currently required to pay for “exclusion pay” under the Cal/OSHA ETS which is, for the time being, in place until at least mid-April of 2022.
2. Employers still facing labor shortages and raising wages in 2022.
KTLA reports that “employees got about a 2.8% salary bump last year. At the beginning of 2022, companies were considering about a 3% raise, but are now looking at about 3.4%.”
As set forth by the court, “Plaintiffs allege that Mrs. Ek, defendants’ employee, contracted COVID-19 at work because of defendants’ failure to implement...
Nana, a former member of the group After School, announced the progress of the investigation into the home invasion robbery and resented that the perpetrator continued to make false claims without ...