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03/26/2020
Important Rules for Employers to Know
Source: Federated Insurance, March 24, 2020
IMPORTANT RULES FOR EMPLOYERS TO KNOW IN THE WAKE OF COVID-19
Coping with the outbreak of COVID-19 will require most employers and employees to make significant changes at work. Businesses depending on large gatherings may also be forced to consider reductions in force. As changes are made, employers should be mindful of the following existing laws and new laws on the horizon.
Reduction in Hours
To limit the effects of paying workers who have little work to perform, some employers are taking salaried employees “exempt” from the Labor Code’s rest break and overtime requirements and converting them to hourly employees to limit the amount of hours worked.
Employers should be careful to reduce hours in a way that does not appear discriminatory. If an employer were to reduce only the hours of the highest paid workers, for example, such a practice may have the unintended impact of harming only older workers over 40-years-old and thus create the specter of age discrimination. A small minority of courts have held that reducing compensation and reducing normal hours worked could constitute a sufficient injury (“adverse employment action”) to support a lawsuit for discrimination or retaliation.
Employers seeking to reduce labor costs temporarily sometimes use the euphemism “furlough.” The term “furlough” has no legal or agreed-upon meaning in California. While the term “furlough” carries a layperson’s connotation that the arrangement is temporary and that the employee can return to work in the near future, California regards a furlough as legally the same as a layoff.
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