264 | 2024 Cal-Peculiarities ©2024 Seyfarth Shaw LLP www.seyfarth.com must also provide notice to new employees upon hire.592 Employers must not retaliate against employees for exercising their rights under the ordinance.593 Penalties apply to employers that fail to notify employees of their rights, fail to provide a work schedule in a timely manner, fail to provide predictability pay for changes with less than 24 hours’ notice, fail to offer existing employees work before hiring, fail to maintain adequate payroll records for three years, and fail to give the City access to payroll records.594 Employees may also file their own lawsuits.595 Los Angeles. The Los Angeles City Council passed the Fair Work Week ordinance, which went into effect on April 1, 2023.596 It included a 180-day grace period for penalties.597 The ordinance defines an employer as any retail business with over 300 employees globally.598 Notably, individuals employed through staffing agencies and employees of certain subsidiaries and franchises count toward the 300-person total.599 To be considered an employer under the ordinance, entities must also identify as a retail business in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) within retail trade categories and subcategories 44 through 45. (These categories include establishments primarily engaged in retailing merchandise and rendering services incidental to the sale of merchandise.)600 The ordinance defines an employee as anyone working in the City of Los Angeles two hours or more per week for an employer and who is entitled to be paid at least minimum wage under section 1197 of the California Labor Code and the California Industrial Welfare Commission’s published Wage Orders.601 Employers must provide a good faith scheduling estimate and a notice of rights.602 This good faith estimate must be provided within ten days of an employee’s request.603 If there is a substantial deviation from the estimate, the employer must have a documented business reason for the change.604 Employees also have the right to request a preference for certain hours, times, or locations.605 Employers may accept or deny requests, provided that they notify the employee in writing of the reason for any denial.606 Additionally, employers must provide work schedules to their employees at least 14 days in advance by either posting or transmitting them by electronic means (or another means reasonably calculated to provide notice).607 Employers must provide written notice of any employer-initiated changes that occur after the advance notice period.608 Finally, if an employer changes the schedule, employees can decline any hours not included in the original schedule. Any consent to a schedule change must be in writing.609 Employers must also post a City-issued notice of rights.610 Before hiring new employees (or bringing on contractors or temps), an employer must offer work to current qualified employees if the additional work would not result in overtime.611 Additional hours offered to current qualified employees must be conspicuously posted for at least 72 hours before hiring a new employee (unless all employees confirm they are not interested in the new hours, in which case, the employer can fulfill its staffing needs).612 Employees who accept offers under these circumstances are not entitled to predictability pay (described below) if the additional hours result in schedule changes.613 “Predictability pay” will be required when a schedule is changed under certain circumstances.614 Employers will owe one hour of pay at the regular rate for changes in time, date, or location that do not result in loss of employee time, or that add more than 15 minutes to an employee schedule.615 Employers will also owe half the employee’s regular rate of pay for time not worked if the employer reduces the scheduled time by 15 minutes or more.616
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