SB 391: Employment: workers' compensation and piece-rate compensation.

Existing law requires employers to provide itemized statements to employees at the time wages are paid that show, among other things, gross wages earned and total hours worked. Existing law requires the itemized statements for employees who are compensated on a piece-rate basis to state separately the total hours of compensable rest and recovery periods, the rate of compensation, and the gross wages paid for those periods during the pay period, among other things. Existing law requires those employees to be compensated for rest and recovery periods and other nonproductive time at, or above, specified minimum hourly rates, separately from any piece-rate compensation. Existing law, until January 1, 2021, requires an employer to use due diligence, including, but not limited to, the use of people locator services, to locate and pay former employees who were compensated on a piece-rate basis for any work performed during a pay period and who no longer work for the employer in the event that the former employees have relocated.

Existing law, until January 1, 2021, establishes an affirmative defense to a claim or cause of action for recovery of wages, damages, liquidated damages, statutory penalties, or civil penalties based solely on the employers failure to timely pay the employee the compensation due for rest and recovery periods and other nonproductive time for time periods prior to and including December 31, 2015, if the employer complies with prescribed requirements by no later than December 15, 2016, including, among others, that the employer calculates and begins making payments to each employee to whom the wages are due, as specified, or to the Labor Commissioner for any employer whom the employer cannot locate. For payments made to the Labor Commissioner, existing law also requires the employer to pay the Labor Commissioner an additional administrative fee. Existing law requires the Labor Commissioner to make a diligent search to locate any worker for whom the Labor Commissioner has collected unpaid wages or benefits.

This bill would require the Labor Commissioner to post each month on the commissioners Internet Web site information regarding payments made to the commissioner described above, the total number of employees located for whom the Labor Commissioner has collected payments and the total amount remitted to those employees, and the balance remaining from the amounts paid to the commissioner after remitting payments to employees.

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