Update In The Employee Handbook - Monitoring New Legislation - Hospitality Alert, Inc.
In the ever-changing environment of employee-employer relationships, one might legitimately wonder whether it ever makes sense to keep employee manuals or policies in hard print rather than in an easily accessible and updateable electronic format. If the activity in the California legislature is any indication, one would think that to have a written policy manual compliant with the plethora of employee-employer relationship rules and...
How to recount the new rules and how to maintain and present the employee handbook and policies is left to the judgment of each individual hospitality service provider. However, whatever policy and procedural choices are made, at minimum, they must be reviewed and updated in order to keep current with new legislation out of Sacramento.
The new legislation particularly applicable to the employment relationship covers a variety of areas. For example, under certain circumstances obtaining reference checks can impose new and more strenuous obligations on the employer to keep that information confidential and private based upon the California Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (ICRA).
No doubt a product of the economic downturn, the California legislature again addressed the California Warn Act and now requires employers more than 75 employees to give governmental agencies at least 60 days notice of any mass layoff, relocation or termination. . In addition to the original requirement that such notice be made to the employees, employers must now also advise the State Department of Employment Development, the local Workforce Investment Board, as well as all applicable local officials of the county in which the activity occurs.
Family relationships also caught the legislature's special attention. The California Paid Family Leave Act now requires employers to give paid leave for employees who cannot work because they are taking care of infirmed family members. Age discrimination was similarly a topic of legislation by the California legislature. Now discrimination for workers over 40 is prohibited not only in issues of compensation, but also in issues dealing with the terms and conditions of employment. Further, privacy issues were revisited in the Social Security Number Privacy Act. Employers now must be aware of the circumstances under which an employee's social security number can be used for identification purposes. Immigrants have also been given additional special protection. Senate Bill 1818 protects the civil rights of employees who do not have the requisite paperwork. And yet another change: an employee under Assembly Bill 2412 now also has access to payroll records and Assembly Bill 2895 outlines the prohibition regarding termination of employee for disclosing his/her wages or discussing working conditions with fellow employees.
Clearly, all employers, particularly those in the hospitality industry must be aware of these new legislations and how they will be impacted.
Director of Publication
Hospitality Alert
"The legal publication for the hospitality industry."