Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed AB 2257, emergency legislation that exempts more professions from the controversial AB 5 law, while the outcome for other key workplace legislation was not known yet.
“AB 5 was very onerous, it really took a toll on certain industries, including the whole concept of freelance occupations,” Lauraine Bilfulco, an HR and employment law consultant, told the Northern California Record. “This new bill goes into what was already a complex bill and creates a whole bunch more carveouts. For certain professions who will be exempted from the ABC test, it is good news.”
A bill (SB 1159) to extend a rebuttable presumption of work causation for workers’ compensation COVID-19 claims underwent several changes to limit application to health care workers, firefighters, and others in direct contact with coronavirus patients.
“In the end, employers are satisfied that lawmakers rejected more extreme proposals, which would have imposed broad new liability on struggling California employers to pay for COVID-19 cases that are unrelated to work,” Jerry Azevedo, a spokesperson for the Workers Compensation Action Network, said in a statement. “Such proposals risked turning the workers’ compensation system into a broad social safety net for the pandemic, a responsibility that should be reserved for government, not California employers grappling with an economic crisis.”
A mandate (AB 685) on how to reveal COVID-19 workplace case information has triggered privacy and security concerns. “People are struggling with when do they have to divulge information, and it’s supposed to provide a framework for notification,” Bilfulco said. “But people may be concerned names may get released.”
SB 1383 poses much concern to the small business community, Bilfulco said. It would require companies with five or more workers to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid family leave; the current threshold is companies with 50 or more employees.
“Expecting a company with as few as five employees to be able to sustain giving someone 12 weeks unpaid time off is going to be very challenging,” Bilfulco said. “They’re guaranteed their job back, and there’s a lot of formal red tape; it frankly makes it easy for an employee to bring a claim.”
“It’s difficult now for employers with 50 or more employees,” Bilfulco added. “It’s going to be excruciatingly hard for companies that small.”
Within the next few weeks, Newsom is expected to act on SB 1383 and other workplace bills from the abbreviated legislative session, which ended Aug. 31.