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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

With its decision last year in Dynamex, the California Supreme Court fundamentally changed the test for determining whether workers are properly classified as either employees or independent contractors.  Specifically, and as for claims brought under the California wage orders, the Supreme Court adopted the “ABC test,” which involves an analysis of the following three factors:  (1) whether the worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of work, (2) whether the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and (3) whether the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed.  Since that time, California employers and various industry groups have been lobbying the California legislature left and right to take steps to either limit the ruling’s application or expand it.
Continue Reading California Legislature Moves to Codify Dynamex

Almost six months ago, the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Dynamex, which dramatically altered the landscape pertaining to the classification of California workers as either employees or independent contractors.  This past Monday, the California Court of Appeal issued one of the first decisions interpreting that seminal case.

In Dynamex, the California Supreme Court issued a new, employee-friendly test for determining whether a worker is properly classified as an employee or independent contractor for the purposes of claims brought under California’s wage order – the “ABC” test.  Under the ABC test, the burden is on the hiring entity to establish that the worker is an independent contractor.  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 Courts Slowly Interpret Dynamex