Download Our New San Francisco Paid Parental Leave Ordinance eBook
Rukin Hyland & Riggin LLP is pleased to announce the release of our new publication regarding the San Francisco Paid Parental Leave Ordinance.
In April 2016, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance providing benefits to employees taking time off from work to bond with a newborn or newly placed child, referred to as “parental leave” or “bonding time leave.” The ordinance has been covered extensively by the media, but most of the coverage does not accurately convey the ordinance’s provisions. Instead of guaranteeing a right to fully paid parental leave, the ordinance provides supplemental compensation to some employees who take leave. Further, in order to fully understand the law’s impact, one has to consider the ordinance in the context of the California Paid Family Leave Law.
Authored by John Hyland, the eBook explains the new San Francisco Paid Parental Leave Ordinance in connection with California’s Paid Family Leave Law, explains the obligations the Ordinance confers upon employers, describes the benefits the Ordinance provides to employees and answers frequently asked questions about the Ordinance.
Get the eBook Now
To download a complimentary copy of the San Francisco Paid Parental Leave Ordinance eBook, simply enter your name and e-mail address below (all fields are required):
Disclaimer: This eBook is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing official legal advice. You should contact an attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Use of and access to these Ebooks does not create an attorney-client relationship between the author of this Ebooks and the user or browser.***
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March 8th: International Women’s Day
The first “National Women’s Day” was observed in the United States in 1909, to recognize the 1908 garment workers’ strike in New York. A year later, Women’s Day was recognized internationally at a conference in Copenhagen, where over 100 women from 17 countries created a worldwide day of celebration to advocate for women’s rights.
In 1917, against the backdrop of the war, women in Russia held demonstrations for “Bread and Peace” and, four days later, the Czar abdicated and the provisional government granted women the right to vote. The United Nations began celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8, 1975, and since 2001, the holiday has had a sponsored website and theme. This year’s theme? Be Bold for Change.
Although women worldwide have made significant progress since the days of the Russian Revolution, there is still a long way to go. We would like to use this day to call attention to the some of the issues that remain, the tools available to make change, and how employment law firms like Rukin Hyland & Riggin LLP are fighting to make it happen.
The Wage Gap
As of 2014, a woman working full-time year-round earned an average of 84 cents to every dollar a man earned, across almost all occupations reporting in California. The wage gap is even worse for women of color – for example, Latina women in California make only $0.44 for every dollar a white male makes.
On January 1, 2016, California’s Fair Pay Act took effect. It strengthens the state’s existing equal pay law and seeks to end the gender pay gap. Previously, the law required equal pay for “equal work,” which made it easier for employers to claim that jobs with different titles or job descriptions–but that required the same types of job tasks–were not “equal.” Under the new law, employees who perform “substantially similar work” must be paid the same amount. The Fair Pay Act also allows employees to talk to each other about their wages and ask their employers about wages and prohibits retaliation by employers against employees for exercising their right to seek information about wages.
Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
A recent survey of over 200 women with 10+ years of experience in tech found:
- 60% reported unwanted sexual advances, with most advances coming from a boss.
- 1 in 3 have felt afraid for their personal safety due to work-related circumstances
- 60% who reported sexual harassment were dissatisfied with the course of action
- 39% who were harassed did nothing because they thought it would negatively impact their career
How Can Employers Prevent Sexual Harassment?
All employers have a legal obligation under California law to prevent harassment and to take all reasonable steps to prevent discrimination and harassment from occurring. California employers with 50 or more employees must provide at least two hours of sexual harassment training to all supervisory employees.
If sexual harassment occurs in the workplace, your employer may be liable under California and/or federal law depending on the situation. For example, employers are strictly liable for harassment by supervisors. Employers are also liable for harassment by a co-worker or a third party if it knew or should have known about the harassment and failed to take reasonable actions once it knows about harassment.
Pregnancy, Family and Medical Leave
The United States is the only developed country in the world that does not guarantee paid maternity leave for its workers.
So, what can we do about it? For starters, we are making strides here on the West Coast. California and San Francisco provide additional protections for pregnant employees, as more fully described in our blog post: What to Expect From Your Employer When You’re Expecting and our eBook on San Francisco’s Paid Parental Leave Ordinance. Pregnant employees also have the right to reasonable accommodations in the workplace related to medical conditions as the result of their pregnancy under both federal and California law.
See Also: Know Your Rights
How Rukin Hyland & Riggin LLP Can Help
It’s important to know your rights as a woman in the workplace. We are here to make sure you are being treated fairly and getting paid rightfully. For more information or a free consultation, please contact one of our sexual harassment lawyers today.
San Francisco Pregnancy, Family and Medical Leave Attorney
Pregnancy, Family and Medical Leave
At Rukin Hyland & Riggin LLP, we help employees who have lost their jobs or who have been treated unfairly for taking medical leave. We also counsel employers on ensuring that their leave policies are up-to-date.
When employees have to miss work because of their own health condition, their family member’s serious health condition, or because of military service, the last thing they should worry about is losing their job. In many cases, where employees request leave because of their own medical condition or to care for their ill family member, California and federal employment laws protect their job. These laws also prohibit employers from terminating or otherwise punishing employees who take protected medical or family leave.
Know Your California Family and Medical Leave Rights
Under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the California Family Rights Act (CFRA), qualified employees are entitled to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid employee leave for:
- the employee’s own serious health condition
- the serious health condition of an employee’s child, parent, or spouse
- women who are unable to work due to pregnancy or childbirth
- the birth of a child (for purposes of bonding)
- placement of a child in the employee’s family for adoption or foster care
- any qualifying exigency” arising out of a family member’s active duty military status
Eligibility FMLA/CFRA leave: Employees must (1) work for their employer for at least 12 months; (2) work at a worksite with at least 50 employees, or if there are less than 50 employees, a worksite where the company employs at least 50 employees within a 75 mile radius of the worksite; and (3) worked at least 1,250 hours in the year prior to the day they begin the leave.
Job and Benefit Protections: While on a protected leave, the employer must maintain the employee’s medical benefits as it would have done if the employee continued working. When returning from an FMLA or CFRA leave an employer must, in most circumstances, give the employee the same job or an equivalent position.
Additional Military Benefits: In 2008, Congress expanded the FMLA to provide up to 26 weeks of leave to spouses, children, parents, or next of kin for a covered service member who is recovering from a serious illness or injury sustained in the line of duty.
California Paid Family Leave (PFL)
California Paid Family Leave (PFL) program provides partial wage replacement for employees taking time off work to care for seriously ill family members or to bond with foster or adopted children. Currently, the PFL defines “family” to include children, spouses or domestic partners, and parents. In September 2013, California’s Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 770, which expands PFL to include caring for seriously ill grandparents, grandchildren, siblings and parents-in-law, effective July 1, 2014. All employees covered by the State Disability Insurance (SDI) qualify for benefits under the PFL. Employees do not need to work for a set period to qualify and even employees of small employers are eligible for PFL.
Know Your California Pregnancy Leave Rights
Even if an employee does not qualify for an FMLA/CFRA leave, for example, if their employer has less than 50 employees, or if they have worked there less than 1,250 hours, so long as the employer has at least five employees, California’s Pregnancy Disability Leave Act (PDLA) provides for up to four months of leave.
See also: What to Expect From Your California Employer When You’re Expecting
California’s Pregnancy Disability Leave Act (PDLA)
Employers may require a medical certification from a health care provider. Generally, for normal pregnancies, providers will certify a leave of up to four weeks before birth, and six weeks after birth. For women who are disabled due to pregnancy or childbirth, employees may take up to four months of PDLA leave.
For individuals who take PDLA leave, employers must continue to pay for health care benefits. An employee generally has the right to return to the same position once her PDL leave is over unless, for legitimate business reasons unrelated to the employee’s pregnancy or leave, the employee would have been laid off even if she had not taken the leave.
Additional Benefits for San Francisco Employees
San Francisco Paid Sick Leave Ordinance
Employers in San Francisco must provide paid sick leave to their employees, including part-time and temporary employees. Employees may take this sick leave for their own illness or medical treatment, or to care for an ill family member. For more details, download our free eBook.
Family Friendly Workplace Ordinance
Additionally, in San Francisco, where employers have 20 or more employees, any employee who has worked for six months or more with the employer and works at least eight hours per week on a regular basis, has the right to request to flexible a work arrangement. Employees may request such arrangements to assist with care for a child, a family member with a serious health condition, or a parent that is age 65 or older. For more information, see our blog post.
Ban the Box Movement Gains Steam
Legal protections often lag behind technology, and nowhere is this more true than in the area of workplace privacy. Employers literally have the world at their fingertips, able to explore every aspect of a potential hire’s life history through internet searches and background checks. It’s not just HR departments one must worry about; the world wide web deputizes every line manager to dig around in a candidate’s social media and online profiles on Facebook, Instagram, and beyond.
Changes are coming, however. The law already imposes significant obligations on credit reporting and background check companies (and the employers who use them). For example, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires companies to provide certain disclosures to job candidates before running a credit report, consumer report, or background check on them. Many employers do not understand that the term “consumer report” is extremely broad—covering not only traditional credit reports but also any written or oral communication of any information that bears on a person’s character, general reputation, or personal characteristics that is used as a factor in deciding a person’s eligibility for employment. The broad definition of consumer report may make it unlawful for an employer to use online sources of information to the extent they include personal data (including employment history) of a candidate. Currently, employers who violate the requirements of FCRA—for example, by failing to give proper notice to applicants or allow them to explain the adverse information before making a hiring decision—face significant penalties. And Congress is considering changes to FCRA that will expand worker protections by limiting the use of credit reports for employment decisions. For example, The Equal Employment for All Act of 2015 (H.R. 3524) would prohibit credit reporting agencies from providing consumer reports to an employer “if the employer seeks to use such information in a denial of employment.” As it stands, employers who use credit reporting and background checks in hiring decisions run the risk that the use of those hiring tools has an adverse impact on applicants of color in violation of state and federal anti-discrimination laws.
Now, local, state and federal agencies are setting their sights on the “box,” that pernicious question on job applications which asks whether the candidate has been arrested or convicted of a crime. According to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), 23 states already have removed criminal background questions from applications for state employment, and over 100 cities and counties have adopted “ban the box” laws that prohibit employers from considering a candidate’s criminal history at the outset of the hiring process. Seven states have similar laws governing private employers, and California may soon be joining them. For example, the San Francisco Bar Association has proposed a resolution extending the California Labor Code’s “Ban the Box” Act protection to the private sector. Should the Conference of California Bar Associations adopt the resolution, Sacramento may soon see a new “Ban the Box” bill. Further, just two weeks ago, President Obama, a longtime supporter of “ban the box,” signed a memorandum proposing a rule to bar U.S. government agencies from asking about criminal history information until the end of the hiring process.
The trend line is clear: the end of the “box” is coming. Employers that use criminal history and credit reporting information to make hiring decisions do so at great risk, and must comply with the letter of numerous laws restricting and regulating the use of such information. Employees denied employment because of the improper use of credit reporting and background check data may be owed significant penalties under a host of state, federal and local laws. Increasingly, employers had better be careful what they ask (and search) for.
San Francisco Employee Privacy Rights Attorney
California Employee Privacy Rights
California employees have some of the strongest privacy protections in the United States. The right to privacy provided in the California Constitution protects both private sector and public sector employees.
Although employees are protected under law, privacy issues can surface in the workplace in a number of ways. Here are just a few:
Examples of Privacy Issues
Employer Drug Tests
Generally speaking, an employer may not subject an existing employee to drug or alcohol tests unless the employer has a reasonable suspicion that the employee is under the influence of drugs or alcohol at work. Random testing is lawful only for employees who occupy safety-sensitive jobs. An employer may, however, test job applicants. California law permits a private employer to conduct reasonable drug and alcohol screening of job applicants.
Social Media
As of January 1, 2013, California prohibits both private and public employers from asking for an employee’s Facebook or other social media username or password. Five other states: Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan and New Jersey, have similar laws.
Dating Coworkers
Employers may not punish you for your lawful, off-duty conduct. This protection extends to off-the-job consensual relationships. California courts, however, have permitted employers to implement work rules that prohibit supervisors from dating their subordinates in order to protect against unlawful harassment.
Tape Recording
Neither employees nor employers may tape record a conversation without the consent of all parties. California Penal Code Section 632 prohibits the taping of telephone calls or in-person discussions if the parties intended the conversation to be private. Persons who violate Penal Code Section 632 may be subject to fines or imprisonment.
Your Email
Employees have a limited expectation of privacy in the emails they send from or through their work computers. Many companies have posted or distributed a notice to employees that their email may be monitored.
How Rukin Hyland & Riggin LLP Can Help
The San Francisco employment lawyers at Rukin Hyland & Riggin LLP are here to protect the privacy of employees in the workplace.