SB 985: Employment: work hours.

Existing law, with certain exceptions, establishes 8 hours as a days work and a 40-hour workweek and requires payment of prescribed overtime compensation for additional hours worked. Existing law authorizes the adoption by ²/₃ of employees in a work unit of alternative workweek schedules providing for workdays no longer than 10 hours within a 40-hour workweek.

This bill would enact the California Workplace Flexibility Act of 2016. The bill, until January 1, 2022, would establish an overtime exemption for an employee-selected flexible work schedule. The exemption would allow, at the written request of an individual nonexempt employee on a form provided by the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, and upon employer approval, an employee-selected flexible work schedule providing for workdays up to 10 hours per day within a 40-hour workweek. The employer would be obligated to pay overtime based on the employees regular rate of pay, as prescribed, for all hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek or over 10 hours in a workday, whichever is greater. The bill would establish requirements for the termination of an agreed-upon schedule. The bill would require the employer to maintain in its files a signed statement of voluntary participation for all approved voluntary work schedules and to submit a copy of the signed request form to the division. The bill would except from its provisions employees covered by collective bargaining and specific public employees. The bill would require the division to enforce its provisions and adopt or revise regulations as necessary to implement its provisions. The bill would also require the division, by January 1, 2021, to prepare and submit a report to the Legislature evaluating the act.

This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.