Teresa McQueen is Corporate Counsel for Western Growers. In that capacity she provides advice and counsel to the organization on employment law matters and commercial trade practices. She also provides legal guidance to Western Growers members on employment law, human resources, and commercial agreements, as well as providing law-related educational opportunities and overseeing annual updates […]
The California Civil Rights Department (CRD) has launched a new online interactive guide to assist job seekers in better understanding whether the state’s Fair Chance Act protections apply to them. The Fair Chance Act seeks to reduce barriers to employment for people who have been previously involved in the criminal legal system. In passing the law, the Legislature recognized that nearly…
The employment relationship can end for a variety of reasons and in many ways. How a separation occurs has as much to do with limiting an employer’s risk as why separation was necessary in the first place. What follows are a few key steps employers should keep in mind before, during and after a termination has occurred. Understand applicable laws. Given that ‘at-will’ employment is…
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (DOL/WHD) have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signaling a new era of interagency cooperation facilitating the sharing of information, joint investigations, training and outreach. The non-binding MOU outlines procedures to be followed by both agencies as they…
The 2022 EEO-1 Component 1 data collection opens October 31, 2023. The EEO-1 online Filer Help Desk will open the same day to assist filers with any inquiries they may have regarding the 2022 collection. The deadline to file the 2022 EEO-1 Component 1 report is December 5, 2023. EEO-1 reporting is a mandatory annual data collection requiring all private employers with 100 or more employees…
The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) latest decision in Miller Plastic Products, Inc., overrules existing standards and returns to prior precedent for determining what constitutes concerted protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or the Act). Section 8 of the NLRA makes it an unfair labor practice “to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees” in the…
With the signing of SB 626 California initiates a statewide ban on smoking in the workplace. Finding the regulation of smoking in the workplace to be a matter of statewide interest and concern, the Legislature proposed SB 626 as a means of eliminating the need for local governments to enact workplace smoking restrictions within their respective jurisdictions. Specifically, SB 626…
On September 1, 2023, in a moment of Legislative overkill, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law SB 699. The ‘we really mean it’ legislative initiative that reinforces current laws prohibiting restrictive covenants. Existing law concerning restrictive covenants (e.g., non-competition, non-solicitation agreements) regulates business activities to maintain competition. To that…
