©2023 Seyfarth Shaw LLP www.seyfarth.com 2023 Cal-Peculiarities | 249 Employers should refer to the statute of limitations for the relevant law or ordinance if presented with such a claim. The City of Los Angeles’s Premium Hazard Pay for On-Site Grocery and Drug Retail Workers Ordinance served as a template for other local jurisdictions. The Los Angeles ordinance included these key terms: Premium pay was extra. The pay was in addition to all other forms of compensation and reimbursement. Employer. A Los Angeles covered “employer” was (1) a grocery, drug, or retail store with (2) more than 300 employees nationwide and more than 10 employees on site within the jurisdiction at a store that (3) either (a) primarily sold grocery items (including both food and household goods) or (b) sold various prescription and nonprescription medicines, along with other sundries or (c) was a retail store with over 85,000 square feet of retail space, 10% of which was dedicated to either groceries or drug retail. Employee. A Los Angeles covered “employee” was any individual who, during a particular week (1) performed at least two hours of work for a covered employer within the city and (2) is entitled to the California minimum wage. Depending on the ordinance, salaried managers may or may not have earned hazard pay. So while Los Angeles exempted managers and Daly City exempted managers, supervisors, and confidential labor relations employees, San Francisco provided both hourly and salaried employees to hazard pay to the extent that they earned less than $35 per hour (whether paid hourly or by an equivalent salary, based on a 40-hour workweek). The hazard pay laws (known to many employers as “hap-hazard” laws) also commonly contained the following features. Anti-retaliation: Most ordinances stated that employers could not discharge employees, reduce their compensation, or otherwise discriminate against them for asserting their rights under the ordinances. Credit for previous employer-initiated hazard pay: The ordinances typically allowed employers who were voluntarily providing hazard pay to offset the amount already being paid against the mandated additional pay. The credit typically must have been clearly identified on wage statements. Enforcement: Most ordinances empowered not only local enforcement officials but also employees to sue the employer for violations of the ordinance. Notice: The ordinances usually required employers to post a notice in a conspicuous spot at the workplace, to provide a copy of the notice to employees, or both. Sunset: Most ordinances were set to expire 90 or 120 days after the ordinance took effect. But some cities, such as South San Francisco, linked the sunset date to California’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy: once a predesignated reopening tier applied, the ordinance sunsets. While most hazard pay ordinances are similar, a few had special quirks. For example: South San Francisco required employers to pay employees up to four hours for time spent obtaining a Covid-19 vaccine. (The 2021 and 2022 versions of the California Supplemental Paid Leave law (which has now expired; see §2.14) also required employers to provide leave for vaccinations.) San Francisco capped hazard pay. Covered San Francisco grocery and drug store employers had to pay all employees an additional $5 per hour, up to a maximum of $35 per hour. So an employee who already earned
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