Skip to main content

Let's Take a Break: New Penalties for Failure to Follow California's "Heat Illness Prevention" Statute


Summer "officially" started as of last Saturday, and with the start of the season, warmer temperatures are around the corner.  As a result, it is important for employers (and employees) in California to be mindful of some of the important laws regarding working conditions in extreme heat, and the new penalties that have been put in place for failure to adhere to these laws.

Under California’s Heat Illness Prevention statute, Title 8 Section 3395(d), employers are required to provide training and access to shade and adequate drinking water for employees who work outdoors in high heat conditions.  When the outdoor temperature exceeds 95 degrees Fahrenheit, California OSHA mandates a recovery period of not less than 5 minutes for employees who work outside to take a cool-down rest, in the shade, to protect themselves from overheating.  However, it is important to note that prior California OSHA Board decisions and Standard Board committee notes have refused to characterize these cool down periods as work-free breaks.  As a result, employers are likely allowed to require employees to continue working during periods when they are in shade or air conditioned locations.

One of the new laws that came into effect on January 1, 2014 amended California Labor Code Section 226.7 and now imposes a fine against employers that do not provide employees with these rest periods.  Employers that do not provide these breaks will now have to pay employees one additional hour of pay at the employee’s regular rate of compensation for each workday that the rest or recovery period is not provided.  

Employers need to be mindful of this recent change to the law and ensure that their work procedures are mindful of these required breaks. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more