“Doing the work today and making the appropriate adjustments, if necessary, can prevent many challenges downstream.”
Discrimination
Employers have one more year to comply with AB 2188, which bans employers from discriminating against employees or job applicants based on their use of cannabis off the job and away from the workplace.
“It is a big deal,” Lisa Ann Hilario, partner with Spaulding McCullough & Tansil law firm in Santa Rosa, told the North Bay Business Journal on Sept. 21. “Because the use of cannabis is legal in California, you had people disqualified for jobs or facing discipline from jobs if they came up with a positive cannabis test even if they were not impaired at work.”
Employers can continue to conduct pre-employment drug testing, and still refuse to hire a job candidate who tests positive for the psychoactive form of cannabis.
Law exceptions include businesses with federal contracts or employees needing security clearance because marijuana remains illegal at the federal level. Those in the building and construction trades also fall outside of the new law.
Marijuana is the most prevalent drug that shows up in employee drug tests, according to a 2022 report by Quest Diagnostics. The company reports positive marijuana tests going up in each of the last five years for U.S. workers.
Another discrimination law on the books to take effect Jan. 1 is SB 523, the Contraceptive Equity Act of 2022.
It includes a provision revising the California Fair Employment and Housing Act that makes it illegal to discriminate against an employee or job applicant based on their “reproductive health decision-making” to use or access a particular drug, device, product or medical service for reproductive health, the legislation, authored by Sen. Connie M. Leyva, D-Chino, states.
Workplace safety
Starting Jan. 1, SB 1044 prohibits an employer from taking or threatening adverse action against any employee for refusing to come to work, or leaving, if the employee has a “reasonable belief” that the workplace or work site is unsafe. That includes taking an employee’s mobile device and preventing him or her from seeking help.
It also requires an employee to notify the employer of the emergency condition requiring the employee to leave or refuse to report to the workplace or work site.
Authored by Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, the law defines an emergency condition as:
• Conditions of disaster or extreme peril to the safety of persons or property at the workplace or work site caused by natural forces or a criminal act.
• An order to evacuate a workplace, work site, worker’s home, or the school of a worker’s child due to natural disaster or a criminal act.
The law states that an emergency condition does not include a health pandemic.
SB 1044, however, does not apply to all employees. First responders, disaster-service workers, health care workers that provide direct care to patients, and employees whose roles are tied to public safety are among those excluded from the legislation.
Privacy rights
It’s been two years since voters passed the California Privacy Rights Act, which amended the California Consumer Privacy Act by strengthening privacy laws that prohibit businesses from collecting and sharing consumers’ personal data without their prior consent or knowledge.
Among the amendments taking effect Jan. 1, companies will no longer be allowed to collect information about their workers. Additionally, other than the right to access, the law applies to personal information collected by a business on or after Jan. 1, 2022.
Efforts by the business community to keep or extend the exclusions weren’t successful, according to multiple reports.
COVID-19 exposure
AB 2693 amends and extends a 2020 law that requires employers to notify staff, and anyone else at a work site, of a potential COVID-19 exposure. That notification had to be done in writing and within one business day of the known exposure. Employers were also required to report COVID-19 cases to local health departments.
The law was set to end on Jan. 1 but has been revised and extended one year.
Under AB 2693 changes, employers may post a notice in the workplace instead of notifying employees, and anyone else who was on the premises, of a possible exposure to COVID-19. The posted notice must include the dates and location of the potential exposure at the workplace, and remain posted for 15 days.
The amended law also relieves employers of having to report COVID-19 cases to their local health departments.
CalSavers program
SB 1126 makes changes to CalSavers, the state’s retirement savings program for private-sector employees whose employers don’t offer a retirement plan. The legislation expands the definition of an “eligible employer” to a person or entity with at least one employee, rather than five.
SB 1126 also stipulates business entities that are excluded from the eligible employer definition: sole proprietorships, self-employed people, and businesses that don’t employ anyone other than the owners.
The legislation also requires eligible employers to have a payroll-deposit retirement-savings system for their employees in place by Dec. 31, 2025.
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