Decoding Local Jurisdictions:
Understanding California’s Intricacies in Employment Law Compliance
By GovDocs
Nov. 21, 2024
Renowned for its intricacies, California’s employment law landscape is unique, particularly when it comes to complying with county and city laws.
Renowned for its intricacies, California’s employment law landscape is unique, particularly when it comes to complying with county and city laws. With over 480 cities and 55+ counties with the capability of enacting various regulations, HR teams are putting together broken puzzle pieces to understand these nuances and avoid compliance mistakes. This article delves into why California is challenging, with specific examples and solutions to avoid compliance risks.
3 Compliance Hurdles in California
1. Complex Local Jurisdictions
With so many cities and counties in California enacting their own ordinances, it makes it difficult to navigate the legal landscape as an HR team. And in addition to city laws, there are county laws that apply only to unincorporated areas of the county. And, in California, many locations may have state, county and city level laws all on the same topic that may apply.
Local minimum wage ordinances present complexities in California due to numerous cities and counties setting higher local minimum wage rates than the state minimum wage. In addition, many employers deal with employees such as salespeople or service workers who may work in multiple jurisdictions with different minimum wage rates in a single day.
Check out this list of California cities to see if you have any locations with a dedicated minimum wage: Alameda, Belmont, Berkley, Burlingame, Cupertino, Daly City, East Palo Alto, El Cerrito, Emeryville, Foster City, Fremont, Half Moon Bay, Haward, Los Altos, Los Angeles, Malibu, Menlo Park, Milpitas, Mountain View, Novato, Oakland, Palo Alot, Pasadena, Petaluma, Redwood City, Richmond, San Carlos, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Rosa, Sonoma, South San Francisco, Sunnyvale, and West Hollywood.
Paid sick leave ordinances in California provide further complexities for HR teams to manage. Cities such as San Francisco, Oakland, and others exceed the state’s baseline requirements in some areas such as: accrual rates, waiting periods, reasons for leave, and covered family members. This requires HR teams operating in multiple jurisdictions to tailor their sick leave policies to meet city and county-specific paid sick leave laws and coordinate them appropriately with the state paid sick leave requirements.
All this complexity across the state makes it imperative for HR teams to know in which jurisdiction their locations are situated.
2. Frequent Legal Updates
California leads the nation in passing progressive and detailed employment laws, including numerous paid sick leave laws at the city level, pay transparency laws, and expanded family and medical leave laws. In addition to new laws being passed, many of the existing laws are updated each year which keeps HR teams on their toes tracking changes which may impact their wage rates and policies.
3. Strict Enforcement and Penalties
California agencies, such as the Labor Commissioner’s Office and Cal/OSHA, can be aggressive in enforcing employment laws. Employers can face substantial penalties for noncompliance, including lawsuits, fines, and reputational damage. Another reason to make sure you know what legal jurisdiction your location is in.
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Lessons from a California Compliance Case
Below, we will break down an example to highlight the importance of knowing rooftop accuracy versus relying on city names and zip codes to determine which laws apply to your locations.
Let’s start with an address in San Francisco. The city in this location’s mailing address is San Francisco. San Francisco is within San Francisco County. So, this location should be subject to San Francisco laws, like the San Francisco minimum wage and paid sick leave, correct? Actually, no.
As we look closely at this location, it is situated within the city limits of Daly City which is in San Mateo County. But wait, both Daly City and San Mateo County and the state of California have minimum wage ordinances or laws. Which applies to this location?
Daly City minimum wage is $16.62, San Mateo County minimum wage is $17.06, and California’s minimum wage is $16.00 per hour. The San Mateo County minimum wage applies since it is the highest, right? Actually, no. The Daly City minimum wage applies because even though the city is in San Mateo County, the San Mateo County minimum wage only applies to unincorporated areas of the County.
So, what is an HR professional to do? How can you be confident which jurisdiction you are in?
GovDocs can help you with that. GovDocs uses LocationCheck™, a process of taking an organization or employee’s physical address and assigning longitude and latitude coordinates to determine a jurisdictional assignment.
As shown in the Daly City example: Latitude and Longitude Is Important
The location in our example above is within Daly City. Many HR professionals might be concerned that the mailing address states San Francisco. This is where the understanding that city names are designed for USPS delivery, not identifying legal jurisdictional boundaries.
HR Teams with large, multi-jurisdictional employers have plenty of goals to focus on, without worrying about whether they pay their employees correctly, have the right details in their leave policies, and the accurate posters displayed in their locations.
Partnering with an employment law compliance provider with technology designed to reduce manual research and eliminate the risk of noncompliance is crucial.
With GovDocs LocationCheck™, you can:
- Skip sifting through layers of stacked maps to navigate boundaries of states, counties, and cities to figure out which jurisdiction is applicable.
- Be confident you are paying the correct minimum wage for your location and mitigate the risk of costly fines and potential lawsuits
- Implement audits of your poster compliance, minimum wage rates, and paid leave policies with confidence to avoid the risk of noncompliance
