©2023 Seyfarth Shaw LLP www.seyfarth.com 2023 Cal-Peculiarities | 13 Preface to the 2023 Edition New Legislation Upon his departure from public life, then-Governor Jerry Brown, after lamenting the sheer volume of bills crossing the Governor’s desk, issued a prophetic warning: “we’re in for contentious times and for too many rules, too many constricting mandates and probably too much spending.” Now into the first year of his second term as Governor, it does not appear that his successor, Governor Gavin Newsom, has heeded his predecessor’s warning. Indeed, Governor Newsom has signed a number of bills that were re-introduced after Governor Brown’s veto. Despite a lull in 2020 and 2021 — when the State Legislature was focused on pressing pandemic-related measures — the Legislature returned to more normal activity in 2022. To that end, below we report some highlights of what the Governor and Legislature would count among their 2022 accomplishments in employment law. All enactments were effective January 1, 2023, unless otherwise noted. New Laws Wage theft. Intentional wage theft—including gratuities “in an amount greater than nine hundred fifty dollars ($950) from any one employee, or two thousand three hundred fifty dollars ($2,350) in the aggregate”—is now considered grand theft punishable as a misdemeanor or felony with jail time. (See § 1.5.1.) Parents-in-law leave. The CFRA now allows leave taken to care for seriously ill parents-in-law. (See § 2.3.) Covid SPSL extension: “A new law enacted in 2022 retroactively extended Covid-19 supplemental paid sick leave (SPSL) obligations back to January 1, 2021, for employers with over 25 employers. With the old law expiring on September 30, 2021, the new law left a gap in coverage for the last quarter of 2021.” Expanded application of CCPA/CPRA to HR data. Effective January 1, 2023, the CPRA eliminated the prior exemption for employee personal information under CCPA. As a result, all CPRA requirements now apply to the handling of employee personal information, including those under the “old” CCPA and the new requirements under the CPRA. PAGA janitorial CBA exception. There is now a limited exception from PAGA for specific janitorial employees performing work under a collective bargaining agreement. (See § 5.15.2) More restrictions on settlement agreements. For settlement agreements entered into on or after January 1, 2022, the “Silence No More Act” extends the prohibition on confidentiality provisions in settlement agreements to all forms of workplace discrimination—not just discrimination based on sex— and requires that any provision that restricts disclosure of workplace conditions to carve out disclosure of unlawful acts. (See § 6.5.13.)
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