Labor Code sections 230 and 230.1, subject to specified requirements for the employee, prohibit an employer from discharging or in any manner discriminating against an employee for the following reasons:
These sections also require an employer to provide reasonable accommodations for a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, who requests an accommodation for the safety of the victim while at work. They also prohibit an employer with 25 or more employees from discharging, or in any manner discriminating or retaliating against, an employee who is a victim, for taking time off from work to seek medical attention for injuries caused by crime or abuse, to obtain certain services as a result of the crime or abuse or related to an experience of crime or abuse, or to participate in safety planning and take other actions to increase safety from future crime or abuse.
Existing law makes an employer’s willful refusal to restore the employment of an employee or former employee who has been determined to be eligible for rehiring or promotion by a grievance procedure or hearing authorized by law guilty of a misdemeanor. Existing law authorizes an employee who is discriminated or retaliated against because the employee has exercised these rights to file a complaint with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) of the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR).
Assembly Bill 2499 (AB 2499) revises, expands on, and recasts these time off provisions for employees as unlawful employment practices within the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and, thus, within the enforcement authority of the Civil Rights Department (CRD).
AB 2499 expands the list of crimes for which employees may take time off, replacing “crime or abuse” with “qualifying act of violence,” and defines “victim” as an individual against whom a qualifying act of violence is committed. A “qualifying act of violence” is defined as any of the following, regardless of whether it results in an arrest, prosecution, or conviction:
AB 2499 also allows employees to take protected time off to assist family members are “victims”, as defined above. Under the new law, “family member” means a child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, spouse, or domestic partner, or designated person as defined in Government Code sections 12945.2.
AB 2499 allows an employee to use vacation, personal leave, paid sick leave, or compensatory time off that is available for the purposes described in the new law. The new law permits an employer to limit the total leave taken pursuant to these provisions, as specified, and require that the leave taken by an employee pursuant to these provisions run concurrently with leave taken pursuant to the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) if the employee would have been eligible for such leave.
Finally, AB 2499 requires an employer to inform each employee of their rights under the law, to provide this information to new employees upon hire, to all employees annually, at any time upon request, and any time an employee informs an employer that the employee or the employee’s family member is a victim.
(AB 2499 amends section 214 of the Code of Civil Procedure, section 48205 of the Education Code, section 246.5 of the Labor Code, section 679.027 of the Penal Code, and section 11320.31 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, adds section 12945.8 to the Government Code, and repeals sections 230 and 230.1 of the Labor Code.)