Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
These new figures lower the benefits cost estimates, based in part on savings from last year’s reforms and AB 749. In other workers’ compensation reform news, Gov. Schwarzenegger continues to press the assembly for action by threatening a January ballot initiative to take the issue of workers’ comp reform to the voters.
By a vote of 5 to 1, the California Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations has approved a new bill, SBX4 1, to repeal the recent workers’ compensation reform measures (AB 227 and SB 228) set to take effect Jan. 1, 2004. The repeal measure will now go before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Smoking by Public Employees Under existing law, neither employees nor members of the public may smoke inside a state-owned or state-occupied building, or a state-leased and state-occupied building, or within five feet of the main exit or entrance of these buildings, or in a state-owned passenger vehicle.
Two new bills extending the rights and benefits provided to spouses to domestic partners were recently signed into law. We’ll take a look at the new laws. State Contractors Can’t Discriminate Under AB 17, certain state contractors have to provide employee benefits for registered domestic partners on the same basis as they do for spouses. […]
The newly signed laws expand privacy procedures for Social Security numbers (SB 25), provide leave for crime victims and their families (SB 478), mandate that state government contractors provide domestic partner benefits (AB 17 and AB 205), and require employers to protect workers from sex harassment by nonemployees (AB 76). We’ll have all the details […]
Among the bills that failed to win the governor’s approval were AB 1715, which would have prohibited employers from requiring employees to sign agreements to arbitrate Fair Employment and Housing Act claims as a condition of employment; AB 1093, which would have set a living wage for employees of state contractors; AB 1133, which would […]
Gov. Davis recently signed AB 276, which doubles the penalties for certain labor law violations, including the failure to pay wages.
Major changes are in the pipeline that could dramatically alter how California works. First, in a historic development, daily overtime for most workers may be eliminated. And other proposals are under consideration on such important issues as comp time, alternative workweeks and family leave. Here are the details, along with how they might affect you.