Governor signs clothing manufacturer, salary theft and other job-related bills

Synopsis of Seyfarth: On Monday, September 27, Governor Newsom signed a number of employment-related bills, including bills aimed at tackling wage theft and wage / hour violations by clothing manufacturers, which all come into effect on Jan. 1, 2022. The governor also vetoed two measures taken by Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez aimed at paid family leave and recall rights for hotel workers.

By the start of the weekend, Governor Newsom had (for the most part) signed (with some veto) about 300 bills awaiting approval. Very few of them, notably AB 701 related to warehouse quotas which we have already discussed here, were employment invoices.

But, on Monday, the Governor signed a number of important measures concerning employers: SB 62 (joint and several liability of guarantors of brands and clothing manufacturers), AB 1003 (salary theft = grand theft), AB 1033 ( Small Employer Mediation / Leave CFRA), SB 606 (references to occupational safety) and SB 639 (minimum wage for employees with disabilities), each of which is discussed below. He has also signed industry specific bills, such as AB 73 (Cal / OSHA – Wildfire Smoke Protections for Agricultural Workers) and SB 646 (creating a limited exception to PAGA for specific janitorial employees performing work under a collective agreement).

On Tuesday, the governor vetoed two bills drafted by the chair of the appropriations committee, Lorena Gonzalez: AB 123 (increasing the formula for determining salary replacement) and AB 1074 (extending recall rights to employees of the hotel).

We are still awaiting the governor’s action on the following employment related bills: SB 331, AB 1084 and SB 255.

SB 62: Retailers Potentially Responsible for Wage / Hour Violations by Garment Manufacturers’ Subcontractors in the Supply Chain

Designated as a job killer by the California Chamber of Commerce, SB 62 will bring those at the top of the supply chain – what the bill calls “brand guarantors” – to the blame. wage violations by their garment manufacturing suppliers, even when the final garment vendor was completely unaware of the violation. In other words, as we have already pointed out here, the bill will make clothing ‘brands’ and holding companies – and even retailers – jointly and severally liable with the contractors from whom they purchase t-shirts, hats or even belts for sale for the contractor’s salary. / hour violations, and possibly even for violations by the contractor’s subcontractor.

According to the governor’s signing announcement, SB 62 aims to “protect marginalized low-wage workers, many of whom are women of color and immigrants, by ensuring that they are paid their due and improving working conditions “. The California Chamber of Commerce disagrees, noting that “[n]nothing in SB 62 will solve the problem of bad underground garment industry players evading the law ”; SB 62 “just allows these bad actors to continue operating as usual while shifting the cost and responsibility to companies that have no control over the workers. “Time will tell if this measure achieves its intended purpose. Either way, employers should start auditing their clothing suppliers as soon as possible.

SB 606: Cal / OSHA Authority Increase

As our OSHA team reported on Tuesday morning, SB 606 will dramatically increase Cal / OSHA’s running power. The bill expands this authority by establishing two additional categories of violations for which Cal / OSHA can cite: (1) “Company-wide violations” and (2) “Gross violations,” all of which are two summarized in detail in the blog linked above.

The California Chamber of Commerce initially designated SB 606 as a job killer, but removed the bill from the list after amendments removed a provision that would have created a rebuttable presumption of retaliation if an employer were to take adverse action against an employee within 90 days of the employee taking one of many actions, such as disclosing a positive COVID-19 test or diagnosing a communicable disease or reporting a possible violation of an OSHA standard.

AB 1003: Add intentional salary theft to the… Penal Code?

This future law is as intimidating as it is simple: AB 1003 adds article 487m to the Penal Code, making it an offense of grand theft the act of intentionally stealing wages, including tips, “of an amount more than nine hundred and fifty dollars ($ 950) from a single employee, or two thousand three hundred and fifty dollars ($ 2,350) in total. Grand theft is generally punishable by an offense of imprisonment in a county jail for up to one year or a felony by imprisonment in a county jail for 16 months or two or three years.

AB 1033: CFRA leave for the care of in-laws and mediation program for small employers of the DFEH

AB 1033, co-sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce, will add in-laws to the list of family members for whom an employee can take time off under the California Family Rights Act (CFRA). This addition builds on SB 1383 here, which expanded the CFRA to require companies with as few as five employees to provide 12 weeks of mandatory family leave per year. SB 1383 also expanded the categories of people for whom an employee can take CFRA leave to care for grandparents and domestic partners. According to the Chamber of Commerce, the inclusion of “in-laws” was inadvertently omitted from 1383, and its inclusion here, in AB 1033, is to correct that oversight.

AB 1033 will also require the Department for Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) to notify an employee in writing of the requirement for mediation under the DFEH Small Employer Mediation Program before bringing an action. civil law and would require an employee to contact the Dispute Resolution Department of the DFEH. division to indicate whether they are requesting mediation and making other related changes.

AB 1506: Distributor of newspapers and carriers Extension of exemption AB 5

AB 1506 will extend the AB 5 exemption for newspaper distributors working under contract with a newspaper publisher and newspaper carriers from January 1, 2022 to January 1, 2025, but will also require all newspaper publishers and distributors who hire or contract directly with newspaper carriers to submit specific information relating to their workforce to the Labor and Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) no later than March 1, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

SB 639: Minimum wage for people with disabilities

SB 639 will prohibit, as of January 1, 2022, the Industrial Welfare Commission from issuing special licenses authorizing the employment of a disabled person for wages below the minimum wage.

Enough is enough, says the governor: AB 123 would unnecessarily increase the formula for paid family leave.

AB 123 would have revised the formula for calculating certain holiday pay by requiring that the amount of weekly compensation be increased to 65% or 75% of the highest salary paid to an individual. In his veto message, the governor expressed support for a robust paid leave program, but noted that his administration has already adopted a number of measures – SB 83 (increasing the duration of paid family leave), SB 1383 (CFRA expansion), AB 138 (salary replacement increase) – aimed at increasing paid vacation time, making this legislation a new unnecessary expense. According to the author of the bill, however, the current formula for determining wage replacement is woefully flawed for low-income workers.

Enough is enough, says the governor: AB 1074 confers recall rights already conferred.

AB 1074 reportedly renamed the “Displaced Concierge Facilities Act” to the “Displaced Concierge and Hotel Facilities Act”, extending the right to recall the provisions of the law to hotel employees. The governor vetoed the measure yesterday, explaining, as we have summarized, that in early 2021 he had already enacted SB 93, which provided for strong recall rights for hotel workers displaced by the pandemic.

Workplace solutions

Fortunately, none of the future laws have an emergency clause, so employers will have a few months to prepare before the bills come into force on January 1, 2022. If you have a specific question about the measures proactive in ensuring compliance with any of the new requirements above, please do not hesitate to contact your Seyfarth lawyer.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide on the subject. Specialist advice should be sought regarding your particular situation.