A slate of new protections for workers are now on Gavin Newsom’s desk as the 2023-2024 California legislative session officially ends. The dedicated advocacy of California Employment Lawyers Association has resulted in several promising measures one signature away from bringing new protections to California’s workers.
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Expanding Protections for Household Domestic Services
SB-1350 expands the California Occupational Safety and Health Act’s definition of “employment” to include household domestic services. The amended definition permits California to enforce and administer all occupational health and safety laws to protect employees performing household services. Previously, domestic workers were explicitly exempted from traditional worker protections.
These protections are critical for the domestic service industry. In the California, domestic workers are largely migrants and women of color.  The state contains an estimated 350,000 workers for 2 million households. These workers provide care to the most vulnerable populations of immunocompromised and senior individuals. They suffer the consequences of poor labor protection. A majority of surveyed household domestic workers (84%) have reported preventable musculoskeletal injuries and chronic pain, and over half of the surveyed workers (55%) reported working through their injuries due to fears about job security.

Intersectionality in Anti-Discrimination Protections
SB-1137 expands civil right protections in public schooling, public accommodations, housing, and employment. While the law currently affords protections against discrimination based on a protected trait, this bill expands those protections for any combination of two or more protected traits.
Senator Smallwood-Cuevas, the bill sponsor, recognized that individuals with intersectional identities could face discrimination that does not neatly fall into any single  category of discrimination. The bill is a common-sense reform that addresses this “intersectional discrimination” against Californians with overlapping identities. Advocates argue that the recognition of intersectional discrimination has judicial precedent. The EEOC and the Ninth Circuit have already recognized that protected characteristics can overlap creating an entirely unique form of discrimination.

Enhancing Employment Protections for Survivors of Violence
AB-2499 provides greater employment protections for survivors of violence.  Existing law requires an employer to provide reasonable accommodations for a survivor of violence or crime. Pre-existing protections forbid employers from discharging or discriminating against employees because of their status as a survivor of crime, abuse, or for taking time off to serve on a jury or as a witness in a judicial proceeding.
Amending existing law, this bill revises the definition of an unlawful employment practice under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act to include discrimination or retaliation against an employee for taking protected time off. California’s Civil Rights Department would have enforcement authority over violations of jury, court, and victim time off provisions. This bill addresses the growing impact of crime on employees. One in six victims of violent crime report job loss or demotion and 53% of domestic violence survivors report job loss due to their circumstances.

For more on the latest developments in employment law, visit our blog here. If you believe your employer may have violated workplace laws, click here to get in touch with our office

​Lauren Teukolsky was recently quoted in a Bloomberg Law article about the new PAGA reform package passed by the California Legislature in early July 2024. The package represents a compromise between businesses and labor groups that aims to strengthen worker protections while allowing employers to cure violations and face lower penalties. The reformed law, decades-long in the making, avoids a contentious ballot measure that would have repealed PAGA entirely if passed.

Several measures of the reform package benefit workers.  If a PAGA plaintiff recovers penalties for Labor Code violations, aggrieved employees get to keep 35% of the penalties, up from 25% under the previous law.  As before, the remainder of penalties are paid to the State.  Workers are also authorized to seek injunctive relief (i.e., a court order to require an employer to stop an unlawful practice), a remedy not authorized by the previous law. 

Other measures favor employers. Subject to limited exceptions, employees are now permitted to seek penalties only for Labor Code violations they have actually suffered.  Previously, an employee who suffered one type of violation could file a PAGA suit on behalf of other employees for any violation of the Labor Code.

A crucial aspect of the PAGA reform package is the early evaluation conference, theoretically aimed at reducing litigation length and costs. Now, large employers with more than 100 employees can request an early evaluation conference which halts ongoing litigation until a neutral third party assess the plaintiff’s claims, the company’s efforts to comply with the Labor Code, and plans to cure violations. Smaller employers may access a similar process through the Labor and Workforce Development Agency.  If employers can demonstrate they have cured the violations, PAGA penalties may be capped.

PAGA practitioners and courts will need to grapple with setting up early evaluation conferences in the months to come.  The reform package does not dictate how courts are supposed to implement the early evaluation program, leading PAGA practitioners like Ms. Teukolsky to wonder how courts with limited resources will implement such programs, especially in the face of recent budget cuts that have slashed court services. 

The Bloomberg article quoted Ms. Teukolsky saying,  “While courts that frequently handle PAGA lawsuits, like Los Angeles Superior Court, probably will establish high functioning evaluation programs, it’s less clear what will happen with smaller courts that don’t see as much of that kind of litigation.”   

Ms. Teukolsky has represented workers for over two decades and her commentary on the latest developments in employment law is regularly featured by major publications such as Bloomberg Law, Law360, Law.com, and the Los Angeles Times.

To read the article in its entirety, click here. If you believe you’ve been treated unlawfully in the workplace and want to get in touch with our office, click here.

Though we are only three months into 2022, thousands of workers across the country have already taken significant steps towards securing improved working conditions, higher wages, and greater corporate commitments to their general well-being. Below are some organizing achievements by workers this year that we would like to take a moment to highlight:

Amazon: On Friday, April 1, employees at a massive Amazon warehouse in Staten Island voted by a wide margin to form a union. The vote marked the first successful unionization attempt by Amazon workers in the company’s history. Some commentators view the vote as milestone event that might signal a turning point in workers’ organizing efforts against Amazon, a company many union leaders regard as an existential threat to labor standards.

Starbucks. Since February of this year, seven Starbucks locations – two in Mesa, AZ, three in Buffalo, NY, one in Seattle, WA, and one in Knoxville, TN – have voted to unionize, bringing the total number locations that have voted to unionize to nine. Starbucks employees have cited low wages, lackluster benefits, staffing shortages, and unrealistic performance metrics as the main drivers for unionization. Since the first Starbucks locations voted to unionize in December 2021, approximately 160 Starbucks locations have filed petitions with the National Labor Relations Board to unionize.

Chevron Corporation: In March, employees at a Chevron Corporation oil refinery in Richmond, CA went on strike. The strike came after the company’s contract with the United Steelworkers Local 5 union expired the previous month. Workers in Richmond are demanding higher wages and staffing improvements, both of which have become increasingly urgent as inflation soars and some Chevron employees feel obligated to work 70 hour weeks to make ends meet.

Kellogg: After 1,400 Kellogg workers went on strike in 2021, workers at a Kellogg’s plant that makes Cheez-its won a new contract that included a 15 % wage increase. According to the workers’ union, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, it is the largest wage increase employees at the location have ever seen.

Warrior Met Coal: Nearly 1,000 coal miners in Brookwood, AL, remain on strike in what has become one of the longest coal mine strikes in American history. The miners have been on strike since, April 1, 2021, and are demanding that their wages be restored to the levels they were at prior to Warrior Met Coal’s 2015 bankruptcy. They are also fighting for improved workplace protections, such as excused absences for family emergencies. Warrior Met Coal recently reported its most profitable quarter in three years and said it was hiring new workers during the strike.

We commend the work of Union Organizers and employees who continue to work tirelessly towards a brighter future for workers. Even though the union membership rate declined in 2021, three months into 2022, the prospects for the American labor movement looks very bright.

From today until March 26, members of seven local grocery store unions across Southern California will vote to determine whether they will go on strike. The vote comes after negotiations between union leaders and the owners of Ralphs and Albertsons/Vons/ Pavilions failed to lead to a new contract with better wages and benefits for workers. The vote also comes after United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) locals filed unfair labor practice charges against the companies for interfering with employees for engaging in union activity and refusing to disclose information requested by the locals in order to bargain for their members’ contracts.

Union leaders are fighting on behalf of approximately 60,000 Southern California grocery store workers to secure higher wages. Following a pandemic that led to a financial windfall for large grocery store chains, many workers still find themselves struggling to make ends meet, often making little more than the minimum wage and suffering from food insecurity as the cost of living in California continues to get more expensive.  

In addition to fighting for higher wages, union leaders are also working towards increasing the minimum number of hours that part-time workers can be scheduled and securing language that protects workers from being kept after their scheduled hours. Workers also want better safety for both workers and customers in terms of COVID protocols, and staffing increases to offset the shortages they faced during the pandemic.

The results of the vote are expected to be announced on Sunday. The vote will not necessarily result in a strike, though it does give union leaders the right to call a strike if an agreement with grocery store companies cannot be reached.

Teukolsky Law commends the brave and difficult work of UFCW and hopes to see an agreement advancing grocery workers’ well-being and dignity reached soon.