In California, the Future of Worker Protection Laws Advance
Home to some of the world’s most iconic firms, the state rolls out new and progressive labor laws, from minimum wage to anti-discrimination and parental leave.
It’s a fast-moving world, and few places are changing more quickly than the work environment and the platform economy. Each Friday, in this column, we’ll attempt to connect some dots, blending the interviews and conversations we’re doing here at Reinvent with the news that’s breaking around us. We hope the deep-dive conversations conducted at our events, in our studios, and over video online provide some key insights into the larger issues shaping the world, and give you a thoughtful weekend reflection about a world that’s moving briskly into the future.
Sometimes the best views come when you’re standing on the far edge of things. When looking for insight into the future of the work, that horizon of possibility may be best viewed way out west in California — what locals sometimes call The Left Coast.
California is home to some of the world’s most influential and paradigm-changing companies — Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, Netflix — and now the Golden State is providing new direction in worker protection, from minimum wage to anti-discrimination laws and parental leave, with a bevy of new laws coming Jan. 1, 2018.
In California, progressive change is hard-wired into the state’s mentality. “The 21st-century hit California first, and the innovative state adapted early and has pioneered a promising new way forward,” wrote Pete Leyden and Rudy Teixeira in an essay series posted in Medium called “California is the Future”. (Read the piece here and check out the entire series here.)
“The big impact of change often happens in California first.”
Leyden and Teixeira maintain that a potent mix of progressive politics, entrepreneurialism, political unity, and a willingness to try new things have created a social and political laboratory in California that is like no other. “The big impact of change often happens in California first,” they wrote.
These may, in turn, serve as the beacon for other states and even the federal government. “The evolution of many of the nation’s employment and civil rights protections began at the state level and trickled up to the federal government,” wrote Moshe Marvit in an essay entitled “The Way Forward for Labor Is Through the States”.
With that in mind, it is useful to look at where some innovative California legislation is heading in 2018. The California Legislature passed numerous labor and employment bills that Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in 2017. Many relate to wages and hours, leaves and benefits, hiring practices, health and safety, and other workplace protections, and become effective on Jan. 1, 2018.
It’s an impressive list, with one caveat: Brown has been a big proponent of labor in his 15 years as the state’s highest elected official (1975–1983 and 2011–present). But 2018 will bring the final year of his final term. California will elect a new governor in November and Brown will retire to his family homestead in Colusa County, on a piece of property that his family has owned for almost 150 years.
Leyden and Teixeira are confident that successive leaders will follow Brown’s lead: “To use a biblical analogy, the 79-year-old Brown is more like Moses, who got his people to the edge of the promised land — and then handed over leadership to the next generation, who are now pressing on,” they wrote. “A New California Democrat is rising.”
Those New Democrats must now deliver on the promises of “Moses” Brown. And they’ll have a wide range of new legislation to build on. The California Chamber of Commerce has released a list of the laws that are scheduled to take effect in 2018. Some are far-reaching, while others tweak existing laws or may affect employers only in specific industries. Here are some of the biggies:
- SB3: Minimum Wage. The state’s lowest paid workers are getting a pay increase of 50 cents an hour. On Jan. 1, California’s minimum wage will increase to $11 per hour for companies with 26 or more employees and to $10.50 an hour for businesses with 25 or fewer employees. (The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, and has not increased since July 2009.) The new law increases the minimum wage to $15 per hour by Jan. 1, 2022, for employers with 26 or more employees.
- SB 396: Harassment Protection. Employers with 50 or more employees must, as part of the required training and education for supervisors, include training for harassment based on gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. California law currently requires employers with 50 or more employees to provide at least two hours of training regarding sexual harassment to supervisory employees once every two years, and the training must also be provided within six months of an employee taking a supervisory position. California law currently provides that farm labor contractors must attest that employees have received sexual harassment prevention and reporting training. SB 295 adds to this requirement, mandating that the training for each agricultural employee be in the language understood by that employee.
- SB63: New Parent Leave. Lets mothers and fathers working for employers with 20 to 49 employees take 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted child or foster child. Businesses with 50 or more workers already had to provide this. The leave can be taken in two-week increments. It also protects new parents from losing job and health care benefits during time off. California employees are eligible for protection under the The California Family Rights Act (CFRA) if they 1) have completed at least 12 months of employment with the company; 2) have worked for the company for at least 1,250 hours in the past 12 months; and 3) are employed at a worksite that has 50 or more employees within 75 miles of that worksite.
- AB1008: Ban the Box Law. Expands the state’s current “Ban the Box” law to prohibit businesses with as few as five employees from asking about a job applicant’s criminal history.
- AB168: Salary History and Pay Scales. Prohibits employers from seeking or asking about a job applicant’s salary history, compensation or benefits. It also requires employers disclose pay scales for a position if it is requested by a job applicant. California employers can no longer ask job applicants about their prior salary and — if applicants ask — must give them a pay range for the job they are seeking. AB168 applies to all public- and private-sector California employers of any size. The goal of this legislation is to narrow the gender wage gap. If a woman is paid less than a man doing the same job and a new employer bases her pay on her prior salary, gender discrimination can be perpetuated, the bill’s backers say. However, if the applicant “voluntarily and without prompting” provides this information, the employer may use it “in determining the salary for that applicant.”
While California passed one equal pay law, Governor Brown vetoed the Gender Pay Gap Transparency Act, A.B. 1209, which would have required employers with 500 or more employees to biennially provide information on their “gender pay differentials” to the Secretary of State. Under this law, a large employer would have been required to report on the difference between the mean and median wages of male and female exempt employees by job classification or title. The bill had support in the Legislature, but Governor Brown vetoed it with concerns that it was ambiguous and would encourage more litigation than pay equity.
That’s just the beginning, with more promising initiatives for California workers in the future. Brown laid out a great roadmap, particularly in his second stint as governor, but now other must follow their own paths. “To be sure,” wrote Leyden and Teixeira, “the second coming of Jerry Brown as governor of California from 2011 through 2018 was essential in helping to lay the foundation for the next great progressive era in California politics. But that era is just now fully taking off, with a younger generation leading the way.”
