What HR changes are are the docket?
• AB 357 – Predictable Scheduling Mandate and Predictability Pay For Food and Retail Establishments: This proposed Act would require food and retail establishments to provide employees with two weeks’ advance notice of their schedules and additional “predictability pay” when the retail establishment cancels or reschedules its employees’ shifts. The bill would further require food and retail establishments to allow employees to take unpaid absences for up to eight hours twice per year to attend required appointments at county human services agencies.
• SB 3 – Automatic Minimum Wage Increase: Raises the minimum wage to $11 per hour by January 1, 2016 and $13 per hour by July 1, 2017. The results of this law would increase California’s minimum wage by more than 40% over the next two years.
• SB 406 – Expansion of California Family Rights Act: This proposed legislation would redefine “employer” under the California Family Rights Act to include all employers with at least 5 employees within 75 miles of the employee’s worksite instead of the already restrictive number being set at least 50 employees within a 75-mile radius.
• SB 563 – Increase in Workers’ Compensation Costs: do you remember a few years ago when the big push was to lower employers Workman Comp costs? This bill would prohibit the utilization review process for certain treatment recommendations, resulting in increasing the cost of workers’ compensation for employers. The bill would further require employers to file with the administrative director methods of compensation and any incentive payments contingent upon the approval, modification, or denial of a claim for an individual or entity providing services pursuant to the utilization review process.
And last, but not least:
• AB 465 – Bars Mandatory Arbitration Agreements: The proposed legislation provides that employers cannot make it a condition of employment to require a waiver of a legal right, forum or procedure. This would result in precluding mandatory pre-dispute employment arbitration agreements, which many California employers currently use to guard against the high costs of litigation resulting in juried court proceedings.
