Before discussing the laws for sexual harassment in California we should go through some frequently asked questions in this regard.

What is sexual harassment?

Sex-related unwanted moves whether they are verbal, physical or visual are termed as per state regulations as the acts of Sexual Harassment. In this definition, many forms of harassments can be included whether they are gender-based, from the harasser of same-sex or based on offensive behaviors. Some of the behaviors that are prohibited under sexual harassment laws in California may include:

• Verbal behavior including using or making nicknames, insulting comments, jokes and disgraceful behaviors. Verbal graphic commentaries, verbal sexual ill-treatment, degrading someone with sexual words are some of the behavioral offenses that come in this category of sexual harassment.
• Visual behavior includes grinning at someone with sexual signals as well as a display of pictures, objects, posters or cartoons suggesting sexual activities.
• Physical behavior can include attacking, touching, blocking or obstructing access etc. Expecting sexual favor against employment benefits and threatening the individual for her negative reaction for sexual proceedings also come under sexual harassment due to physical behavior.

Shall employers provide some harassment training to their staff?

Yes, employers having minimum 50 employees including full time, part time, independent contractors and temporary employees should provide training at least for two hours once in a year or two the prevent sexual harassment at workplace. This harassment training should be provided within 6 months of the joining of the new employees. They should provide this training either through a live webinar or an interactive e-learning portal in a classroom setting.

What should be included in sexual harassment training?

Harassment training should include:

• The description of sexual harassment under the Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Employment and Housing Act
• The laws and cases regarding prevention and prohibition of sexual harassment
• The types of behaviors to be considered as sexual harassment
• The remedial measures for the sufferers of sexual harassment;
• Schemes to stop sexual harassment;
• Responsibilities of the supervisors against the report of harassment;
• Discussion on realistic cases of harassment;
• The extent of privacy for the process of a harassment complaint
• Correction of harassing behavior by the employers
• What if sexual harassment is done by a supervisor?
• Planning an effective policy to curb harassment and implementing it

In fact, such training should include a system to assess what the employees have learned and how much they have understood about skill-building activities and their applications. They should also discuss imaginary scenes of sexual harassment.

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At the end of 2017, Gov. Jerry Brown assented several labor and employment bills into law. These laws are meant to safeguard and protect California’s employees’ interests. As such, it is vital for both employees and employers to familiarize themselves with the new laws that took effect from the beginning of the year (2018). Legal knowledge is everyone’s rights. For one to be on the safe side, total compliance with the new laws is expected. The last thing you want is to rub shoulders with law enforcement officers due to disregard of the new laws.

Senate Bill 396

Senate Bill 396 is clear on harassment related issues and prevention at workplaces. It requires employers that have a workforce of 50 or more individuals to provide a sexual harassment training program to their supervisors or employees in supervisory positions. The training program should last for at least two hours and must be conducted once in every 24 months (2 years). The law also requires that whenever a new employee holding a supervisory position is employed, he or she should be trained about gender-based harassment within six months.

Other than gender identity harassment, supervisors are expected to be familiarized or educated on sexual orientation and gender expression. In addition to that, employers are supposed to be the leaders in championing transgender rights at workplaces. They are supposed to do this by placing a poster from the Fair Employment and Housing department which is clear about transgender rights. Senate Bill 396 further emphasizes about people affected by employment barriers and who they are. It makes it clear that such people include gender nonconforming and transgender individuals.

Senate Bill 295

On its part, Senate Bill 295 sets out the ground rules for farm labor contractors. It stipulates that they should have clear evidence about their employees receiving reporting and sexual harassment prevention training. Individuals or employees that work for such employers should receive or be trained in the above programs in the language they best understand.
When farm labor contractors are renewing their license, they are expected to provide the following documents to the Labor Commissioner:

a) A list of resources and materials used to provide the training to their employees.
b) A list of all agricultural employees that went through the training program.

The above lists should be presented to the Labor Commissioner one month before employers submit for renewal of their licenses. Senate Bill 295 gives the commissioner the power to impose a $100 penalty for every violation and issue citations when necessary.

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California Labor Law is quite clear on work hours and overtime pay. As such, all California employers and employees ought to familiarize themselves with these laws for the better. Legal knowledge is your right. If you are an employer, getting to know these laws will save you a lot of trouble so you don’t break them. Better safe than sorry.

Non-Exempt Employees

California employers are required to pay nonexempt employees the required premiums when they work beyond their regular work hours. It is important that they clearly define regular work hours, workdays and workweeks to their employees. Once they do so, they should be consistent. They should also apply the ‘seventh-day’ rule. Doing this makes employees know when they are expected for work.

8, 12, and 40 Hour Laws

The general rule is that nonexempt employees should not work for more than 8 hours in any given workday or more than 40 hours in a workweek unless they receive an overtime pay. Extra work hours means extra pay at extra rates.

An employee should be paid one and one-half times his or her regular rate for all hours worked after the regular 8 hours up to 12 hours. Any extra hours worked over the 12th hour in a day means that they should be paid double their regular rate. The same also applies to the 7th consecutive day that one has worked in a workweek.

Piece Rate Employees

Other than overtime pay, there are other times where employers are required to pay their employees. For instance, piece rate workers ought to be paid for recovery periods, rest and other non-productive time at certain hourly rates which are separate from the normal piece rate compensation.

Nonexempt employees should also be paid at certain times not spend at work. Such circumstances may include time travel among others. Such pay should be communicated to the employee in advance. The pay is determined by the duration of the event.

Training and Meetings

Whenever employees attend education and training programs and employee meetings, they should be paid the regular amount as if they were at work. There are instances where an employee may request to be out of work during their regular working time to attend to personal duties.

When such an occurrence happens, they are expected to make up for that time without expecting overtime pay. It is important that an employer keeps a record of work hours clocked by his or her employees. Doing this will help avoid future problems or issues that may arise pertaining an employee’s actual work time.

Industrial Welfare Commission

In case of variations of work hours in certain industries, the Industrial Welfare Commission expects employers to keep and maintain an accurate record of the hours worked by employees for accurate pay purposes. Employers should familiarize themselves with the laws that regulate the work hours of minors and how they are spread.

Such hours mainly depend on the industry, age of the minor and the season of the year. Work hours may be extended but only under certain circumstances. Human resource managers may use tools such as the Meal Break Waiver, Meal and Rest Break Quiz, Makeup time Checklist and Alternative Workweek Calendar to count and record work hours.

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California has the most expansive Fair Pay Act which covers different classes of people. The law discourages any form of discrimination in the workplace based on ethnicity or ace. For example, if individuals are performing the same task in an organization, they are supposed to be paid equality.

If you have employees who perform similar duties in your workplace, then you will not be allowed by law to pay them different wages. You should try as much as possible to ensure there is fairness in your workplace. If you are discovered to have engaged in any form of discrimination, legal actions may be taken against you.

Some of the cases under which you can pay workers different amounts of money include the following:

A seniority system

There are some employees who are senior in their workplace. For example, they may have worked or long in the organization hence they have climbed the ranks for them to become senior employees. If you have such a system in your workplace, then you can use the system for you to pay employees at different rates in your organization.

A merit system

There are several factors which can contribute towards the merit of your employees. For example, if you have an employee who has added qualifications, then buy merit you can decide to pay such an employee more money. You should have a well-defined system for you to gauge the merit of the employee for you to avoid breaking the law.

Quality and quantity for production

If you have a system in place which measures the equality or quantity of production, then you can base your payment on such a basis. If you have an employee who tends to deliver more for the organization, then the employee deserves to be paid more than others who are performing less. The system should be well defined so that you can know how to pay employees at different levels.

Education, training, and experience of the employer

You should base your payment system on a different factor other than race, sex, and ethnicity when trying to pay the employees. If you have an employee who has undergone several other training as a way of trying to improve his career, then the employee can be paid more than others who have not undergone the extra training.

Any reasons which you base to pay your employees should be based on the law rather than discrimination.

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Despite the fact that all states have laws prohibiting harassment behavior at work, California, Connecticut, and Maine make the stride from receptive to proactive by mandating inappropriate behavior training for administrators to avoid inappropriate behavior before it begins.

California’s compulsory lewd behavior law (AB 1825) gives itemized necessities to harassment training. “AB 1825 calls us to a new level of responsibility that will without a doubt influence inappropriate behavior laws the country over,” said Stephen Paskoff, leader of Employment Learning Innovations, Inc., a working environment training firm situated in Atlanta. “It puts instruction on the front burner and recognizes it as an organization’s best safeguard against lewd behavior claims.”

In California organizations employing at least, 50 workers get to lead the training. Be that as it may, California Law includes stringent elements describing trainer capabilities.

Qualified staff includes the following as it were: 

* Attorney

* Human Resources proficient

* Harassment prevention specialist

* Law school or a school teacher with learning and involvement in the prevention and additionally handling of harassment, discrimination, and striking back cases

A passage in a representative handbook, a reminder in a newsletter, a compulsory address at an office meeting – none of these constitute inappropriate behavior training. Instead, bosses must invest their assets in professionally trained experts with both the information and aptitudes to adequately train and survey members.

California holds its bosses and administrators to a new level of responsibility. AB 1825 requires a business to give every manager a duplicate of its hostile to harassment approach and to obtain documentation from every boss acknowledging receipt of the arrangement. The organization then holds the documentation on file.

One different component of the three states’ harassment training laws is California’s necessities regarding teaching procedures. These necessities set an extraordinarily particular requirement.

The philosophy must include the following components: 

* Questions that survey learning

* Skill-building

* Discussion addresses that effectively connect with members in the learning procedure

* Questions that survey learning achievement

* Hypothetical circumstances and situations that are consistent with life

* Memorable techniques for reporting and preventing lewd behavior

* Opportunities for members to make inquiries and get immediate answers

California’s training law puts everything on the line to portray precisely what constitutes an interactive approach. AB 1825 powers bosses to accomplish something beyond pass on information to workers and expectation they recall it. Instead, California’s training members have each chance to comprehend the ideas and ingest them into their own proficient esteems. Furthermore, organizations bear the obligation of choosing materials that satisfy the approach criteria and using trainers who can adequately administer it.

Concerning course content, the three laws have the following substance in like manner: 

* Definition of lewd behavior

* State and government statutory arrangements concerning lewd behavior

* Types of direct which constitute inappropriate behavior

* Employer’s commitment to investigate

* Remedies accessible to casualties

AB 1825, be that as it may, likewise commands the following course content: 

* Limited classification of the complaint procedure

* What to do if a director is by and by blamed for harassment

* How to utilize the fundamentals of an against harassment approach if a complaint is documented

* Supervisors’ affirmation of receipt of the approach

The extra necessities in the California law center specifically around directors. When chiefs finish the training and recognize receipt of a hostile to harassment strategy, they are completely responsible for knowing and applying the strategies effectively. On the off chance that a lewd behavior complaint emerges, they can neither argue obliviousness of the law nor blame the business for inability to give approach. These measures enable workers who document inappropriate behavior lawsuits, in this way laying the basis for the fruitful indictment of wrongdoers.

The inappropriate behavior training measures are sure apparatuses, yet their genuine viability lies in their reinforcement endeavors. Paskoff stated, “Though Connecticut and Maine just expect managers to experience lewd behavior training once, California’s AB 1825 perceives that the best learning originates from instruction that is continuously rehashed and authorized until the point when it is completely integrated into the everyday work life.” To that end, California’s inappropriate behavior training expects chiefs to repeat the training at regular intervals.

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