Businesses enter 2005 facing just a few new workplace laws,a change from past years under former Gov. Gray Davis.
The simple reason: “Schwarzenegger vetoed,” said Dale Hudson, a labor and employment attorney at Nixon Peabody LLP in Irvine.
Schwarzenegger’s veto of Assembly Bill 2832 was the big one for businesses. The bill would have bumped the minimum wage from $6.75 per hour to $7.25 and by another 50 cents in 2006.
But California employers didn’t get off completely free.
Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 1825, which requires sexual harassment prevention training for supervisors of companies with more than 50 employees.
Employers must give their supervisors at least two hours of training by Jan. 1, 2006, and then every two years after that, according to the law.
Companies can hire a consultant, an attorney or use a qualified person within the company, Hudson said. The training must be “interactive”,a supervisor can’t just watch a video.
The governor also signed the California Insurance Equality Act. The law requires insurance carriers to provide employers the same coverage to registered domestic partners as they do for spouses.
The law targets insurance carriers and applies beyond the workplace to home and auto insurance policies. But for employers, it means they must offer the same health benefits to registered domestic partners if the employer already offers coverage for spouses.
“It won’t be hard for employers to implement,” Hudson said. “But it may cost them money to include additional people.”
Other legislation that went into effect this year, according to the California Chamber of Commerce’s Web site:
Assembly Bill 2866, which requires the state Department of Insurance to post on its Web site for five years any business, person or association convicted of workers’ compensation insurance fraud.
An amendment to the “Sue Your Boss” law (Senate Bill 796 signed by Gov. Davis). The law allowed employees to sue their employers for California Labor Code violations, such as discrepancies in wages and hours and other minor infractions. Under the amended law employees can sue only after they’ve filed with the Labor and Workforce Development Agency and the agency declines to take action. An employee can’t sue for a minor infraction such as the font size on a poster. New regulations also give the courts discretion to lessen penalties for an employer.
Senate Bill 899 amends workers’ comp in several ways including prohibiting permanent disability awards in excess of 100% for any part of the body during an employees’ lifetime; limiting temporary disability payments to 24 months from the first payment; referring all medical disability disputes to a panel of medical examiners for resolution; and providing incentives to employers with 50 or more employees to get disabled workers back to work.
Pro-business legislation in the works includes a possible change to the meal and rest period laws. Modifications to the law could make the regulations more flexible,meals could be taken later or skipped entirely under the proposal, Hudson said.
“In the past, employees actually had to take a meal period,” Hudson said.
The changes are backed by the California Chamber of Commerce. It also is pushing to simplify some of the state’s workplace regulations.
Some possibilities: creating alternative ways for employees to get paid and changing overtime laws to allow for 10-hour, four-day work weeks.
Meanwhile, Democrats are expected to make another push to raise the minimum wage this year (see page 16 for more on local legislators’ goals for 2005).
