Category Archives: Employment
A-B-C – EASY AS 1-2-3
California employers need to have their heads up: California is in the middle of a huge re-balancing of the rights between employers and workers. Guided by the idea that employees are most companies’ best asset, California is cracking down on tactics that abuse worker’s rights. That includes traditional practices like using independent contractors. California is […]
21st Century Law
August 10, 2017. By: Andrew K Jacobson The California Supreme Court will be deciding if it will lower the admissions standards for the State Bar. California currently has one of the highest admission requirements in the country. Deans from law schools in the state want the cut score (the minimum passing score on the bar […]
Way Ahead of You, Mr. President
A big drag on the health of the economy is labor mobility – or rather, the lack of it. People trapped in jobs that they don’t want to be in do not supply productivity and innovation. Non-competition agreements contribute significantly to that lack of labor mobility. Some employers like them because they suppress threats of […]
New Employment Laws for 2016
There were new developments in California employment law that every business owner needs to know. Minimum Wage. Most already know that California raised the minimum wage to $10 per hour as of the beginning of the year. However, some local jurisdictions have raised it even higher: Oakland, for example, has raised the minimum wage in the […]
California’s New Mandatory Paid Sick Leave Law
By Daniel Richardson Beginning July 1, 2015, nearly all California employers will be required to provide full-time and part-time employees with a minimum of three days of paid sick leave per year. The Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014, signed into law by Governor Brown on […]
Now for The [Good] News…
by: Andrew K Jacobson The news has been dreary for some time now, and September has not been friendly in the recent past. Under all that gloom, it is easy to forget that there is a lot of good news out there: Lower Crime. Accounting for population growth, violent crime is down 48 percent over the […]
Cell Time
Employers have long known that they have to reimburse employees for out-of-pocket expenses like mileage or meals with clients. Now employers can add cell phone costs, when an employee uses his or her own cell phone and plan.
Employers have long provided landlines and cell phones to their employees. However, cell phones are already in nearly every pocket or backpack. Employers are increasingly relying on the employees’ personal phones for contact, even if the employee is not regularly out in the field.
Cal. Lab. Code § 2802(a) states: “An employer shall indemnify his or her employee for all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties, or of his or her obedience to the directions of the employer . . . .”
Cal. Lab. Code § 2802(c) defines “necessary expenditures” as “all reasonable costs, including, but not limited to, attorney’s fees incurred by the employee enforcing the rights granted by this section.”
In August, 2014, the Second District Court of Appeals in California ruled that employers have to reimburse employees who use their own cell phones as part of their job.
A Skull Full of Mush
by: Andrew K Jacobson The New York Timesrecently featured an article on Oakland’s own Sustainable Economies Law Center, which helps prospective lawyers apprentice with a lawyer for a few years while learning the law. Every law student who suffered “the ramen noodle and Contracts casebook at 12:30 am” existence finds it tempting. My publicly funded law […]
Employment Law Update – How up to date are you?
By Daniel Richardson Is your employee handbook up to date? An up to date employee handbook is important because it outlines for the employee the employer’s policies and procedures as well as establishing the expected standards. Using an employee handbook from the outset of the employment relationship to establish expected standards can be invaluable […]
