Wage-Hour

California employers scored an important win last week when the California Court of Appeal enforced an employee’s “standing” prospective meal period waiver. That decision, in Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating, Inc., confirmed that meal periods for shifts between five and six hours can be “waived by mutual consent” even in a prospective (i.e., forward-looking) waiver. Procedural…

In a dramatic expansion of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault & Sexual Harassment Act (“EFAA”), two recent California Court of Appeal decisions have held that plaintiffs can avoid being compelled to arbitration so long as their lawsuit contains at least an allegation of sexual assault or harassment. Background In the wake of the…

In this informative 75-minute webinar (including a question and answer session at the end), Hirschfeld Kraemer Partners Derek Ishikawa, Ferry Lopez and Monte Grix will cover major employment law developments for 2024 and help you get thinking of what your business needs to do to avoid being a target of litigation. The topics to be…

On October 4, 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 616 and expanded California’s sick leave law, the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014. As a result, California employers must be prepared to comply by January 1, 2024, notably by increasing the amount of paid sick leave provided to employees. Paid Sick Leave Under…

Effective January 1, 2023, California’s new broad pay transparency bill requiring employers to include pay ranges in all job advertisements will take effect. The bill also requires employers to submit expanded annual pay data reports that include pay data on employees hired through labor contractors to the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) beginning May 10,…

The Hotel Worker Protection Ordinance, proposed by UNITE HERE Local 11 to require, among other things, daily room cleaning, panic buttons, limitations on overtime and housekeepers’ workloads, and increased wages, was passed by the Los Angeles City Council on June 28, 2022, rather than allowing the issue to be decided via a Ballot Initiative by…

If you use a staffing agency for your workforce, the California Supreme Court just issued an important decision that may affect your rights. In Grande v. Eisenhower Medical Center, the California Supreme Court held that a wage-hour class action settlement for $750,000 between an employee and the staffing company did not preclude the employee from…

This coming Monday, June 20, 2022, will be the second Juneteenth officially recognized as a federal holiday in the U.S. All federal government offices, federal courts, banks, post offices, schools, and the U.S. financial markets will be closed. Many private employers are following suit, although they are not legally required to give employees time off….

The employment law landscape is always shifting, and there’s a lot to navigate, especially as the pandemic drags into its third year. On February 14, 2022, Hirschfeld Kraemer lawyers Steve Hirschfeld, Hieu Williams, Monte Grix, and Ferry Lopez presented a 90-minute webinar providing insight on the hottest developments in labor and employment law in 2021,…

On November 4, 2021, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a new Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), requiring employers with over 100 employees to implement a mandatory COVID vaccination policy, or alternatively a policy requiring employees either to be vaccinated or be tested weekly and be masked in the workplace. Employers must comply…