California Law - need statutes -help

Meg

Hello everyone. This is my first post as I am in a new position and could use some help. I am looking for two statues of California law.
I have come across some information pertaining to paid leave for a family illness, to care for a newborn, or newly adopted baby. While I have an article with a summary of the new legislation, I would like to get a copy of the statute to review.
In addition, I would like to find the statue regarding vacation accrual in California. I have seen several employers’ policies but they all seem to vary. It would be nice to know what the law is regarding vacation accrual.

If anyone can provide some information regarding where I should look or if they know of a good link to obtain particular states statues, that would be so helpful!

Thank you in advance for any help.
Regards,
New to compliance

vmiller MO

try [url]www.leginfo.ca.gov[/url]. When that page come up, go to the button that says California Law and press the button. When the next page come up, check Labor Code and press search. You should then see an index to Cal Labor code with section (chapter) links to take you to the actual wording.

I hope this helps.

Meg

Thank you both for your replies. I appreciate it!

Lori B

Hi

You should check out [url]www.findlaw.com[/url]. You can search by state and select "code" to get into the California Labor Code. You can word search, but you will always do better if you can plug in a citation first. I caution you that legal research is not always easy. You need to understand how regs interrelate with the code, the effect of case law interpreting both, etc. Lawyers spend years in law school perfecting this skill. That isn't meant to scare the lay person, just know that if it seems like you found the answer too easily, you probably did.

General vacation provisions are found in Cal. Lab. Code 227. Keep in mind that most of the nuances about how vacation accrues in CA were really developed through cases. Some key cases to look at: Suastez v. Plastic Dress-Up, 31 Cal. 3d 774 (1982); Kistler v. Redwoods Community College, 15 Cal. App. 4th 1326 (1993).

As far as leave, you have several statutes to look at. CA has their own version of FMLA, the CA Family Rights Act. I believe this can be found in the CA Govt Code, sec. 12945, and see accompanying regs. The CA Fair Employment & Housing Act also mandates leave for ees disabled due to pregnancy. Finally, CA offers SDI benefits that allow ees to receive pay for leaves for disability under the above acts or others. I'm not sure of the citation, but it falls under the CA Unemployment Insurance Code and is adminstered by EDD.

You may want to check with your state chamber of commerce for booklets that help explain the tortured logic of various CA employment statutes. Most states offer these and they are usually written by large lawfirms within the state. Perhaps our editors of this site can also point you to their own publications on point.

Good luck & happy researching!

Lori

Gillian

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-01-02 AT 05:17PM (CST)[/font][p]I'm in California so here is what I can add. The new law re. paid family leave has just been signed by the Governor. The effective date for this law is January 1, 2004 when payroll deductions will start (employers will be notified by EDD, our state unemployment agency which also administers SDI (our employee paid short term disability program). Qualifying leaves which will be eligible for pay are those which occur on or after July 1, 2004.


The main features about vacation are 1) there cannot be use it or lose it policies 2)if an employee quits they must be paid accrued vacation on a daily basis although it can be accrued in a different way 3)even though a vacation cap seems to contradict #1, a reasonable cap is allowed and employees who reach the cap can cease accrual until such time as they take vacation so that they can accrue more. Reasonable is not defined but most employers that have caps, have them in a range from 1 1/2 times the annual accrual on up. 4)a provision that employees earn no vacation during an introductory period is not valid unless they truly earn nothing. Saying that a person earns 1 week after a year but nothing during the introductory period will be viewed as just backdating the benefit if the person passes the introductory period and in the view of the state a "subterfuge to avoid payment of accrued vacation" 5) you can control when an employee takes vacation. Just because it is accrued doesn't mean that you cannot have vacation scheduling rules. These are the main features of our vacation policies. Just looked in my files and I have a copy of the Department of Labor Standards Enforcement Interpretive Bulletin about vacation pay. If you would like a copy send me your fax # - [email]shugh@westernu.edu[/email]