It’s On The Governor’s Desk

Since our last update, California Governor Jerry Brown now has over 800 legislative bills to review and sign or veto. Here is information about a few of those bills as referenced on leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.

SB 1063. Equal Pay. This bill would prohibit an employer from paying any of its employees at wage rates less than the rates paid to employees of another race or ethnicity for substantially similar work.

AB 1732. Same-Sex Bathrooms. This bill would, commencing March 1, 2017, require all single-user toilet facilities in any business establishment, place of public accommodation, or government agency to be identified as all-gender toilet facilities, as specified. The bill would authorize inspectors, building officials, or other local officials responsible for code enforcement to inspect for compliance during any inspection.

AB 1843. Background Checks. This bill would prohibit an employer from asking an applicant for employment to disclose, or from utilizing as a factor in determining any condition of employment, information concerning or related to an arrest, detention, processing, diversion, supervision, adjudication, or court disposition that occurred while the person was subject to the process and jurisdiction of juvenile court law. The bill would provide that “conviction” excludes an adjudication by a juvenile court or any other court order or action taken with respect to a person who is under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court law, and would make related and conforming changes. The bill would prohibit an employer at a health facility from inquiring into specific events that occurred while the applicant was subject to juvenile court law, with a certain exception, and from inquiring into information concerning or related to an applicant’s juvenile offense history that has been sealed by the juvenile court. The bill would require an employer at a health facility seeking disclosure of juvenile offense history under that exception to provide the applicant with a list describing offenses for which disclosure is sought.

SB 1167. Heat Injury and Illness Prevention. This bill would require a proposal to the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board for the board’s review and adoption, a heat illness and injury prevention standard applicable to workers working in indoor places of employment. The bill would specify that this requirement does not prohibit the division from proposing, or the standards board from adopting, a standard that limits the application of high heat provisions to certain industry sectors.

A few bills have already been enacted into law. One enacted bill which may have slipped by has been codified as California Labor Code §1684(a)(8)(A)-(F) and became effective June 27, 2016. This section in part requires that a person seeking to be licensed as a farm labor contractor or as part of the licensing renewal process, provide its supervisory personnel with sexual harassment training that must include specific topics.