In the spirit of the season, we are using our annual "12 days of the holidays" blog series to address new California laws and their impact on California employers. On this twelfth day of the holidays, my labor and employment attorney gave to me: twelve drummers drumming and SB 606.

Employers certainly did not want increased Cal/OSHA power and additional citation categories. However, as of January 1, 2022, that is exactly what employers will receive. Under current law, Cal/OSHA can cite employers and impose penalties of certain maximum amounts depending on whether the violation is serious, uncorrected, or willful or repeated. They may also seek an injunction restraining certain uses or operations of employment that constitute a serious menace to the lives or safety of persons. Current law also establishes requirements for a prima facie showing by the division to warrant, at the discretion of the court, the granting of a temporary restraining order.

SB 606 implements two major changes. First, there is now a rebuttable presumption that a violation committed by an employer with multiple California worksites is enterprise-wide: either if the employer has a written policy or procedure that violates these provisions, or the division has evidence of a pattern or practice of the same violation committed by that employer involving more than one of the employer's worksites. An enterprise-wide violation is a new category of violation. Unless the employer is able to rebut the...

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