As efforts to increase the number of Americans who are vaccinated against COVID-19 ramp up, employees can expect to see more vaccine mandates in their workplaces.  Over the summer, the California Department of Public Health issued orders requiring … [Read more...]

Hourly workers in California who are not fully compensated for meal and rest breaks now have grounds to recover that shortfall following a recent California Supreme Court ruling.  On July 15, the California high court unanimously ruled in Ferra v. … [Read more...]

Office costs, not surprisingly, took a dive during the pandemic-driven work-from-home era. Looking ahead, if U.S. employers embraced remote work just half the time for workers who are both able and willing to work from home, they could … [Read more...]

A new California law takes a giant step toward helping employees who have faced workplace discrimination. In a state that has more than 12.1 million workers — with 5.54 million of them women and 7.67 million non-white, just to name a couple of … [Read more...]

Increasing numbers of employers are bringing people back to work in some measure, but the office view — from masks to mandates — looks far from normal.  The return of “non-essential” employees, many of whom have been working from home, has varied … [Read more...]

A law firm administrative manager got fed up this summer with requests to wear masks, even though he said he had tested negative for COVID-19. In a rant on his personal Facebook page, the Texas man vented his frustration in a big way, circling around … [Read more...]

In a landmark decision this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a 1964 civil rights law clearly protects gay and transgender workers. The ruling makes it illegal for employers nationwide to fire workers for being gay, bisexual or … [Read more...]

California’s new gig worker law tried to help people — particularly Uber and Lyft drivers — who received few protections and no benefits because they were classified as independent contractors instead of employees. Now, state legislators are … [Read more...]

We’ve written a fair bit here about your privacy protections in California; a new item intended for the November ballot could advance those cutting-edge protections even further. Californians for Consumer Privacy — the same group that backed the … [Read more...]

The coronavirus pandemic has created a quagmire of tough decisions for today’s workers, and the landscape is about to shift again. Now, as states tentatively reopen their economies — California’s phased plan began May 8 (some localities were … [Read more...]