California Assemblymember Sharp-Collins Introduces Workplace Safety Bill Authorizing Refusals to Work and Requiring Wages

Quick Hits

• California AB 1371 would revise and expand employee protections and establish continuing wage payment obligations if an employer fails to abate a work hazard—including heat illness—to an employee’s satisfaction.
• The bill specifically provides a “right of action” for the recovery of unpaid wages for the employer’s failure to pay “full wages” as described.
• The bill provides for payment of “full wages” if the employee complies with the bill’s enumerated conditions and the employer doesn’t assign a different task to the employee that would not expose the employee to the health and safety risks complained of.

Under the legislation, an employee would be authorized to refuse to perform work if three conditions are met:

• The employee believes, in good faith, that the work creates a “real and apparent hazard to the employee or their fellow employees” or “has a reasonable apprehension” that the performance of the work “would result in injury or illness to the employee or other employees.”
• The employee or another employee has communicated or attempted to notify the employer of the health and safety risk.
• The employer has not provided a response that is reasonably calculated to allay the safety and health concerns regarding the specific work.

The bill specifically provides a “right of action” for the recovery of unpaid wages for the employer’s failure to pay “full wages” as described. The bill does not specify, however, whether this right of action is limited to a claim before the labor commissioner or in court.

Additionally, California employers could be exposed to risks of derivative claims that arise from the nonpayment of wages. Such derivative claims include statutory and waiting time penalties for the failure to timely pay wages during and at the termination of employment which can easily add thousands of dollars to any claim.

AB 1371 will proceed in committee hearings over the next few months with likely opposition from California trade associations and employer groups.

Ogletree Deakins’ Workplace Safety and Health Practice Group will continue to monitor developments and provide updates on the California, Wage and Hour, and Workplace Safety and Health blogs as additional information becomes available.

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