The U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (“FMLA”) and the California Family Rights Act (“CFRA”) provide rules governing the rights of employees to take time off from work for family medical reasons. This Newsletter shall briefly discuss the employees’ rights under these laws. Covered Employers. Both FMLA and CFRA apply only to private employers with 50 or more employees and public agencies regardless of the number of employees.

California has enacted the Workplace Violence Safety Act (the “Act”) permitting an employer, whose employee has suffered unlawful violence or a credible threat of violence from any person, which can reasonably be construed to be carried out at the workplace, to obtain a temporary restraining order and an injunction on behalf of the employee prohibiting further unlawful violence or threats of violence. Prior to this law, employers could not obtain a temporary restraining order orRead More…

A common question faced by employers is whether to give a former employee a favorable letter of reference to assist the former employee in obtaining a new position. This issue is particularly difficult when the employee was not an outstanding employee or if the employee was terminated for cause.

In a significant expansion of sexual harassment law in California, the California Supreme Court held, in Miller vs. Department of Corrections, et al, that any worker, male or female, has a claim for sexual harassment by showing that there was widespread sexual favoritism which created a hostile working environment, regardless of whether the employees who were granted favorable treatment willingly bestowed their sexual favors. Previously, a supervisor who granted favorable employment opportunities to an employeeRead More…

This Newsletter shall discuss the restrictions imposed on employers in recruiting and hiring employees by Federal law and California law. In general, both Federal and California law prohibit an employer from asking any question, in either an employment application or an employment interview, which relates to race, religion, color, national origin, sex or marital status, unless it is a bona fide occupational qualification for employment. Employers should carefully review their employment application forms and interviewRead More…

The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) General Counsel, Richard Griffin, recently issued the “Report of the General Counsel Concerning Employer Rules,” a comprehensive report providing guidance to employers on what the NLRB deems to be lawful and unlawful company handbook provisions and policies. The rules in the Report apply to both unionized and non-unionized employers because the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) restricts all employers from issuing policies or rules that inhibit employees from engagingRead More…

The California Constitution expressly provides that all persons have a right to privacy. However, the right to privacy is not absolute and some intrusion into a person’s privacy will be permitted if there is a legitimate competing interest and the intrusion is reasonably calculated to further that legitimate interest. In the workplace, an employee may effectively waive the right to privacy under certain circumstances. This Newsletter shall discuss some of the situations in which theRead More…