Governor Newsom to Implement Trailer Bills Affecting California Leave Laws
Employment law has undergone significant changes in the last year, and California’s Governor, Gavin Newsom is continuing this trend by intending to implement another drastic change to existing law that will affect small businesses in the near future.
The Governor has proposed a budget, accompanied by various “trailer bills,” (proposals that require a simple majority vote to become law). A governor can utilize trailer bills to pass controversial litigation, to become effective immediately.
California protects employees through various leave laws. Chiefly, and most widely known, the California Pregnancy Disability Leave Law (“PDLL”), which entitles employees who are “disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, to take a leave for a reasonable period of time not to exceed four months and thereafter return to work.”[1] PDLL does not force employers to give paid leave, but does require that the leave be “job-protected” so that the employee may effortlessly return to work at the end of the leave period. As this law reads now, it is only applicable to employers with five or more employees. Governor Newsom’s trailer bill proposed to abolish this threshold of five or more employees, thereby forcing employers of all sizes to abide by the revised PDLL, even those with as few as one employee.
The second applicable leave law is The California Family Rights Act (“CFRA”), which authorizes eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of paid or unpaid job-protected leave during a 12-month period. The leave can be taken for one or more of the following reasons: (1) the birth of a child or adoption of foster care placement of a child (2) to care for an immediate family member (3) or when an employee is unable to work because of a serious health condition. In 2017, the California legislature passed the New Parent Leave Act, which requires employers with 20 or more employees to abide by the CFRA, whereas before the requirement was 50 or more employees. The New Parent Leave Act only applies to employees who can demonstrate they require leave to bond with a newborn, or a child placed with the employee for adoption or foster care. Job-protected leave for a serious medical condition under CFRA still only applies to employers with 50 or more employees.
The Governor’s proposed trailer bills seek to repeal the New Parent Leave Act and amend the CFRA and PDLL to apply to all employers, regardless of their size. Although these proposed amendments are intended to protect employees, they come at the very high cost of making it more difficult and unaffordable for small businesses to operate in California. Consequently, California stands to lose many more small businesses, and its residents will be left with only big business goliaths to choose from for all their commerce and service needs.
The Parkman Law Firm will continue to post updates about this proposed legislation. Remember, once the proposed legislation passes, it will become effective immediately. As such, California employers may want to contact us or another legal professional to set up a consultation to discuss a plan to attempt to deal with the costly changes to their operations.
[1] Cal Gov Code § 12945(a)