Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
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 new Health Insurance Act of 2003, signed into law by Gov. Davis, requires many California businesses to either provide health coverage to part- and full-time employees or pay a fee into a state health coverage fund. Here’s a summary of the law.
The California HealthCare Foundation has launched a new website to help small businesses make informed decisions about health benefits. The website, www.healthcoverageguide.org, includes a comprehensive checklist to guide you through the coverage selection process—from gathering the business records you’ll need to choosing a broker, comparing policies, estimating costs, and much more.
A California appeals court has ruled the San Francisco Retirement Board correctly excluded amounts paid for unused vacation and sick leave whencalculating “average final compensation” to determine retirement benefits. Under the retirement plans, average final compensation only included compensation earned during the period an employee provided credited service. Under San Francisco’s system, vacation and sick […]
Those cases include General Dynamics Land Systems Inc. v. Cline, where the high court will consider whether the federal age-bias law permits employees over age 40 to sue because other workers also over age 40 were treated more favorably based on age. In Raytheon Co. v. Hernandez, the justices will decide whether the Americans with […]
Gov. Davis has signed a law barring employers from taking out corporate-owned life insurance policies on employees, with some exceptions. The law does not affect the validity of employer-purchased life insurance that is provided as an employee benefit.
More large companies are implementing gay- and lesbian-friendly policies in the workplace, according to a report just released by the Human Rights Campaign. This year, 21 companies, in contrast to 11 last year, received a perfect score on the campaign’s “Corporate Equity Index,” which measures how certain Fortune 500 or Forbes 200 companies treat employees […]
In addition to the workers’ compensation bill discussed in this Bulletin, there are a number of other bills on Gov. Davis’s desk that could impact your employment practices. Here’s a quick summary of what they are: AB 1715 invalidates arbitration agreements affecting employment claims under the Fair Employment and Housing Act that are made a […]
Under the federal COBRA law, employees and their dependents who lose health insurance coverage because they’re terminated or for other reasons and who work for employers with 20 or more employees are generally entitled to a temporary extension of healthcare benefits. This typically runs up to 18 months but can be 29 months for certain […]
Several years ago, the California Supreme Court ruled that under the County Employees’ Retirement Law, counties have to include all types of monetary compensation-such as cash payments for bilingual premium pay, a uniform allowance, or cashed-out accrued vacation-when determining the amount on which an employee’s pension will be based.But some plan members took their counties […]