Summary of Program

Join the attorneys from Weintraub Tobin’s Workplace Investigations Unit as they discuss the fundamentals of an effective workplace investigation.

Program HighlightsL&E2015

  • The duty to investigate
  • Determining who will do the investigation
  • Recognizing your own biases
  • Tips for conducting the investigation
    • Preparation
    • Conducting and documenting witness interviews
    • Analyzing the evidence and making credibility determinations
  • Writing the investigation report

Date:   June 16, 2016

Time:   9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. (Registration and breakfast begins at 9:00 a.m.)

Location:  400 Capitol Mall, 11th Floor, Sacramento, CA

Parking validation provided.  Please park in the Wells Fargo parking garage, entrances on 4th and 5th Street.

To register for this seminar, please RSVP to Ramona Carrillo at rcarrillo@weintraub.com.

Are you sure you’re paying your exempt employees enough?   Even if you are right now, you might not be come December 1, 2016.  The U.S. Department of Labor unveiled today its long-awaited Final Rule updating the definitions of most types of exempt employees under federal law.

While there are several important provisions in the new rule, the most important for California employers is the new minimum salary threshold for exempt employees.  Federal law will soon  require employees earn at least $47,476 annually ($913 per week) to qualify for the executive, administrative, or professional exemptions.  This marks a significant jump from the previous federal minimum of $23,660 ($455 per week).

Under California state law, employers are currently required to pay exempt employees a salary equal to no less than twice the state minimum wage.  This translates to $41,600 annually.  State laws, however, can only offer employees more protection than federal laws, not less.  Because the state minimum salary for exempt employees will now be lower than the federal minimum, California employers will have to pay its exempt employees the federal number to continuing classifying an employee as exempt.

In addition, the DOL’s fact sheet, linked at the bottom of this blog, describes the laws key provisions as follows:

“The Final Rule focuses primarily on updating the salary and compensation levels needed for EAP workers to be exempt. Specifically, the Final Rule:

  1. Sets the standard salary level at the 40th percentile of earnings of full-time salaried workers in the lowest-wage Census Region, currently the South, which is $913 per week or $47,476 annually for a full-year worker;
  2. Sets the total annual compensation requirement for highly compensated employees (HCE) subject to a minimal duties test to the annual equivalent of the 90th percentile of full-time salaried workers nationally, which is $134,004; and
  3. Establishes a mechanism for automatically updating the salary and compensation levels every three years to maintain the levels at the above percentiles and to ensure that they continue to provide useful and effective tests for exemption.

Additionally, the Final Rule amends the salary basis test to allow employers to use nondiscretionary bonuses and incentive payments (including commissions) to satisfy up to 10 percent of the new standard salary level. The Final Rule makes no changes to the duties tests.”

The law is effective December 1.  Employers should take the time between now and then to audit all exempt employees’ salaries to ensure they are making the minimum by December 1.

Read the DOL’s fact sheet here: https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/overtime-factsheet.htm 

On May 10, 2016 Governor Brown signed Senate Bill 269 (SB 269) which amends certain California statutes dealing with disability access in public accommodations and business establishments.Beth-West-15_web SB 269 is not a new law, but rather, an effort by the Legislature and Governor Brown to amend existing law in order to address the significant financial hardship that “drive-by” and “technical non-compliance” lawsuits are having on small businesses in California.  Both federal and state court dockets in California are inundated with lawsuits filed against small businesses by professional plaintiffs and their attorneys who have created a cottage industry by filing lawsuits for technical violations of federal and state disabled access standards.

To read this full article, please click here.

On May 9, 2016 the EEOC issued yet another “guide” – this time to outline its position on when and how leave must be granted for reasons related to an employee’s disability under the AmericansBeth-West-15_web
with Disabilities Act (“ADA”).  The publication, entitled “Employer-Provided Leave and the Americans with Disabilities Act,” contains information on the EEOC’s position in connection with six subject areas relating to leaves as a form of reasonable accommodation under the ADA, and contains various examples to illustrate those positions.   For a summary of the EEOC’s position on each of the six subject areas, please click here.

On May 2, 2016, the Ninth Circuit issued its decision in Corbin v. Time Warner Entertainment – Advance/Newhouse Partnership and affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of employer, Time Warner Entertainment-Advance/Newhouse Partnership (“TWEAN”) in a putative class action brought by a TWEAN employee seeking lost compensation based on TWEAN’s timekeeping policy. Beth-West-15_web

Summary of the Claim.

The case turned on $15.02 and one minute. Seriously – it did!  The amount of $15.02 represented the total amount of compensation that plaintiff, Andre Corbin (“Corbin” or “Plaintiff”) alleged he has lost due to TWEAN’s compensation policy that rounds all employee time stamps to the nearest quarter-hour. The one minute claim represented the total amount of time for which Corbin alleges he was not compensated as he once mistakenly opened an auxiliary computer program before clocking into TWEAN’s timekeeping software platform. Corbin argued that $15.02 in lost wages and one minute of  uncompensated time entitled him to relief under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq., and various California state employment laws.  The trial court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal disagreed.

To read the full article, please click here.