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Asking about family or childbearing plans tends to elicit information about sex and pregnancy — protected characteristics under FEHA — and is improper. Job-related questions about ability to perform the work, required licenses, and work authorization are permissible.

Labor Code §246(b)(1) starts accrual at the commencement of employment, at not less than one hour for every 30 hours worked. The 90th day belongs to §246(c), which is when an employee may begin to USE accrued days — a different rule from when the days start building up. Twenty-four hours is the superseded annual figure: §246(b)(3)-(4) now require at least 24 hours or 3 days by the 120th calendar day and no less than 40 hours or 5 days by the 200th. And the entitlement turns on working 30 days within a year for the same employer, not on the employer's headcount.

When multiple minimum wage laws apply, the employer must pay the highest applicable rate. A local ordinance with a higher minimum wage governs over the lower state or federal minimum.

Labor Code §1194 is explicit: notwithstanding any agreement to work for a lesser wage, an employee receiving less than the legal minimum wage or legal overtime may recover in a civil action the unpaid balance of the full amount, including interest on it, reasonable attorney's fees, and costs of suit. Each side bearing its own fees is the ordinary American rule, and §1194 is the statute that displaces it here. Treble damages are not part of §1194 at all. And a criminal fine is imposed by a court and payable to the state; it is not a remedy the underpaid employee collects.

Labor Code §1174(d) makes the employer keep payroll records showing the hours worked daily and the wages paid, and keep them at least three years; those records are what proves regular wages, overtime and meal-period compliance when a claim is filed. Unemployment eligibility is decided by EDD from quarterly wage reports, not from daily time cards. The time record does not replace the itemized wage statement §226 requires with every payday — the employer owes both. And hours worked say nothing about classification, which turns on the ABC test in Labor Code §2775(b)(1).

Labor Code §1174(d) requires payroll records showing the hours worked daily and the wages paid to be kept on file for not less than three years. Six months is a retention myth carried over from posting requirements. One year after separation confuses how long records are kept with the employee's right to inspect them. And four years is the limitations period for a written-contract claim, not the records rule.

Labor Code §204 makes wages due and payable twice during each calendar month on days designated in advance: work from the 1st to the 15th is paid between the 16th and the 26th, and work from the 16th to the end of the month between the 1st and the 10th. A weekly, biweekly or semimonthly payroll satisfies §204 when wages are paid within seven calendar days of the close of the payroll period, which is how a biweekly construction payroll complies. Once a month is lawful only for exempt executive, administrative and professional employees. Paying when the owner's draw lands is the pay-when-paid myth; payroll does not wait on the owner. And a flat 30-day window appears nowhere in §204.

Labor Code §226.7(c) owes one hour at the regular rate for the day's meal-period violation and a separate hour for the day's rest-period violation, so at $20.00 an hour the premium is $40.00. (a) is the single-premium belief - that the statute caps the day at one hour however many categories were missed - which United Parcel Service rejected. (d) pays three hours by counting each individual break missed: an eight-hour shift owes one meal period and two rest periods, so this is the per-break rather than per-category error. (c) pays half an hour, as though the premium were prorated to the length of the break rather than fixed at one hour.

Labor Code §3700 requires every California employer with one or more employees to secure workers' compensation coverage. A contractor with employees must maintain a valid policy and file proof with the CSLB.

Labor Code §6401 requires the employer to furnish safe employment and the practices needed to make it safe, and the Injury and Illness Prevention Program rule at 8 CCR §3203 requires training on the hazards each worker will actually face — which is why new-hire orientation is built on hazard recognition, safe work procedures and correct use of protective equipment. Company history, pay dates and benefit sign-up are onboarding paperwork, not safety training. Cal/OSHA requires first-aid supplies and trained personnel on the job, not a certificate for every crew member. Reviewing the written program and its records is a periodic employer duty, not what a new hire needs on the first day.

Labor Code §3550(a) requires the workers' compensation notice to be kept posted in a conspicuous location frequented by employees, where it can easily be read during the hours of the workday. Handing it to each new hire is the separate duty of §3551(a) - written notice at the time of hire or by the end of the first pay period - and performing that duty does not discharge the posting. Mailing the notice, however regularly, is not posting. Filing it with the carrier or keeping it in the payroll office puts it exactly where the employees who need it will not see it.

Each day has 1 daily overtime hour (hour 9), totaling 5 overtime hours. The week totals 45 hours, which is 5 hours over 40 — but those same 5 hours are already paid as daily overtime, so they are not counted twice. The result is 5 overtime hours at 1.5×.

Labor Code §1174.5 provides for a civil penalty of $500 against an employer who willfully fails to maintain the accurate and complete records required by §1174.

Labor Code §226(e) sets the penalty at $50 for the initial pay-period violation and $100 for each subsequent violation. Here: $50 + ($100 × 5) = $550, well under the $4,000 per-employee cap.

Government Code §12950.1, as amended by SB 1343, applies to employers with five or more employees: at least two hours of sexual harassment prevention training for each supervisory employee and at least one hour for each nonsupervisory employee, repeated every two years, and provided to new hires and newly promoted supervisors within six months. Fifty employees was the old AB 1825 threshold, and supervisor-only training was the pre-2019 rule that SB 1343 replaced. Nothing limits the duty to office staff: a seven-worker construction crew is covered.

Labor Code §1198.5 gives current and former employees the right to inspect and receive a copy of their personnel records, and the employer must make them available within 30 calendar days of the request (extendable by agreement).

Labor Code §1197.1(a)(1) sets $100 for each underpaid employee for each pay period of an initial intentional minimum-wage violation, and §1197.1(a)(2) raises it to $250 per underpaid employee per pay period for each subsequent violation of the same offence. The penalty is on top of the underpaid wages themselves, liquidated damages under §1194.2 and any §203 waiting-time penalty, so a first offence is never penalty-free and never a bare repayment of wages. The $25 figure belongs to no minimum-wage provision, and no flat sum replaces the per-employee, per-pay-period count.

Labor Code §201.3(b)(1)(A) makes the temporary services employer — the staffing agency that is the employer of record — pay wages no less frequently than weekly, with each calendar week's wages due by the regular payday of the following week. The client contractor is not the paying employer, so neither its monthly cycle nor its paydays governs, and the agency's duty does not wait on the client: being paid by the client is not a condition of paying the workers.

Double time is 2× the regular rate: $22.00 × 2 = $44.00 per hour. For 4 hours: $44.00 × 4 = $176.00.

Work that disturbs lead-based paint is trained work: 8 CCR §1532.1(l) requires the training before the assignment, and California's lead-related construction certification (17 CCR §35001 et seq., under Health & Safety Code §105250), together with the federal RRP rule for pre-1978 housing, requires certified people doing it. Blood-lead monitoring under §1532.1(j) is triggered by exposure at or above the action level; it runs alongside training and never substitutes for it. Wet methods are one lead-safe practice, not a way around certification. And a wage premium waives nothing - the standard is not something a worker can be paid to go without.

Accurate, contemporaneous, objective evaluations are what make a later performance decision defensible, and Labor Code §1198.5 lets the employee inspect that personnel file on request - so the record has to be written as the work happens, not assembled afterwards. Documenting only what supports a termination produces a file that reads as built for the decision it was meant to justify. A supervisor's memory at review time is not a record and will not survive a dispute. And keeping nothing in writing does not limit exposure; it removes the evidence the employer would need to explain the decision.

Wage Order 16 §11 gives construction employees ten minutes of net rest for every four hours worked, counted as time worked, and the rest must be uninterrupted with the employee relieved of duty. A break cut off at four minutes was therefore not provided, and Labor Code §226.7(c) owes one additional hour of pay at the regular rate for that workday. The wage order does fix the ten minutes, so treating the length as discretionary is wrong. Rest breaks are paid time, not the worker's own unpaid time. And the remedy is a flat hour of premium pay: handing back the six lost minutes does not satisfy it.

Labor Code §201(a) makes all wages earned and unpaid due immediately on discharge, and §227.3 treats vested vacation as wages, so the vacation value is part of that immediate payment. Pushing either piece to the next payday is the §202 rule for an employee who quits without notice, not the discharge rule. Paying only one of the two still leaves earned wages unpaid, and every day they stay unpaid runs the §203 waiting-time penalty.

Labor Code §246 sets the standard accrual rate at a minimum of one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Employers may instead use an up-front grant method that provides the full annual amount at the start of the year.

Labor Code §1102.5 prohibits retaliation against an employee for disclosing a suspected violation of law to a government agency. Firing a worker for reporting wage-and-hour violations is unlawful whistleblower retaliation.

California child labor law requires most minors to have a Permit to Employ and Work, issued through the school, before starting a job. Additional restrictions limit minors' hours and prohibit them from hazardous construction tasks.

Labor Code §226(a) requires gross wages earned, total hours worked, all applicable hourly rates with the hours worked at each rate, all deductions, net wages earned, the inclusive dates of the pay period, the employee's name with only the last four digits of the social security number or an employee identification number, and the legal name and address of the employer. A telephone number is not on that list. The full nine-digit SSN is what §226(a)(7) rules out - last four digits only. And overtime hours and a home mailing address are not §226 items; total hours worked is.

Labor Code §200(a) defines wages as all amounts for labor performed, whether the amount is fixed or ascertained by time, task, piece, commission, or any other method of calculation. Stopping at the base hourly rate confuses wages with the regular rate used for overtime. Limiting wages to cash ignores §227.3, under which vested vacation is wages. Excluding piece rate and commission contradicts the very list §200 gives.

Labor Code §510(a) pays the first 8 hours at straight time and hours 9 through 12 at one and one-half times: 8 x $28.00 = $224.00, plus 2 x $42.00 = $84.00, for $308.00. (a) is the day with no overtime at all, 10 x $28.00, which is what a flat-rate payroll produces. (b) applies the premium to the whole day, 10 x $42.00, the error of treating a long day as an overtime day. (c) pays hours 9 and 10 at double time, 8 x $28.00 plus 2 x $56.00 = $336.00; double time does not begin until after the twelfth hour, so it would be right only for a 13-hour day's final hour.

The §203(a) penalty reaches a WILLFUL failure to pay final wages, and DLSE states plainly that a good faith dispute that any wages are due will prevent imposition of the penalty. Willful does not mean blameworthy: it means the employer knew what it was doing, the act was within its control, and it failed to perform a required act. Forgetting the check meets that test, and so does a payroll vendor missing the run, because the employer stays responsible for its own payroll. Nothing conditions the penalty on the employee asking; final wages are due on the statutory deadline whether or not anyone chases them.

Gov. Code §12940(n) makes it an unlawful practice to fail to engage in a timely, good-faith interactive process with the employee to determine effective reasonable accommodations, and §12940(m)(1) requires providing one unless it would cause undue hardship. The employer must consider what the employee asks for but may choose among accommodations that are effective. It cannot stall the process waiting for paperwork. And unpaid leave is one possible accommodation, not the outer limit of the duty.

Labor Code §1775(a) makes the contractor pay each worker the difference between the prevailing rate and what was actually paid, and forfeit a penalty the Labor Commissioner sets at up to $200 for each calendar day, or portion of a day, for each underpaid worker; §1777.1 adds debarment from public works for one to three years. A good-faith mistake can reduce the penalty to $40 a day, but it does not erase it. The $40 figure is a daily floor per worker, not a total cap. And debarment supplements the wage liability rather than replacing it.

Labor Code §1777.5 requires a contractor using workers in an apprenticeable craft on public works to request and employ registered apprentices, in a ratio of no less than one hour of apprentice work for every five hours of journeyman work, and to make apprenticeship training fund contributions. The section stops applying below $30,000, not $100,000. Apprentices are paid the apprentice rate set for their level, not the full journeyman rate. And the statutory ratio is measured in hours worked, not as one apprentice for every three journeymen.

Labor Code §512(a) requires an off-duty 30-minute meal period to begin before the end of the fifth hour of work, and §226.7(c) makes a meal period the employer failed to provide cost one additional hour of pay at the regular rate, per employee, per workday. Production pressure is not a defence. An on-duty meal period is lawful only where the nature of the work truly prevents relief AND the employee has signed an agreement revocable in writing at any time; a pour that could have been staffed to relieve the crew is not that case, and no agreement appears here. Paying for the time worked is not the remedy, and the premium is a flat hour, not the thirty minutes of straight time lost.

Labor Code §2802(a) makes the employer indemnify the employee for all necessary expenditures incurred in direct consequence of the discharge of duties, so both the required mileage and a reasonable share of the personal phone bill are owed - Cochran v. Schwan's Home Service says so for the phone. Splitting the two, mileage yes and phone no, ignores that §2802 reaches any necessary expense. There is no dollar threshold in §2802; the first dollar is reimbursable. And taking the cost out of wages inverts the statute into an unlawful deduction.

Labor Code §511 and Wage Order 16 §3(C)(1), the construction wage order, require the schedule to be proposed in writing and adopted in a secret ballot election held before the work is performed, by at least a two-thirds vote of the affected employees in the work unit. A simple majority is the most common error - two-thirds is the bar. Individual signatures cannot substitute for the election: the unit votes, and one employee's agreement neither binds the unit nor waives daily overtime. The noticed disclosure meeting is real and mandatory - at least 14 days before the vote, and failing to hold it makes the election null and void - but it is a step toward the vote, not the approval.

Wage Order 16 §5 requires that an employee who reports as scheduled and is furnished less than half the usual day's work be paid for half the scheduled hours, never less than two and never more than four, at the regular rate. Paying only the hour worked ignores reporting-time pay altogether. Eight hours is a guarantee the order does not give. And 'the hours worked were paid' is the same error stated as a conclusion: reporting-time pay is owed on top of time actually worked.

When a non-exempt employee works a split shift (a schedule interrupted by a non-paid, non-working period other than a meal), one additional hour of pay at the state minimum wage is owed. The premium is paid at minimum wage, not the employee's higher rate, and even employees paid above minimum wage are still owed the premium so long as their wages for the day do not already exceed minimum wage × (hours worked + 1).

Wage Order 16 §11 sets rest on total daily hours: a net 10 paid minutes for every four hours worked, or major fraction of four, which the DLSE reads as anything more than two hours. Nothing turns on an eight-hour day — that figure belongs to the daily overtime line, and a worker who puts in six hours has already earned two breaks, which is why 'once per shift' is short. Rest is also not something the employee has to ask for: the employer must authorize and permit it, and the ten minutes are paid as hours worked.

Labor Code §246 requires accrual of at least one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Employers may use the accrual method or, alternatively, frontload at least 40 hours/5 days at the beginning of each year.

Under Labor Code §246(j), an employer using the accrual method may cap total accrual at 80 hours or 10 days, whichever is greater. The annual usage cap is separate and is at least 40 hours/5 days.

Section 2802 requires employers to indemnify employees for all necessary expenditures incurred in direct consequence of their duties. California case law (Cochran v. Schwan's Home Service) holds that when employees are required to use personal cell phones for work, the employer must reimburse a reasonable percentage of the bill, even if the employee incurred no extra out-of-pocket charge.

Section 2802 covers necessary work-related expenses. An employee's ordinary commute from home to a single, fixed workplace is generally not reimbursable. Travel between jobsites during the workday, required specialty tools, and required safety equipment beyond ordinary shoes are all reimbursable.

Labor Code §1102.5 prohibits employer retaliation against an employee who discloses information to a government or law-enforcement agency that the employee has reasonable cause to believe reveals a violation of law. Reporting safety violations to Cal/OSHA is a classic protected disclosure.

Labor Code §6310(a)(1) protects an employee who makes any oral or written complaint about employee safety or health — to the employer, to the Division, or to another agency that assists it — and §6310(b) adds reinstatement and lost wages when that employee is fired for it. A raise request is a wage matter; retaliation for it is reached by §98.6, not by §6310. Refusing work is protected by §6311 only where the work would violate a safety standard and create a real and apparent hazard, which being short-handed is not. And reporting another contractor's unlicensed crew is a licensing complaint about someone else, not a complaint about the reporter's own working conditions.

Section 6311 expressly bars layoff or discharge of any employee who refuses to perform work in violation of an occupational safety or health order where the violation would create a real and apparent hazard to the employee or fellow employees.

Labor Code §226.8(b) sets a civil penalty of not less than $5,000 and not more than $15,000 for each willful misclassification; §226.8(c) raises the range to $10,000 to $25,000 per violation where a pattern or practice is found. The $500-$2,500 and $100-$500 bands are the scale of ordinary recordkeeping and notice penalties, not of misclassification, and no provision sets a flat per-worker figure. Note also §226.8(d): a certified copy of the order goes to the CSLB, which must initiate disciplinary action against the licensee within 30 days.

Section 2776 lists numerous conditions that must ALL be met for the business-to-business exemption — including freedom from control, separate business location, valid business license, independently established business, and contracting directly with the business — but does NOT require any common ownership between the two businesses.

Labor Code §201(a): when an employer discharges an employee - a layoff is a discharge - the wages earned and unpaid are due and payable immediately, at the layoff itself. The 72-hour rule belongs to §202(a) and applies to an employee who QUITS without giving 72 hours' notice. There is no next-payday grace period for a layoff, whatever its reason. And 30 days is not a deadline to pay at all: §203 continues the unpaid wages as a penalty for up to 30 days, which is what a late employer owes on top of the wages.

Labor Code §202 provides that an employee who quits without notice is entitled to final wages within 72 hours. An employee who gives at least 72 hours' notice is entitled to final wages on the last day of work.