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Employees at work

From the California Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Dynamex to the passage of dozens of new employment laws, 2019 was an important year for California employers.  While some of these new laws were discussed here, this blog discusses some additional laws (there are a lot) and provides some updates on legal challenges to AB 5 and AB 51.

  • Pursuant to previously enacted laws, on January 1, 2020 California’s annual minimum wage increased to $13 per hour ($12 per hour for employees with 25 or fewer employees).
  • SB 778 clarifies California employers’ duties to provide harassment training to employees. Pursuant to previously enacted SB 1343, employers had a duty to provide harassment training to both supervisory and nonsupervisory employees once every two years.  SB 778 extends the initial deadline for providing new training to employees from January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2021.  It also clarifies that employees who completed harassment training in 2019 do not need to retrained for another two years and then every two years thereafter.

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Continue Reading 2019: A Year to Forget for California Employers

As 2019 comes to an end, employers should know about important new obligations that will ring in their new year.  Our Labor & Employment experts offer some guidance on critical developments in Oregon, Washington, California, and Idaho that employers should be prepared for in 2020.

Oregon

  • The statute of limitations for discrimination and harassment claims
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On September 18, 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (“AB”) 5, thereby codifying the California Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Lee.  This represents the culmination of a seismic shift in California employment law that began a little over a year ago.

To refresh, starting in 1989, the leading test in California for distinguishing employees and independent contractors was the multifactor standard set forth in S.G. Borello & Songs, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations.  Under Borello, the key question was whether the employer “[had] the right to control the manner and means of accomplishing the result desired.”  In addition to this factor, the Borello test also endorsed multiple “secondary” indicia in analyzing and determining the employment relationship.

In April 2018, the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Dynamex.  In Dynamex, the Court announced a new, more objective standard for determining worker classification for the purposes of the California wage orders.  Under this new standard, the burden is on the hiring entity to establish that the worker is an independent contractor who was not intended to be included within the coverage of the California wage orders.  In order to satisfy this burden, the hiring entity must establish all of the following:  (1) that the worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of work, (2) that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and (3) that the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed.
Continue Reading California Codifies Dynamex – Now What?