EGRS Provides End-Of-Session Update on 2023 Employment Legislation

EGRS Provides End-Of-Session Update on 2023 Employment Legislation

The California Legislature closed out its work for the 2023 legislative session on the evening of September 14. While there were several areas of public policymaking that captured the Legislature’s attention this year, no issue dominated the legislative landscape in 2023 the way labor and employment policy did.

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Reversing Itself, Ninth Circuit Invalidates California’s Ban on Mandatory Employment Arbitration Agreements

In 2018, California passed a controversial law called AB-51 (now Labor Code Section 432.6) that prohibited California employers from requiring arbitration agreements as a condition of employment – on pain of jail time and civil penalties.  AB-51 was immediately challenged and preliminarily enjoined under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), which was passed almost 100 years ago to combat judicial “hostility” towards arbitration and preempts any law that discriminates against arbitration agreements.

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California DOJ Approves Pilot of TMA’s Automated Secure Alarm Protocol

The Monitoring Association (TMA) welcomed its 119th Emergency Communications Center (ECC) in the United States and its first agency in the state of California to implement the Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP). The state of California became the 22nd state in the United States to participate in the ASAP program. Launched in 2011 as a public-private partnership, TMA’s ASAP service is designed to increase the accuracy and efficiency of calls for service from alarm companies to Emergency Communication Centers (ECCs).

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California Approves Bereavement Leave

 California Governor Gavin Newson has approved and signed Assembly Bill (AB) 1949, an amendment to the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) that will take effect on January 1, 2023. AB 1949 now requires covered California employers to provide eligible employees with five days of unpaid bereavement leave for the death of a qualifying family member. 

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Biden NLRB Rules Employers Cannot Limit Union Insignia Without Good Reason

In what has become an all too familiar practice of overruling and reinstating precedent based on the political party in control of the Executive Branch, last week, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) reinstated the test that applies when analyzing whether an employer’s dress code or uniform policy interferes with employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act.  In Tesla Inc., 370 NLRB No. 131 (Aug. 29, 2022), at issue was an employer policy requiring employees to wear a designated uniform in its production facility and prohibiting employees from wearing any unauthorized clothing, including tee shirts with union insignia.

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