In early January, United Farm Workers union filed its second card-check petition with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, this time seeking collective bargaining status for the employees of a Southern California nursery. The ALRB certified the UFW as the collective bargaining agent for those employees on Jan. 17, 2024. The first petition seeking collective bargaining […]
FELS Newsletter: January 2024
Expanded OSHA Injury & Illness Reporting
Effective Jan. 2, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration expanded the scope of information covered establishments must report per its 2016 ITA (Injury Tracking Application) (www.osha.gov/injuryreporting) electronic reporting regulation. Covered establishments in high-hazard industries in California with 20 or more employees have since 2017 been required to upload information from their Forms 300A Summary […]
Happy New Year! You Have Homework!
It’s “reporting and posting season” again, and the two big ones to remember are the EEO-1 report and the Cal/OSHA Log 300. EEO-1: The EEO-1 report is filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. If you are required to file (and read on, many seasonal employers are not required to file), EEO-1 reports for 2022 […]
Ninth Circuit Blocks Ban on Mandatory Arbitration Agreements
On Jan. 1, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals permanently enjoined the State of California from enforcing the provisions of Assembly Bill 51, passed by the California Legislature in 2020. AB 51 criminalized the use by employers of mandatory arbitration agreements to avoid litigation under the California Labor Code and California Fair Employment and […]
Your Employee Has Dementia: What To Do?
Robin Shea, Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete Editor’s Note: Farm employee surveys like the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Worker Survey (NAWS) clearly show that California’s agricultural workforce is aging, and there seems to be evidence that incidence of early-onset diseases that lead to dementia are increasingly common. Our offices frequently receive phone calls from […]