The California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) issued updated responses to frequently asked questions (FAQs) relating to the state’s amended paid sick leave law. As previously reported, California enacted SB 616, which expands the state law with respect to paid sick leave. The new law will be effective January 1, 2024, and increases the minimum amount of sick leave per year from 24 hours (or three days) to 40 hours (or five days). California’s labor commissioner also updated the paid sick leave poster and 2810.5 employee notice to reflect the new law’s requirements. The DIR’s FAQs page answers questions for employers regarding accrual methods, caps on paid sick leave, and how employers can transition their paid sick leave policies to comply with the new law. For example, the FAQs address what an employer must do to comply with the law on January 1, 2024, if the employer uses an accrual method and capped an employee’s yearly use of leave at three days or 24 hours: —”If an employer uses an annual start date other than January 1 and implements a 12‑month use cap, that cap must change to 40 hours or 5 days on January 1, 2024. For example, if an employer uses the 12-month period of May 1 – April 30 and implements a cap and an employee used 24 hours or three days before January 1, 2024, the employer must allow the employee to use an additional 2 days or 16 hours before April 30 if the employee has accrued that additional leave.”Continue Reading California Revises Frequently Asked Questions on Paid Sick Leave

In response to last year’s groundbreaking decision by the Washington State Supreme Court in Martinez-Cuevas v. DeRuyter Bros. Dairy, Inc., the state legislature recently passed Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5172, amending the state’s Minimum Wage Act as it relates to agricultural workers and adopting a phased approach for imposing overtime requirements on agricultural employers.

California law generally requires that employers provide nonexempt employees an uninterrupted, nonworking 30-minute meal period to begin before the end of the fifth hour of work. In a case of first impression, Donahue v. AMN Services, LLC, ___ P.3d ___, 2021 WL 728871 (Cal. 2021) analyzed whether an otherwise-permissible time-rounding system could be used