labor lawAdivision of labor law center

California employers should be aware of a special enforcement action targeting carwashes and other illegal operations in “the underground economy.” During a three-day August enforcement sweep, investigators visited 97 carwashes in Northern California. Fifty-four of them were issued citations resulting in fines totaling more than $521,000.

Thirty of the car wash businesses were shut down until they comply with labor laws, including: (more…)

Fork trucks, or forklifts, are popular tools in a wide variety of industries.  These machines are known for their capacity and usefulness when it comes to loading and unloading manufactured goods.  What some people are not aware is that, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, they are much less stable than other vehicles and cause a significant number of accidents and deaths every year.

Anyone who operates a fork truck should be properly trained.  It seems like common sense, but the fork truck is a machine that could be quite dangerous if not handled with extreme care.  Actually, the most careful individual may not even know how to use one safety, and therefore only trained professionals should use them.

It is a common misconception that fork trucks can be driven like cars.  Yes, it is true that a fork truck has four wheels just like a car, but the amount of balance and stability is not the same.  You see, a fork truck’s rear axel rotates and turns.  Unlike a car, the rear can stay in one place as the front moves.  This means that there are only three rest points for the weight on a fork truck, not four like the wheels on a car.

Other differences include the load size, attachments added for maneuverability, and the very obvious forks that carry the load.  It may seem like simple logic to handle it differently than a car, but many people make this mistake every year.  It is sometimes the cause of fatal accidents.

The California worker safety reports indicate that the instability of fork trucks can be directly linked to many injuries and deaths that occur in the workplace.  Each load needs to be placed properly on the forks.  Sometimes, is the load is light or very heavy it will actually have to be placed differently on the forks.  It is a balancing act.  When driving a car, you don’t need to worry about a light person sitting in the back throwing off the balance of the car.  Weight distribution and balance are crucial factors in operating fork trucks.

We’re back on a familiar subject, loyal readers—California Required Posters. I think I just heard the whole East Coast click off to another blog, but that’s fine. My main target readership here with the California Required Posters subject is obviously California employers, because obviously they have the most to gain from understanding the California Required Posters.

And there is a lot to understand. The California Required Posters contain no fewer than 20 postings in the collection. That includes the six federal postings that many of our other states in this great Union of ours make mandatory. But the California Required Posters also include 14 state postings that are unique to the state.

But first let’s review those six federal postings. Man, I sound like my old fourth grade teacher here, about to give out a pop quiz. So be prepared. Those who flunk have to buy the rest of us a round. Kidding aside, the federal postings in the California Required Posters are just as important as the state postings, so they do deserve equal attention. After all, the federal postings in the California Required Posters are mandatory too.

The federal postings in the California Required Posters include the USERRA posting, which covers what employers are required to do for employees who have to serve in the branches of the military; the Equal Employment Opportunity posting prohibiting most forms of discrimination at the work site; the Employee Polygraph Protection posting prohibiting forced lie detector tests; the federal minimum wage posting; the OSHA posting for workplace safety and employee health; and the Family and Medical Leave Act posting for personal and medical leave time rules and regulations.

As for the 14 state postings, obviously we’re running out of room here, folks. But never fear—I have more blog entries to spare, so I’ll be sure to cover the second half of the California Required Posters soon.

The California (CA) Labor Laws are not much different than the labor laws of the other states. I found them quite easily on the internet when searching today. Many of the CA Labor Laws have been placed on informational posters and some of them are required to be posted in most workplaces. The required CA Labor Law posters should be hung and displayed where employees have easy access to them, so many times they are found around the time clock or on the walls or bulletin boards in the employee break room. 

One of the labor laws in California deals with Unemployment Insurance. When someone is able to work, but simply cannot find a job, they may be eligible for unemployment insurance. Filing for this, as stated in the law, must be done quickly or benefits can be lost. 

Another of the CA Labor Laws is Disability Insurance. When you cannot work due to illness, an injury, or even due to pregnancy, you may be eligible for disability insurance in the state of California. To be eligible for this insurance, you must file your claim within 49 days of the first day you leave work due to your disability. 

The state of California even has Paid Family Leave benefits! When you leave work to care for a sick family member or after the birth of a child, you might be eligible for these benefits. As with the disability insurance, you need to file a claim within 49 days of the first day you leave work due to family leave. 

There are many other CA Labor Laws, with many of them being available on various labor law posters. If you need state and federal labor laws all in one place, you can find them all on the California Complete Labor Law poster. 

California employers, here’s what you’ve been searching for. No need to scour the Web for those California Poster Requirements. We’ve got you covered. Get your hands on the right California employment law posters, and you’ll be covered too, and covering the walls in your work sites with the posters. As you know—that’s why you’re here right?—part of the California Poster Requirements is that the posters must be placed in every work site, somewhere accessible by all your employees.

The other main part of the California Poster Requirements is what exactly goes on those posters. Like all states that we’ve looked at here at this blog, California has a mix of state and federal postings, covering the gambit of employment law in this West Coast state and all over the United States.

The six federal postings that are part of the California Poster Requirements include the same six that we’ve seen included in the requirements of many other states in the Union. Let’s list them here one more time just so we have all of the information in one place. They are: the federal minimum wage posting, the equal employment opportunity posting, the USERRA posting for armed services employees, the OSHA posting for workplace safety and health, the polygraph rights posting, and the Family and Medical Leave Act posting.

Complementing these six federal postings are 14 state postings. These make California Poster Requirements one of the states’ rules with the most mandatory state postings.

These include the the EDD VI, SDI, PFL notice, the state disability insurance posting, the smoking policy posting, the workers’ comp posting, the access to medical and exposure records posting, the payday posting, the state OSHA notice, the time off for voting posting, the emergency phone number notice, the unemployment insurance notice, the Family Rights Act Notice (A and B), the minimum wage posting, the Whistle Blower Protection Act posting, and the discrimination notice.