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Labor Code §1174 requires employers to maintain payroll records (including hours worked and wages paid) for at least three years, and to keep them available for inspection. Good recordkeeping protects the employer in wage disputes, audits, and workers' compensation matters.

California's unemployment insurance benefits are paid from employer contributions under Unemp. Ins. Code §976, and the employer may not recover them from the worker by deduction. (a) is the natural guess because the SDI line on the same pay stub IS withheld from the employee - UI and SDI sit side by side and are funded from opposite directions, which is the distinction worth holding. (c) confuses the state program with the federal FUTA tax, which funds administration and the federal loan account rather than the weekly benefit. (b) describes no program at all; the injured worker is a workers' compensation concept, not a UI one. The employer's rate is experience-rated under §977, so layoffs feed back into cost.

Unemp. Ins. Code §1327 requires the EDD to notify the last employer of the claim, and §1328 gives the employer an opportunity to submit facts about the separation; the department, not the employer, then decides eligibility, and under §1256 a worker laid off for lack of work is not disqualified. (d) overstates the response into a veto, which is what many employers believe they are exercising when they protest a claim. (a) confuses contributions with direct payment; benefits come from the employer's reserve account, paid out by EDD. (b) understates it - failing to respond forfeits the chance to contest a claim that will affect the employer's experience rating.

Unemp. Ins. Code §1256 disqualifies a claimant discharged for misconduct connected with the work, and Amador narrows that to a willful or wanton disregard of the employer's interests - not mere poor performance, inefficiency or good-faith errors of judgment, which is why documentation of repeated, deliberate conduct matters so much. (a) is the belief that UI is automatic on separation. (d) confuses a benefit disqualification with a criminal referral; theft may well be prosecuted, but that is a separate proceeding and the UI question is only eligibility. (c) invents a penalty against the employer. An employer that cannot document the misconduct usually loses the §1256 issue and takes the charge against its reserve account.

Labor Code §1198.5(a) gives a current or former employee the right to inspect and receive a copy of the personnel records relating to performance or to any grievance, and §1198.5(b) gives the employer 30 calendar days from a written request, with a $750 penalty for failure. (d) is the limit of the right and the one people assume too far: the employee may inspect and copy, and may add a written rebuttal to the file, but may not alter what a supervisor wrote. (b) extends the right to other people's files, which privacy law forbids. (c) is unrelated. Note the companion rights: §226(b) covers payroll records in 21 days, and §432 covers any document the employee signed.

Labor Code §226(a) lists nine required items: gross wages earned, total hours worked for non-exempt employees, piece-rate units and rates where applicable, all deductions, net wages, the inclusive dates of the pay period, the employee's name with the last four digits of an identifying number, the employer's legal name and address, and all hourly rates with hours at each. (a) is the lump-sum stub, which is the most common real-world violation. (c) would breach the employee's own medical privacy rather than serve §226. (d) belongs to the job file. The employer must keep a copy for at least three years and produce it on request under §226(b).

Labor Code §2810.5(a)(1) requires that a non-exempt employee receive at hire a written notice of the rate or rates of pay and the basis, any allowances claimed for meals or lodging, the regular payday, the employer's legal name and any 'doing business as' names, the physical and mailing address of the main office, the telephone number, and the workers' compensation carrier's name, address and phone. (a) is the closest wrong answer, because a performance discussion genuinely does happen at hire - it is simply not what §2810.5 requires, and the section is about pay terms the worker can later hold the employer to. (b) and (d) are not disclosures any statute requires. A change to any listed item requires written notice within seven days.

New employees complete Form W-4 (federal) and Form DE 4 (California) so the employer can withhold the correct amount of income tax. Along with Form I-9 and new-hire reporting, these are standard parts of properly onboarding an employee, as distinct from an independent contractor.

Labor Code §432.7 prohibits employers from asking about or using an arrest that did not result in a conviction as a factor in hiring or other employment decisions. Combined with the Fair Chance Act's limits on conviction inquiries, California tightly restricts criminal-history questions.

Labor Code §432.3(a) forbids relying on salary history as a factor in deciding whether to offer employment or what to pay, and §432.3(b) forbids seeking that history orally, in writing, personally or through an agent. (d) is the inverse of a prohibition and is in fact a duty: §432.3(c) requires the employer to supply the pay scale for the position on reasonable request by an applicant, so an employer refusing that is also violating the section. (a) and (b) are ordinary lawful inquiries. Note the carve-out in §432.3(g)-(h): an applicant may volunteer salary history without prompting, and the employer may then consider it - but it cannot be solicited.

Labor Code §226(b) entitles a current or former employee to inspect or copy payroll records relating to their own hours and pay, and §226(c) gives the employer 21 calendar days, with a $750 penalty under §226(f) for failure. (c) is the most tempting refusal, and it is wrong on the face of the statute: the right belongs to former employees as well, which is exactly when most requests arrive. (a) misuses the cost provision - the employer may charge the actual cost of reproduction, which is cents per page, not a deterrent fee. (b) conditions a statutory right on a waiver, which Labor Code §219 does not permit. Personnel records under §1198.5 run on a separate 30-day clock.

The Labor Commissioner's Office, the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, hears wage claims under Labor Code §98 and retaliation complaints under §98.7, free and without a lawyer. (b) is the one a contractor's employee might reasonably try, and it is the wrong door for the money: CSLB can discipline the license under B&P §7110 for labor law violations but cannot award the worker unpaid wages. (c) has no employment-claim jurisdiction, and pointing a worker there is itself the kind of conduct Labor Code §1019 punishes. (d) is unrelated. Cal/OSHA takes safety complaints, and the Civil Rights Department takes FEHA complaints - three state doors, each for a different wrong.

Hiring an employee triggers a bundle of employer obligations: withholding and remitting payroll taxes, carrying workers' compensation, providing itemized wage statements, complying with wage-and-hour rules, and observing anti-discrimination laws. These obligations are a key reason proper classification matters.

Labor Code §1024.5(a) permits a consumer credit report to be used for employment purposes only for enumerated positions - a managerial position exempt under Wage Order 4, a sworn peace officer, a job where the law requires the report, one with regular access to specified personal information, a named signatory on the employer's bank or credit accounts, a position involving trade secrets, or regular access to $10,000 or more of cash. (b) is the pre-2012 position. (a) overstates the ban, which is what makes it the plausible wrong answer: credit checks are restricted, not abolished. (d) inverts it. Civil Code §1785.20.5 adds the notice the employer must give of the specific §1024.5 basis it is relying on.

Wages, withholding and payroll taxes for an employee go on Form W-2; payments for services to a non-employee go on Form 1099-NEC, and for tax year 2026 the reporting threshold is $2,000 paid to the payee - the old $600 figure is out of date. (b) is the error in the safe direction and is rarely the one a contractor makes. The dangerous version is the reverse: issuing a 1099-NEC to someone who is an employee under Labor Code §2775, which is documentary evidence of the misclassification rather than a defense to it. (a) is the state new-hire report, filed at hire rather than at year-end. (d) is the work-authorization form, which is retained by the employer and filed with no one.

Labor Code §3550(a) makes failure to post the workers' compensation notice a misdemeanor, and §3550(e) provides that the failure is admissible as evidence in a proceeding against the employer - in practice it undercuts any argument that the worker knew of and slept on the claim, so the limitation defense weakens. (b) is the belief that a posting is a formality with no downstream effect, and it is the reason the notice goes missing from trailers. (c) inverts the injury: the worker's coverage is unaffected, since it comes from the policy, not the poster - the only party harmed is the employer. (d) borrows the UI experience-rating mechanism, which responds to unemployment claims, not to posting failures.

Government Code §12950.1 applies at five or more employees, counting part-time and temporary workers, so a contractor going from three to six crosses the line and owes two hours of training to each supervisor and one hour to everyone else, repeated every two years. (d) is the answer a contractor most wants to be true, and there is no construction exemption anywhere in the section - the only industry-specific rule is §12950.2 for the construction industry, which ADDS requirements for employers of workers on a multiemployer agreement rather than removing any. (a) trains the wrong person; the owner-supervisor is covered, but so is every laborer. (c) denies the duty. Seasonal hires are trained within 30 days or 100 hours worked.

Government Code §12940(m)(2) makes it an independent unlawful practice to retaliate or otherwise discriminate against a person for requesting an accommodation for a disability or religious creed, whether or not the request was granted - so the employer that denies the request lawfully and then cools toward the employee has still violated the section. (a) is the near miss: refusing an assignment the employee cannot safely perform because of a disability is bound up with the accommodation request and may well be protected, while a flat refusal to work is not. (b) and (d) are ordinary misconduct and lateness, which remain lawful grounds. §12940(h) separately protects opposing discrimination or filing a complaint.

Reducing hours, demoting, or otherwise punishing an employee because they reported a safety violation is unlawful retaliation under Labor Code §1102.5, §98.6, and §6310. Protected activity includes complaints to Cal/OSHA about unsafe conditions; adverse action closely following such a report is strong evidence of retaliation.

Labor Code §6310(a) bars discharge or discrimination against an employee for making a bona fide oral or written complaint of unsafe or unhealthful conditions, to the employer, to a union, or to Cal/OSHA, and §6310(b) provides reinstatement and lost wages. What it protects is the complaint, not the assignment. (a) and (d) read the protection as a shield against reassignment generally - an employer may still direct the work, and only an adverse action BECAUSE of the complaint is unlawful. (b) is the same error about supervisors. The one thing close to (a) is Labor Code §6311, which lets an employee refuse to perform work that would violate a safety standard and create a real and apparent hazard.

Labor Code §2751(a) requires that where an employee's compensation involves commissions, the contract be in writing and set forth the method by which the commissions are computed and paid, and §2751(b) requires the employer to give the employee a signed copy and obtain a signed receipt. (a) treats the paperwork as a reason to abandon commissions, which the section neither requires nor encourages. (b) sends a payroll document to the licensing board. (d) would violate nothing about commissions but runs into the general rule that wages are payable by check or cash at the employee's option. Note §2751(c): a short-term productivity bonus and a temporary variable incentive that increases but does not decrease pay are not commissions for this purpose.

B&P §7125(a) conditions issuance, reinstatement, reactivation and renewal on a current Certificate of Workers' Compensation Insurance, a Certification of Self-Insurance under Labor Code §3700(b), or - for a licensee with no employees - an exemption certificate, except in the C-8, C-20, C-22, C-39 and D-49 classifications, which must carry coverage regardless. (a) is the closest wrong answer because a licensee does have to report a business address to the Board, but no lease is filed and a home address is acceptable. (b) and (d) are not licensing conditions at all. If coverage lapses mid-term, §7125.2 suspends the license by operation of law on the date of the lapse, which retroactively makes the work unlicensed.

Three exposures close together: Labor Code §2750.5 makes an unlicensed sub's crew the hiring contractor's employees, §2810.3 makes a client employer share wage and workers' compensation responsibility for workers supplied through a labor contractor, and §2775 decides classification by the ABC test whatever the parties called it - so checking the license, taking a current certificate of insurance, keeping the §1174 records, and covering the contractor's own employees under B&P §7125 is the whole of the defense. (b) is the arrangement §2775 was written to reach. (c) destroys the records that would otherwise rebut an employee's estimate of hours. (d) forfeits the exclusive-remedy shield and invites a §3706 civil suit with no common-law defenses.

Which wage order covers the occupation decides which premiums exist. Wage Order 16 covers on-site construction, drilling, logging and mining occupations, and its Minimum Wages section contains only subsections (A) and (B) — there is no split-shift provision in it. So the framing crew is owed pay for the eight hours worked and nothing more on this account. The one-hour split-shift premium the question is fishing for lives in orders such as Wage Order 4 §4(C), and where it applies it is paid at the minimum wage, never at the employee's own higher rate.

Drywall work requires a licence, and Labor Code §2750.5 makes holding a valid contractor's licence a condition of having independent-contractor status wherever the work requires one. So the analysis stops there: the handyman is the general contractor's employee for wage, workers' compensation and payroll purposes. The §2781 route out of the ABC test does not help either, because its very first criterion is that the subcontractor is licensed by CSLB for the scope of work. Tools and rates belong to the §2776 business-to-business checklist and cannot substitute for a licence.

Section 226(c) requires the employer to comply as soon as practicable, and no later than 21 CALENDAR days from the date of the request, so a June 1 request falls due on June 22 and July 3 is eleven days late. The right belongs to former employees as well as current ones, so leaving the job changes nothing. Missing the window carries its own $750 penalty under §226(f), which is separate from the penalties for a defective wage statement.