According to an article in today's Los Angeles Times, Congressional Republicans are pushing to amend federal anti-discrimination laws to do away with the provision that prohibits employers from requiring employees to only speak English at work.

Currently, under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act such an "English-only" policy is considered national origin discrimination. There is a "business necessity" exception to this rule where speaking English is necessary to do the job. For example, a nurse who assists with surgeries must be able to speak English to communicate with the medical staff.

This amendment is unlikely to pass and is likely just pre-election posturing to bring the debate over immigration into the forefront of the electorate's consciousness.

However, most employees in California would not be effected by such a change, because California's Fair Employment and Housing Act also prevents English-only policies and is far more protective than Title VII in virtually all respects.

This is our final installment in a series dealing with employee rights laws that California's legislature passed in 2007, but which Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed last month before they could take effect.

SB 836

Senate Bill 836 was heralded nationwide as the first law prohibiting employer discrimination against employees based on their "family status".

For example, discrimination against employees who are single parents who have to take their child to the doctor would be prohibited. Also, if the child is sick at home and has nobody else to care for them, the employee could actually take protected, unpaid leave to do so.

I think this bill was a step in the right direction, but I do have to agree that its reach was far to broad to avoid the Governor's veto stamp. If certain limits can be added to the measure to keep its use reasonable, I believe the legislature can pass a satisfactory bill in the near future.

This is the second post in a series on several very important bills the California legislature passed in 2007 to protect employees that the Governor vetoed at the last possible moment last month.

SB 537

Despite supporting a strong new law providing protected leave to military spouses whose husbands or wives are on leave from service, the Governor promptly vetoed similar protections for employees needing leave for other, arguably more important reasons. Senate Bill 537 would have given employees the right to take family medical leave to care for the following persons:

1. The employee's seriously ill children (regardless of their age);
2. The employee's seriously ill in-laws;
3. The employee's seriously ill grandparents or grandchildren;
4. The employee's seriously ill sibling; or
5. The employee's seriously ill domestic partner.

Without this bill, employees who have seriously ill adult children, young grandchildren or siblings may be forced to choose between either losing their job or caring for their loved ones. Some might argue that these individuals are not "immediate" family, so the protections of family medical leave should not extend to them. However, the situation is not always so black and white. For example, if an adult child is not married, a parent might be the only person who is available to care for them. Imagine having to work at your job while your younger sibling is dying at home because your employer will not let you take time off of work to care for them. This is a real dilemma for many employees who have their own immediate families to also think about and cannot afford to be terminated, but are also needed to care for other close family members. These are the kinds of protections that should be "no brainers" under California law. If an employee's domestic partner is seriously ill, they should be able to take time off to care for them. Period.

SB 549

Senate Bill 549 was a similar provision that would have allowed employees four days of bereavement leave if, for example, their spouse dies. You may be thinking to yourself, what employer would fire an employee for going to their wife's funeral? Well, I have seen it happen more than once and there is no law that prohibits it. Family medical leave protections disappear as soon as the person being cared for dies. Do we really want to force someone to choose whether to go to their child's funeral or lose their job?

As the end of the year approached, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed several employee protections the California legislature passed in 2007. While he felt it was important to give full protections to military spouses whose husbands or wives were on leave, he deemed other employees to be less deserving of similar rights.

This is the first in a series of posts on several important employee rights bills that the legislature passed this year, but the Governor vetoed last month.

AB 1707

Assembly Bill 1707 created a $750 penalty provision against employers who refuse to provide employees access to their personnel files.

Employees in California have a statutory right to view almost anything in their personnel files. However, there has never been any penalty in place for employers who refuse to comply with this law.

If an employer refuses to grant access to the employee's file, the employee could bring a lawsuit, but other than ordering the employer to open the records, the court has not real power to punish employers who willfully break this law.

This modest penalty would have provided an employer with more incentive to comply with the law, but since the bill was vetoed employees are left with no threat of any monetary penalty to use against employers who know they really have nothing to lose for refusing to follow the law.

AB 435

Assembly Bill 435 is similar to AB1707. It was a bill that proposed allowing employees to recover double damages from their employers if they do not pay their employees the minimum wage.

Like the law granting access to personnel files, California's minimum wage law allows employees to sue to recover their unpaid wages, but there is no additional penalty they can recover from their employer if they win.

Essentially, the law is currently set up so that an employee who is already making less than minimum wage to begin with must pay an attorney to sue in court and recover their wages, with nothing extra awarded for their trouble (and no further penalty to the employer for not paying).

This law was an attempt by the legislature to provide for stiff penalties against employers who prey on the employees who need the money the most (sometimes not paying their employees at all), but apparently Mr. Schwarzenegger believed no such penalties were needed under the law.

California has passed a law providing employees whose spouses are on active military duty with protected leave from work to be with their spouses when they are on leave from duty.

Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 392 into law last month and it became effective immediately. The Bill has two main components:

1. An employer of more than 25 people must provide an employee with up to 10 days of unpaid leave when their spouse is on leave from military duty; and
2. The employer is prohibited from retaliating against a qualified employee for requesting or taking this leave.

To me, one of the most surprising aspects of this law is that the employer must grant the leave, regardless of the circumstances-no exceptions. This is uncommon in employment law where there are usually at least some exceptions where the employer can deny the leave.

Under the Family Medical Leave Act, for example, non-emergency medical leave requests the employer can make the employee wait to take the leave if they are a "key employee" or if it is a very busy time of the year for the employer. Other leave laws allow similar exceptions where it will cause a "hardship" on the employer.

However, under this new California leave law, it looks like employers have no right to deny the leave request, no matter how essential it is that the employee be at work. This does make sense, of course, because the employee's spouse will only be off of leave during a set period of time.

This is a very interesting development in the law and the fact that it went into effect immediately makes me wonder how many spouses and military personnel know about it. If you know someone who has a spouse in the military, be sure to remind them of this opportunity to take time off from work to be with their spouse!