Devastating wildfires in Southern California and a tsunami warning in the Bay Area are recent reminders that Teamsters should know their rights at work in an emergency.

In 2022, the Workers’ Rights in Emergencies Act became law in California, defining an “emergency condition” as caused by either a natural disaster or a criminal act:

“Conditions of disaster or extreme peril to the safety of persons or property at the workplace or worksite caused by natural forces or a criminal act” or “an order to evacuate a workplace,

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While California still has thousands of new COVID cases each day, the law requiring special paid time-off for COVID is set to expire on September 30, 2022. This article discusses the state of the law with regard to paid COVID leave and the new vaccines.

Supplemental Paid Sick Leave 

In California, employers of 26 employees or more are required to provide up to 80 hours of supplemental paid sick leave to full-time employees who are unable to work (or telework) because of symptoms of COVID-19 or a COVID-19 vaccine,

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Governor Newsom signed several bills that will provide greater protections for California workers. Here are some of the most noteworthy:

Employers subject to imprisonment for intentional wage theft

AB 1003 makes intentional theft of wages, including gratuities, punishable as grand theft. An employer commits intentional wage theft by use of fraud or while knowingly paying less than minimum wage, not paying workers overtime, not allowing workers to take meal and rest breaks,

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As if parenting and holding down a job weren’t already hard enough, the coronavirus pandemic has forced working parents to juggle competing demands from their employers and their children, many of whom were in ‘virtual’ school or had to stay home because their child-care was closed due to health and safety concerns.  

A federal law was passed to address this problem, but most of that has expired.  However, California law still provides some protection for parents.

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Governor Newsom ended California’s stay-at-home order effective June 15, bringing an end to capacity limits and physical distancing requirements for businesses and allowing fully vaccinated people to stop wearing masks in most places. 

As of June 15, if you are fully vaccinated (both doses of the vaccine and at least 14 days after the final dose), you have no obligation to wear face masks except,

(1) on public transit and in public transit stations;

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One of the first things the Biden Administration did after January 20 was to make sweeping changes to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency that oversees the conduct of work between unions and employers. On Day One, President Biden demanded the resignation and eventually terminated, the Trump NLRB General Counsel Peter Robb, whose term otherwise would not have ended until November. Robb was responsible for pushing an agenda that would do more damage to unions than any of his Republican-appointed predecessors.

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