Labor & Employment Law

Employment Related Bills Signed (and Vetoed) by Governor

It is a bit anticlimactic, but the Governor vetoed many more employment related bills than he approved recently. The following is a list of employment and litigation related bills that were signed by the Governor:

AB 2075 Wages: execution of release of claim or right.
Modifies Labor Code section 205.6 to make it a misdemeanor for an employer to require an employee to sign a release that the employee has been paid for all hours worked, when the employer knows the hours listed are not correct. The law takes effect on January 1, 2009. We previously posted about this bill here.

AB 2619 Civil actions and proceedings.
This bill corrects an erroneous cross-reference in the regulations governing discovery in civil actions.

AB 2193 Civil discovery: out-of-state proceedings.
The bill establishes the Interstate and International Depositions and Discovery Act that sets forth discovery rules for obtaining discovery in California during out-of-state litigation. The law takes effect on January 1, 2010.

SB 1173 Unemployment insurance: employers: motion picture industry.
This bill extends the time period within which a motion picture payroll services company that quits business must notify the motion picture production companies and allied motion picture services of its intent to quit business to 45 days (from 30 days previously).  It also allows a motion picture payroll services company that has elected to be treated as an employer to apply to the director to extend an existing voluntary plan for the payment of disability benefits to motion picture production workers of the company's affiliated entities.

Also interesting are the bills that were passed by the legislature, but vetoed by the Governor. There is a good chance that these vetoed bills, or something very similar, will make their way to the Governor’s desk again.  Here is a list of employment related bills that were vetoed:

AB 419 Workers' compensation: public employees: leaves of absence.
Expanded the group of public employees entitled to a paid leave of absence at full salary for up to one year.

AB 1107 Unemployment compensation benefits: drought-related unemployment.
Expanded the group of employees affected by the June 2008 “drought” that would be considered “unemployed” in order to receive unemployment insurance.

AB 1656 Personal information: security breaches.
Imposed stricter requirements on any “agency, person, or business that maintains computerized data that includes personal information” for any breach of security of the personal data.

AB 2369 Apprenticeship programs: prevailing wage enforcement.
Proposed to change the enforcement of the prevailing wage laws for certain public works projects.

AB 2386 Employment: Agricultural labor.
The bill would have required the Agricultural Labor Relations Board to include information related to the status of the Agricultural Employee Relief Fund in its yearly report to the Legislature and the Governor. Also would have provided two methods by which agricultural employees could select a representative for collective bargaining purposes, and would have authorized the board to impose a civil penalty of up to $20,000 for each violation if the board finds that an employer has engaged in specified unfair labor practices.

AB 2918 Employment: usage of consumer credit reports.
The proposed bill would have prohibited the user of a consumer credit report from obtaining a consumer credit report for employment purposes unless the information was: (1) substantially job related, or (2) required by law to be disclosed to or obtained by the user of the report.

AB 3062 Employment: termination: garnishment of wages.
This bill would have prohibited an employer from terminating an employee because garnishment of the employee's wages has been threatened or the employee's wages have been subjected to garnishment.

AB 3063 Employment: criminal history.
Proposed bill would have prohibited an employer from asking an applicant for employment to disclose, or using in an employment-related decision, information concerning a criminal conviction when the record of which has been judicially ordered sealed, expunged, or statutorily eradicated. The bill also proposed to protect information concerning a misdemeanor conviction which probation has been successfully completed or otherwise discharged, and the case has been judicially dismissed.

SB 1113 Attorney's fee and costs.
The Legislative Counsel’s Digest for SB 1113 explains the proposed purpose as:
Existing law authorizes a court, upon motion, to award attorney's fees to a successful party against one or more opposing parties in any action that has resulted in the enforcement of an important right affecting the public interest, if certain conditions are met. This bill would authorize the court to award attorney's fees and costs, including expert witness fees, pursuant to this provision.

SB 1661 Unemployment compensation: family leave: good cause.
Proposed an increased the pool of potential recipients of payments from the Unemployment Fund.

AB 926 Civil discovery.
Proposed to amend the Civil Discovery Act to place more regulations on the production of electronically stored data, such as how parties are to produce such data in litigation, and when sanctions would be appropriate if a party no longer possessed such data.

AB 1666 Meal and rest periods: stage assistants.
The bill would have extended the protections afforded to employees covered by the IWC Wage Order to stage assistants who are employed by a city, county, or special district, to the extent not in conflict with the provisions of a memorandum of understanding reached between an employer and a recognized employee organization.

Oh, one last bill was vetoed by the Governor:  AB 1519 Human remains: commercial display. Only in California…. 

To view all of the bills vetoed and signed by the Governor, visit his website here. 
 

Full post as published by California Labor & Employment Defense Blog on October 03, 2008 (boomark / email).