California’s leave and benefits landscape continues to expand with revised paid sick leave rules, upcoming changes to paid family leave, and broader personnel file access requirements. Employers must understand these changes to avoid disputes and maintain compliant practices.
Here is what you need to know.
Paid Sick Leave Expansion
California’s paid sick leave law now
Through new legislation and shifting enforcement priorities, California continues to challenge common workplace practices, including collectible wage judgments and binding employment agreements. Employers must understand how new rules on wage judgment penalties, stay-or-pay provisions, and arbitration agreements affect risk and strategy.
Below is what employers need to know for 2026.
Wage Judgment Enforcement Is Getting
California continues to push pay transparency further into the mainstream of employment law. Employers with 15 or more employees now face more detailed requirements for posting wage ranges and reporting pay data. Penalties for missing or incomplete information have increased, and misunderstandings about these rules can lead to significant exposure.
Here is what every California
Upcoming Webinar: New Year, New Laws – What Oregon Employers Need to Know for 2026 – February 4, 2026
As a new year gets underway, gain a clear understanding of the employment law changes Oregon employers need to know. Join Stoel Rives labor and employment attorneys Melissa Healy, Matt Tellam, and Megan Bradford
As Congress approaches a funding lapse resulting in a government shutdown, California employers should prepare for several indirect effects on workplace operations. Although a federal shutdown does not halt California’s employment laws, it does pause many federal agency functions, as discussed below.
Federal Enforcement Agencies
Most federal labor agencies will furlough staff and suspend routine
In Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating, Inc., a California Court of Appeal answered a question that many California employers may not have known even needed to be answered—whether California employees can prospectively waive their mandatory meal periods. Given the almost universal use of such waivers by employers (based on the assumption that the waivers are