The first major deadline of the 2019-2020 California Legislative Session was reached with the expiration of the February 25th deadline for new proposed bills to be introduced. Hardly surprisingly, there were a significant number of proposed employment bills, many of which continued building upon last year’s #MeToo-related developments and many others were bills that were vetoed by former Governor Jerry Brown. These include bills that would:
- Prohibit mandatory pre-employment arbitration provisions regarding Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and/or Labor Code violations (AB 51);
- Clarify that employees who received sexual harassment training in 2018 need not be re-trained in 2019 (SB 778);
- Amend the Labor Code to preclude discrimination or retaliation against sexual harassment victims and their family members (AB 171 and AB 628);
- Extend the statute of limitations for FEHA claims from one to three years (AB 9) and for Labor Code claims from six months to three years (AB 403);
- Expand CFRA leave to employers with 20 or more employees and eliminate the hours of service requirement (AB 1224);
- Further expand workplace lactation accommodation requirements (SB 142);
- Prohibit so-called “no rehire” provisions in employment-related settlement agreements (AB 749);
- Address the California Supreme Court’s Dynamex ruling regarding independent contractors (AB 5 and AB 71);
- Encourage employers to assist employees with student loan repayment assistance (AB 152);
- Expand “paid family leave” wage replacement benefits (AB 196 and SB 135) and
- Require larger employers to submit annual “pay data reports” (SB 171).