(From Schwartz Hannum) Over the past several months, a flurry of new employment laws have been enacted in California, ranging from Covid-19 legislation to revisions to worker classification laws, new reporting requirements, and mandatory additions to boards of directors. While these new laws most directly affect entities that employ individuals in California, employers in other states should also pay attention to these developments, as employment-law trends in California are often harbingers of similar changes elsewhere:
- Effective January 1, 2021, California employers are required to notify employees of a potential COVID exposure. The new notice requires employers to take the specific actions within one business day of a "potential exposure" based on a confirmed positive case of COVID-19 in the workplace.
- Effective January 1, 2021, California’s Paid Family Leave will expand to include qualifying exigency leave.
- California employers of 100 or more employees have until March 31, 2021 to comply with the state’s pay data reporting requirement and submit their pay data to the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
- Finally, the California legislature recently amended the state law defining which workers may be treated as independent contractors rather than employees.
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