Governor Signs Two Employment Related Bills

As the Governor is preparing to make his exist, he has signed into law a couple of bills that employers need to be aware of:

The first provides exemptions from state meal period requirements for certain types of employees, thus allowing employers to avoid one of the more common wage and hour pitfalls. The jobs covered are construction workers, commercial drivers, security officers, gas and electrical corporation employees, and public utility employees. The exemption applies only if the given employees are covered by a collective bargaining agreement that otherwise provides for meal periods and provides for binding arbitration of disputes concerning the application of meal periods.  The rationale behind this is that certain jobs require constant working, or make it impractical to regularly schedule meal periods in compliance with California law.

Another law recently passed provides for mandatory paid time off for employees donating an organ or bone marrow.  This law only applies to employers with 15 or more employees.  Employees are entitled to up to 30 days paid time off per year for donating an organ, and up to 5 days paid time off per year for donating bone marrow.  The employer can require the use of up to two weeks of accrued sick or vacation leave for organ donation, or up to 5 days for bone marrow donation, before providing the paid time off.  However, the periods of paid time off do not run concurrently with FMLA or CFRA, and the employee can still apply for those leaves.

One final update on the Brinker case. This is the case, now pending before the California Supreme Court, which addresses whether under California law an employer has the duty to ensure that employees take their meal and rest breaks, or alternatively to only provide the employees with the opportunity to take their meal and rest breaks. It looks like the Supreme Court is going to wait until after the election and the seating of a new Chief Justice before scheduling oral arguments.  At this time we do not expect a ruling before the end of the first quarter of 2011. Plaintiff’s attorneys all believe that the Court will go with the “ensure” standard; defense attorneys all think the Court will go with the “provide” standard.  We will keep you posted.

JAllan