California expands employee rights for victims of violence: new leave policies and protections under AB 2499 take effect Jan 1. Weintraub attorneys Meagan Bainbridge and Shauna Correia discuss what employers need to know to update their policies in the latest installment of California Employment News.

Watch this episode on the Weintraub YouTube channel.



Show Notes:

Meagan:
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for this installment of California Employment News. My name is Meagan Bainbridge, and I'm a shareholder in the Weintraub Tobin Labor and Employment department.  And with me today is one of my partners, Shauna Correia. As you likely know, in California, employees who are victims of certain crimes and domestic violence have the right to take unpaid time off work when they need it, such as to get medical or legal help or to attend court proceedings. Today, we're going to discuss Assembly Bill 2499, which expands this leave and requires additional accommodations for California employees who either are victims of qualifying acts of violence or who have family members who are victims. Shauna, can you remind listeners about the scope of the law that was in effect prior to the passage of AB 2499?

 

Shauna:
Labor Code Section 230 applied to all employers, regardless of size, and it prohibited employers from discharging or discriminating against an employee because of their status as a victim of a crime or abuse. It prohibited employers basically from discharging or discriminating against employees for taking time off to appear in court as a witness related to the crime or to obtain certain kinds of relief, like obtaining a restraining order or helping ensure the health, safety, or welfare of the victim or their child. Then, Section 230 also required employers to provide reasonable accommodations if the employee was a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, and they required an accommodation for the safety of the victim while they were at work unless it was an undo hardship. Labor Code Section 230.1 also imposed additional requirements and prohibitions on larger employers that have 25 or more employees. And those employers could not discharge or discriminate against employees taking time off for four reasons, basically seeking medical attention for injuries that were caused by a crime or abuse, or to obtain services such as from a domestic violence shelter or rape crisis center, or to obtain psychological counseling or mental health services for the crime, and then finally to participate in safety planning and take actions to increase safety from future crimes or abuse.

And then the companion to that would be the paid sick leave Labor Code Section 246.5 requires employers to allow employees to use their paid sick leave days on their request if they're a victim of domestic violence, stalking, or sexual assault, and they need time off for those reasons.

Meagan:
Yeah, that's right. Can you explain what has changed?

 

Shauna:
Sure. The first more procedural change is that these laws were moved out of the Labor Code and recodified underneath the umbrella of the Fair Implement and Housing Act. The importance of that is really a couple of things. One is the new rules will be enforced by the California Civil Rights Department, which enforces the Fair Implement and Housing Act for FIHA. This provides mechanisms for employees to bring civil actions in court rather than having them enforced by the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, which is primarily responsible for enforcing wage and hour laws. So it makes some sense to move this statute there. But importantly, some of the definitions, and I'll get into this in a little bit, but the rules for the leaves and accommodations now are going to more closely resemble the types of rules emplo...