In this month’s Employment Law Update,
we are providing updates on the status of certain bills that, if passed,
would affect the workplace.
AB1912 – This
bill would prohibit an employer from discharging an employee on the
basis that the employee legally stores a firearm in his or her vehicle
at the work site. It had been pending in the Committee on Labor &
Employment, but the bill’s author recently cancelled the hearing
on the bill.
AB2217 – This
bill would allow the use of an alternative work week schedule by individual
non-exempt employees, of up to ten hours per day within a 40-hour work
week. The employee would submit a written request for such a schedule
to the employer, which would have to approve. The employer could not
encourage or otherwise solicit an employee to submit a request for an
alternative schedule. Workers covered by a valid collective bargaining
agreement would be exempt from the law. The bill did not pass out of
the Committee on Labor & Employment, but reconsideration has been
granted. (A companion bill, Senate Bill 1254, failed to pass out of
the Senate Committee on Labor & Industrial Relations.)
AB2385 – Under
Labor Code section 2802, an employer must indemnify an employee for
all “necessary expenditures or losses” that are incurred
as a direct consequence of the discharge of duties. This Assembly bill
would add litigation costs to the costs included by the term “necessary
expenditures or losses,” thus making specific the ability of the
employee to recover attorneys’ fees if he or she must take legal
action to enforce the indemnification rights under section 2802. The
bill was amended in the Judiciary Committee, passed as amended, and
then referred to the Appropriations Committee.
AB2371 – This
bill would invalidate arbitration agreements between employers and employees
that relate to employment practices that are covered by the Fair Employment
and Housing Act (“FEHA”) that are required as a condition
of hiring. It would be an unlawful employment practice for an employer
to require an employee to waive any rights or procedures under the FEHA.
The bill passed out of the Committee on the Judiciary, and is now in
the Committee on Appropriations.
