CALIFORNIA EMPLOYMENT LAWS: 2023

California employers need to be aware of several changes in California’s employment laws that will become effective January 1, 2023. Here are 3 key ones for employers to be mindful of in order to be ready to be in compliance.

Before providing basic information about each of these three, let’s remind ourselves of the importance of compliance. Failure to be compliant with local, state or federal laws brings with it the potential for several negative consequences, including:

• 1) PAY TRANSPARENCY
  • SB 1162 takes effect the first of the year and requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide pay ranges whenever they announce, post, publish or otherwise make known an available job.
  • For many employers with existing pay structures (grades, ranges, etc.), this represents a major departure from their current practices related to sharing of pay information.
  • For employers without an established pay structure in place, this is likely to cause a lot of work to be done.
• 2) REPORTING PAY DATA
  • This same law will require that employers with 100 or more employees report to the state pay data.
  • The data required to be submitted includes:
    • The total number of workers broken down by race, ethnicity and sex who fall within each pay band used by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
    • Within each job category, the median hourly rate for each combination of race, ethnicity and sex
  • With this data in its possession, the State will be looking for any disparity in pay within these groups
    • For example, are black males in a job category being paid as much as white males? If not, this may be considered to be prima facie evidence (i.e., based on the first impression; accepted as correct until proved otherwise) of discrimination.
• 3) LEAVES OF ABSENCE
  • AB 1949 mandates that employers with 5 or more employees provide workers up to 5 unpaid days of bereavement pay.
    • This applies to any employee who has worked for the employer for at least 30 days.
  • AB 1041 changes the California Family Rights Act, which grants workers the right to take up to 12 weeks of leave to take care of a family member.
    • The bill extends the definition of who is considered a family member beyond the “heteronormative” definition of family
    • An employer is allowed to limit an employee to one designated person per year—but the law provides no guidance on how to determine if the designation is appropriate or not.

Author: Salvatore LoDico, CEO
               The HR Godfather™