Cal-Peculiarities: How California Employment Law is Different 2022 Edition

200 | 2022 Cal-Peculiarities ©2022 Seyfarth Shaw LLP  www.seyfarth.com wage is $15.06, for non-hotel employees . 39 Under Oakland’s Measure Z (Section 5.93), effective January 1, 2022, the hotel minimum wage increased from $15.61 to $16.38 per hour with health benefits; and, from $20.82 to $21.84 per hour without health benefit s. 40 Palo Alto. Palo Alto raised the minimum wage to $15.00 in January 2019 and $15.65 in January 2021 . 41 Effective January 1, 2022, the minimum wage rate for the City of Palo Alto increased to $16.45 . 42 Richmond. The minimum wage has been $15.54 since January 2022 . 43 San Diego. The minimum wage has been $15.00 since January 1, 2022 . 44 San Jose. The minimum wage has been $16.20 since January 2022 . 45 Santa Monica. The Santa Monica ordinance generally tracks the minimum wage requirements of Los Angeles County . 46 T he minimum wage reached $15.00 as of July 202 1. 47 Starting on July 1, 2022, the minimum wage will be $15.96 per hou r. 48 It will increase by the annual Consumer Price Index thereafter and Santa Monica will post new rates annually on or near January 1 . 49 T he wage for hotels and businesses operating on hotel property matches the City of Los Angeles Citywide Hotel Worker Minimum Wage Rate ($17.64 per hour); Santa Monica will post new rates annually on or near May 1 5. 50 7.3 Pay For Hours Worked 7.3.1 Statutory right to recover contractual pay Federal law empowers employees to sue employers for statutorily guaranteed minimum and overtime wages, but not for employer failures to pay higher, contractually promised, wages. In California it’s different. California employees can sue under the Labor Code to recover wages required by either statute or contract . 51 7.3.2 California counts as hours worked any time subject to the employer’s control The “hours worked” concept is central to both federal and California law. But the California concept is broader, requiring employers to pay wages where federal law does not. Federal law considers time worked if it is spent predominantly for the employer’s benefit, as opposed to the employee’s benefit. California is different in two significant respects. First , California defines “hours worked” as “the time during which an employee is subject to the control of an employer, and includes all the time the employee is suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so. ” 52 California law thus applies a broader definition of “hours worked” than the FLSA does . 53 Second, while the federal Portal-to-Portal Act specifies that employers need not pay for “walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities … [the] employee is employed to perform,” or for “activities … preliminary to or postliminary to [the] principal activity or activities,” California law applies a broader standard. Nonetheless, California law does require, as under federal law, that the employer knew or should have known of the time alleged to be hours worked . 54 Cases dramatically illustrate California’s extraordinarily broad concept of hours worked. The Ninth Circuit, in a 2020 case interpreting California law, ruled in favor of truck drivers claiming minimum wages for the time they spent during legally required 10-hour “layovers.” Upholding a jury verdict against the employer, the Ninth Circuit reasoned that the drivers could be under the employer’s “control” during the layovers simply because the employer required them to ask permission to spend their layovers at home: “control may exist even when employees are permitted to perform personal activities if the employer imposes meaningful restrictions on the employee. ” 55 M eanwhile, the California Supreme Court, in a 2019 case, had addressed the distinction between FLSA and California standards as to hours worked, noting that FLSA-regulated work involves exertion that is