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A federal court in San Francisco has ruled that a group of Chevron employees who retired just before the company announced a lucrative early retirement buyout package are entitled to recover the additional money they would have received had they delayed retirement until after the new incentives were unveiled. The court found that Chevron actively […]
Suppose an employee sues one of your clients or customers. Then, when you insist that the employee drop the lawsuit because it’s bad for your business, the employee refuses. Can an employee fired in this situation sue you for wrongful termination? In a new case, a California appeals court said a hospital-employer was within its […]
The state Legislature’s newly approved workers’ comp reform bill (A.B. 749) imposes steep benefit hikes for injured workers that will likely hit employers hard in the pocketbook. After vetoing similar measures three times before, Gov. Davis has now signed the bill into law. We’ll run down the new law’s major provisions.
In the largest corporate bankruptcy in the nation’s history, thousands of Enron employees lost their retirement savings after the company stock invested in their 401(k) plans became worthless. Now, in the wake of Enron’s collapse, Congress is considering a raft of legislation to reform 401(k) plan rules.
Federal OSHA’s revised rules for recording workplace injuries and illnesses took effect January 1. Although they’re not yet formally implemented in California, a Cal/ OSHA spokesman told CEA the agency expects the rules to be officially adopted by mid-February and is advising California employers to start following the new federal guidelines now for all 2002 […]
We recently polled our CEA subscribers to determine how employers are managing employee cell phone use issues. Employers who responded had staff sizes ranging from five to more than 5,000. Cell Phone Use While Driving More than 96% of employers who responded said that some or all of their employees use cell phones to conduct […]
Gov. Davis has signed a new measure, A.B. 1015, that creates new labor law protections for job applicants’ outside activities and political interests and strengthens remedies employees already have. The new law takes effect Jan. 1, 2002, and applies to most public and private employees with a few exceptions. We’ll cover the key points.
Several years ago, the federal appeals court covering California sent a shock wave throughout the employer community when it ruled that software giant Microsoft Corp. had to pay certain retroactive employee benefits to temporary workers improperly classified as independent contractors. Because misclassification problems are common, the decision signaled that many employers could be on the […]
California employers have long faced complex discrimination issues because of the state’s diverse population. And now a recently enacted state law imposes new restrictions on employers’ ability to set workplace language rules. Language Restrictions Must Be Justified Under the new measure, A.B. 800, it’s illegal to adopt or enforce a policy that limits or prohibits […]
All employers, including state and local government agencies, will have to accommodate nursing mothers’ needs at work under a new law Gov. Davis has signed. A.B. 1025 takes effect Jan. 1, 2002. Meeting Breastfeeding Workers’ Needs Under this new measure, you must provide a reasonable amount of break time to accommodate an employee who desires […]