As we reported last month, the Industrial Welfare Commission is holding hearings and meetings throughout the state to review current overtime and other wage and hour rules and come up with new final wage orders. In this regular monthly feature, we’ll run down the IWC’s most recent activities.
The HR Management & Compliance Report: How To Comply with California Wage & Hour Law, explains everything you need to know to stay in compliance with the state’s complex and ever-changing rules, laws, and regulations in this area. Coverage on bonuses, meal and rest breaks, overtime, alternative workweeks, final paychecks, and more.
May 5 Meeting Highlights
At a May 5 public meeting in Van Nuys, the IWC reviewed several items but took no definitive action:
- Rest breaks. Arguments were presented about whether IWC regulations should be changed to state that break times begin when the employee arrives at a break area.
- Motion picture industry. This industry group requested an exemption from the rule requiring a meal period after five hours. The industry’s previous wage order called for a meal break after six hours.
- Ski industry. Attendees discussed whether to repeal an exemption that allows workweeks of up to 56 hours in the ski industry.
Several items on the meeting’s agenda never came up, including duties for exempt managers and licensed pharmacists.
Wage Board Developments
The IWC took action on two new wage boards:
- Computer industry. The new computer industry wage board was put on hold, awaiting news of whether the legislature will pass a pending bill proposing an overtime exemption for computer professionals. The proposal, S.B. 88, has just cleared the state Senate and is under consideration by the Assembly. It would exempt from overtime professionals in the computer software field who earn at least $41 per hour and are primarily engaged in work that’s intellectual or creative.
- Construction industry. The IWC issued instructions on the issues that should be evaluated by the new wage board for the on-site construction, mining, oil, drilling and logging industries. They include alternative workweeks, meal periods and whether a new wage order is needed. The wage board will hold its first meeting in Sacramento on Tuesday, June 20.