It’s On the Governor’s Desk

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

AB 1209. Gender Pay Gap. This bill would require employers with 500 or more employees in California to collect certain information on gender wage differentials and file that information with the Secretary of State.

AB 1710. Discrimination Against Military Service Members. This bill would change the existing Military and Veterans code to expand upon prohibited discrimination against members or veterans of the U.S. Military with respect to his or her terms, conditions or privileges of employment. Also, review pending SB 266.

AB 978. Illness and Injury Prevention Program. Employers are already required to maintain Illness and Injury Prevention Program[s] “IIPP”, but this bill would require an employer to provide a current employee (or authorized representative) with a copy of the program within 10 business days of receipt of a written request.

SB 396. Harassment Training. An ever popular topic during the legislative cycle – workplace harassment. This bill would expand upon existing law requiring specific harassment prevention training, that would require employers with 50 or more employees to include as part of their supervisory training, information regarding harassment based on gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. Also, employers with 5 or more employees would be required to post a poster from the Department of Fair Employment and Housing regarding transgender rights.

AB 168. Salary Information. Another regular topic with legislators – salary information. In addition to the existing restrictions on employers with respect to applicants for employment, this bill would prohibit an employer from seeking salary history information from an applicant and would require that the pay scale for the position sought be disclosed upon reasonable request.

AB 1008. Background Checks. This bill is California’s “ban the box” initiative which would prohibit an employer with 5 or more employees from including on any application for employment any question that seeks the disclosure of the applicant’s conviction history and limiting any inquiry or consideration of criminal history of an applicant to after a conditional offer of employment has been received by the applicant.