California’s Employer Obligations Remain Expansive

California’s employment laws go well beyond federal statutes’ requirements in many ways, including state requirements on leave, equal employment opportunity (EEO), and wage and hour. A recent Seyfarth report highlights these and other idiosyncrasies in California employment law.

Leave

California goes far beyond federal leave law, the report states, by:

• Creating a right to unpaid leave for up to four months (or 17.33 weeks) for pregnancy-related disabilities, in addition to any available family leave and related disability leave.
• Imposing family leave obligations not only on larger employers, but also on smaller employers (those with at least five employees).
• Defining “family” broadly.
• Having no geographical limitations or any carve-outs for key employees.
• Enabling employees to claim state-paid family leave benefits for up to eight weeks.
• Entitling employees to accrue up to 40 hours or five days of annual paid sick leave, which can accumulate up to 80 hours or 10 days.

EEO

California protects employees from discrimination not only on federally protected bases (such as race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, and disability), but also on a host of additional grounds, the report notes. These include political affiliation, marital status, and the holding of a special driver’s license that California makes available to those who cannot prove that they are authorized under federal law to work in the U.S. In addition, California extends marital-status protections to registered domestic partners.

With respect to disability discrimination, California effectively requires employers to deal with an employee on leave through the employee’s attorney if the worker so desires.

California also goes beyond federal law on age discrimination by:

• Categorically forbidding employers from relying on pay levels in deciding which employees to dismiss, if that criterion adversely affects employees at least 40 years old.
• Endorsing the adverse impact theory of liability in age discrimination without recognizing a common defense available in federal age discrimination cases: the employer’s reliance on reasonable factors other than age.

In addition, California goes beyond federal law on workplace harassment by:

• Applying harassment law to all private employers, no matter how small.
• Making employers vicariously liable for supervisor-perpetrated harassment, using a broad definition of “supervisor.”
• Denying employers the defense under federal law that absolves employers of liability if they took Faragher/Ellerth reasonable measures to prevent and correct harassment and if the plaintiff unreasonably failed to use those measures.
• Making supervisors and co-workers personally liable for perpetrating discriminatory workplace harassment.
• Requiring all employers to distribute to all employees a detailed fact sheet on sexual harassment.
• Requiring larger employers to train supervisors and all rank-and-file employees to prevent sexual harassment.
• Mandating special sexual harassment training for janitorial employees.
• Requiring training for supervisors to address “abusive conduct” (bullying) without regard to discriminatory conduct.

California also goes beyond federal law on pay discrimination by requiring larger employers to file annual reports of pay data listing employees in various categories—such as race, ethnicity, and sex—together with their pay in pay bands as established by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Wage and Hour

California exceeds federal wage and hour law, the report notes, by:

• Requiring employers to provide sick leave.
• Imposing an escalating minimum wage far above the federal level.
• Requiring employers to pay overtime wages of time and a half for work over eight hours a day, for work on a seventh consecutive workday, and for work over 40 hours a week.
• Mandating that employers pay double-time wages for work over 12 hours a day and for work over eight hours on a seventh consecutive workday.
• Requiring employers to provide employees with paid rest breaks, paid recovery periods, and unpaid meal breaks.
• Restricting certain employers in their staffing and scheduling of employees.
• Mandating that employers provide new hires with written notice of pay rates, paydays, employer names, and any other information the labor commissioner deems material and necessary.
• Requiring employers to provide, with each payment of wages, a highly detailed itemized statement, while imposing heavy penalties for even technical noncompliance.

These are merely examples of ways in which California legal requirements exceed federal mandates. The report notes many other expansive state law requirements pertaining to employee privacy, employment agreements, and immigration.

The report also recaps employment laws enacted in 2024 that go into effect in 2025.