New employee rights in the new year
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed into law numerous measures that will boost employee rights in California effective Jan. 1. Among them: SB 616 will increase the number of paid sick days employers must provide. SB 848 will give employees job-protected bereavement leave for reproductive loss. SB 699 will strengthen California’s restrictions on noncompete employment provisions. SB 497 will require an employer to prove termination or other punishment of an employee within 90 days of the employee engaging in protected activity was not unlawful retaliation.
More Paid Sick Leave (SB 616): All California employees will get five days or 40 hours of paid sick leave a year, up from three days or 24 hours now. As under existing law, an employee will accrue one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked, beginning with the first day of employment.
An employer must allow an employee to carry over 40 hours of unused sick leave into the following year unless the employer credits the employee with the full 40 hours of leave “at the beginning of each year of employment, calendar year, or 12-month period.”
Click here to read the full article written by SCMV Shareholder Dan Eaton and published in The San Diego Union-Tribune.