Governor Jerry Brown

Latest California Equal Pay Legislation Targets Race and Ethnicity

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As California employers adjust to recent amendments to the state’s Equal Pay Act, additional changes are looming.  As we reported here, last year, California adopted the Fair Pay Act, which provides new pay equity provisions related to employees of the opposite sex.  Those amendments took effect on January 1, 2016.  Now, California lawmakers are setting their sights on pay disparities based on race and ethnicity.  On February 16, 2016, California Senator Isadore Hall III (D-South Bay) introduced Senate Bill 1063, known as the Wage Equality Act of 2016 (“SB 1063”), which seeks to expand pay equity requirements beyond sex to include race and ethnicity.

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Time To Pay Up? California Adopts Stronger Equal Pay Protections

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With Governor Jerry Brown’s signature, California officially amended its equal pay legislation through the California Fair Pay Act (the Act) to include more employee-friendly provisions. The Act, which now creates the nation’s strongest equal pay protections, seeks to close the pay gap in California. The Act may serve as a model for legislation in other states and supporters are even hopeful the Act’s passage may finally push Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which has been introduced in Congress every year since 1994 and upon which California’s legislation was based.

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No One Likes A Bully: New California Law Mandates Anti-Bullying Training In The Workplace

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On September 9, 2014, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB-2053, which mandates that certain California employers provide workforce bullying training in addition to already-required sexual harassment training and education.  As a result, many California employers need to be prepared to expand their training programs to address abusive conduct beginning on January 1, 2015.

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