Here is the second installment of new laws for employers for 2025. Again, if you have any questions regarding any of these new laws, please shoot me an email for more detail. There are some changes that will need to be made to handbooks for 2025. Although I don’t discuss it in this installment, please don’t forget about PAGA reform! I discussed that topic in an update earlier this year. The Employment Law Group at Hunt Ortmann is ready to assist with any employment needs, including handbook revisions, for the coming year!
AB1815: Clarification of Protected Class
AB1815 amends the definition of “race” in the anti-discrimination provisions of the California Government Code, and Education Code, as well as the definitions of “protective hairstyles.” In 2019 California clarified that the definition of race discrimination includes protected hairstyles. Under the amendments, race is “inclusive of traits associated with race, including but not limited to hair texture and protective hairstyles.” “Protective hairstyles” “include but are not limited to such hairstyles as braids, locs, and twists.” Before AB 1815, “race” was defined to include traits historically associated with race. In the amendment, the word “historically” was removed because it was vague and confusing. The bill applies retroactively since it is a declaration of existing law.
AB2499: Leave for Victims of Crime
AB2499 permits employees to take time off for themselves or to aid family members for an expanded list of crimes, and allows employees to take paid sick leave for these purposes. AB2499 expands the definition of “victims” to include a victim of a “qualifying act of violence” as follows, regardless of whether anyone is arrested for, prosecuted for, or convicted of committing any crime. The offenses included are domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, or an act, conduct, or pattern of conduct where an individual: causes bodily injury or death to another, exhibits, draws, brandishes, or uses a firearm or other dangerous weapon, with respect to another, or uses or makes a reasonably perceived or actual threat of use of force against another to cause physical injury or death. The new time off provisions now are part of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (Government Code § 12945.8) and enforcement authority rests with the Civil Rights Department. Employees are permitted to use vacation, personal leave, paid sick leave, or compensatory time off that is available unless otherwise provided in a collective bargaining agreement. Employers must provide written notice of the rights established under this bill to new hires, to all employees annually, at any time upon request, and any time the employer becomes newly aware that an employee or an employee’s family member is a victim.
SB988: Freelance Workers as Independent Contractors
As discussed in Part 1, the ABC test is used to determine if workers are employees or independent contractors for purposes of the Labor Code, the Unemployment Insurance Code, and the wage orders of the Industrial Welfare Commission. SB988 states minimum requirements for contracts between a hiring party and a freelance worker when that “person” is hired or retained as a bona fide independent contractor to provide professional services in exchange for an amount equal to or greater than $250. Specifically, the hiring party must pay a freelance worker the compensation specified by a contract for professional services on or before the date specified by the contract or, if the contract does not specify a date, no later than 30 days after completion of the freelance worker’s services. The contract between a hiring party and a freelance worker must be in writing and retained by the hiring party for no less than 4 years. SB988 prohibits a hiring party from discriminating or retaliating against a freelance worker for taking specified actions to enforce these provisions. An aggrieved freelance worker or a public prosecutor may bring a civil action to enforce these provisions.
