In February of 2025, California State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced SB 310, a bill aimed at improving workers’ access to justice when employers pay their wages late or not at all. Currently, workers typically file wage claims with the Labor Commissioner’s Office (LCO) or file Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) representative lawsuits. However,…

The Harvard-UCSF Report The Harvard Kennedy School and the University of California at San Francisco have issued a report that shows rampant wage violations occurring in California workplaces. A copy of the report can be downloaded here. Some highlights from the report: The report concludes that while California boasts some of the most progressive labor…

One of the common employer defenses we come across when representing employees in wage claims is the “independent contractor defense”. The argument goes, since the worker was only an independent contractor and was never an employee, the worker falls completely outside of the protections of the labor code and his claim must be dismissed. It…

Senate Bill 525 is a legislative measure that enhances the protections for healthcare workers, especially those who are on-call or on standby. This bill is designed to ensure that healthcare professionals are fairly compensated for the periods when they are required to be available to work, even if they are not actually called in to…

In 2023, significant updates were made to California’s Family and Medical Leave Act (CFRA) through legislative amendments (Assembly Bill 1041). The key updates include: These changes piggyback on a major change in 2021. Before 2021, CFRA applied only to employers with 50 or more employees in a 75-mile radius, limiting access to family and medical…

We often get asked if “fat-shaming” or discrimination based on body size is illegal in the workplace. The answer is unfortunately not simple. What Does the Law Say? California’s legal framework, specifically the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), provides broad protections against employment discrimination and harassment. FEHA prohibits discrimination and harassment based on race,…

So when it comes to late lunch violations under California labor law, the general public (and from time to time, even some lawyers) like to argue with us about what the end of the fifth hour really means. Our break calculator has been tested many times and it is 100% correct. Even so, some people…