Episode 188: What Employers Should Know About California’s New Workplace Violence Regulation

Welcome to the Workplace, a podcast by Cal Chamber. I'm Matthew Roberts, Associate General Counsel in Labor and Employment with the California Chamber of Commerce. Hello listeners. It is busy season here in the legal department at Cal Chamber as we continue our march towards compliance with our new laws that take effect in 2024. Arguably the most difficult bill from a compliance standpoint that was enacted this year was what was known as SB553. Now, of course, SB553 creates an entirely new workplace safety statutory requirement that's centered around the prevention and response to workplace violence incidents. To discuss requirements of this new law as well as how we are preparing employers for compliance, we welcome back Cal Chambers General Counsel on Labor and Employment, Bianca Saad. Thanks for being here with me today, Bianca.

Absolutely, Matthew. Very happy to be joining you today.

I'm so happy to have you on here because this one is the proverbial beast that you and I have been dealing with for what feels like months now. So, of course, this bill, SB553, is one that we've discussed at length on this show. And as you and I dove in after Governor Newsom signed the bill, we knew there was a lot going on with this one. Bianca, can we start by you giving us a general rundown of what SB553 will require of California employers?

Absolutely. So SB553 is going to require California employers to do several things effectively July 1, 2024. So first thing employers are going to need to do is to create, maintain and implement a written workplace violence prevention plan that includes 13 different requirements. They have to do various things such as identify the personnel who will be responsible for implementing the plan, how are incidents going to be reported and other workplace violence hazards, and then also setting aside and establishing procedures for post incident reporting and investigation. And that's just again to name a few components of the plan. In addition to creating the plan, employers will need to actually create effective training on the written plan itself. So that will involve training all of their employees. And of course, this will vary according to their work size, as the plan will vary according to the work site. There is also a workplace violence incident log, and so there is a requirement that employers complete this specific log that has to have certain required components whenever workplace violence takes place. And then there are also several recordkeeping requirements around not just the log itself, but also around the employee training that is going to take place, as well as any investigations and mitigation efforts that the employers take around workplace violence hazards.

So obviously we weren't lying when we Said there's quite a bit of stuff in this one, Bianca. Now, I noticed you said covered California employers. So then that raises the question, who does this particular law apply to?

So this is going to apply to all California employers. However, there are a few limited exceptions. So first, health care employers that are already covered by the 2017 Violence Prevention in Healthcare Cal OSHA standard are exempted. Now, this standard has more rules than even SB553. And if you are a healthcare employer, you'll definitely want to check with legal counsel to determine which workplace violence prevention standard that you need to follow. The healthcare employers are defined specifically for purposes of the standard. So you'd want to make sure that you're following within those definitions before taking yourself out of the SB553 obligations. Another exception is work sites with fewer than 10 workers present at any given time. And there's a second component to this which is very important. That work site is not accessible to the public. So it's not just a matter of having fewer than 10 workers at any given time, but the work site needs to be closed off to the public, essentially. And then another exception is workers who are working from a work site of their choice that is not under the control of the employer. So this could be they're choosing to work from their home or choosing to work from a coffee shop or a work sharing office. But the key there is that it's going to be the employee's choice to be working from that location.

Yeah. So quite clearly, this bill is going to apply to many, many of our California employers because the exceptions are so limited. So, Bianca, something else that caught my ears is this special workplace Violence incident log that employers will have to fill out if they're covered by SB553. Many of us are familiar with the workplace violence injury log 300 or the requirement for us to log workplace injuries under long standing Cal OSHA rules if we're covered by those. How is this particular log different for employers that are covered by SB553?

Great question. So the workplace Violence incident log is going to be triggered when. When you have an incident of workplace violence. So the log itself, as I'd mentioned, it does have certain legally required components, nine to be exact. That includes things like a detailed description of the event, the type of the workplace violence, and the type of person who committed the violence. Another thing to note about this log is that you need to refrain from using any identifying information such as names, email addresses or phone numbers. So even for that employee who's a victim of the violence, you are not going to include any of their personal information about them on the log.

Okay. So you said this obligation in particular kicks in whenever we have an incident of workplace violence. So it kind of begs the question, Bianca, how is that term workplace violence defined?

Yeah, that is really a great question because it triggers, of course, a number of obligations around this law, and it is defined pretty broadly. Workplace violence is defined as any act of violence or threat of violence that occurs in a place of employment. It can include, but is certainly not limited to things such as the threat or use of physical force against an employee that results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, psychological trauma, or stress. And that's regardless of whether the employee sustains an injury. So injury is not required to trigger workplace violence, which I think is a key component of all of this for employers to keep in mind and be aware of. It can also include an incident that's involving a threat or a use of a firearm or some other dangerous weapon. And again, that's regardless of whether the employee sustains an injury.

Great. So I think it is really important, then, that we're looking at a lot of broad types of conduct. Right, Bianca, when we're talking about workplace violence, because you have the threats, you don't need to have a specific injury. So, for example, if you see someone coming in and they want to rob the joint, Right. So to speak, and they've got a weapon and they say, give me all your money, and you give them all the money, and nobody actually gets harmed in that. Right. The employee gives over the money, says, okay, here you go, you know, get out of my business. That still is a workplace violence incident under the. Under the rules, right, Bianca?

Yes, absolutely. Okay.

So, you know, once we get everything in order with what workplace violence is, and then, of course, all the components to that workplace violence prevention plan that is so crucial to what SB553 does. You mentioned there's a required training component. And I know whenever you hear training in California, your ears all perk up about things like harassment prevention training and other kinds of trainings that we might have. So how does this particular training work?

Yeah, so this training is really going to be centered around. I shouldn't say centered around, but it's a large piece of the training is going to be based on the workplace violence prevention plan. You have to work with the employees and talk to them about, again, the various components of the plan. Remember, there are 13 different requirements that's going to include things like the reporting mechanism. So how Is an employee going to report not just incidents of workplace violence, but let's say, if they have concerns about workplace violence hazards, what is the process going to be for, you know, who's responsible for receiving those complaints or concerns, and then who's responsible for mitigating those hazards in the workplace or for identifying any hazards to begin with? Another piece of this training is that it needs to be communicated effectively to the employees based on their literacy and language. And so one point of discussion that's come up is if you have employees who speak another language, for example, they only speak and read in another language, then you're going to want to make sure you have the training materials in that language for them. Now, in terms of the duration of the training, there is no minimum amount of time. It's not like the sexual harassment prevention training, where, you know, you need two hours if you're a supervisor, one hour if you're an employee, but you do need it again to make sure it's effective. It's covering all of the required components, which will be largely tied to that workplace violence prevention plan. And another key component of the training is that we need to have somebody who's either conducting the training or at the training who is familiar with the prevention plan so that they are able to answer questions during an interactive question and answer component of the training, which is a specific requirement.

Excellent. Well, you know, as we've gone over these different requirements, it's clear there's so much here to SB553 that it makes compliance seem fairly arduous. Right. It's a huge mountain for us to climb with this. So, Bianca, does Cal Chamber have any resources or plan to have any resources out there for even members and non members alike?

Absolutely. So, as you know, we recorded you and I recorded a very detailed webinar on this bill. And that recording is available for purchase for anybody who missed the live event. It was held a couple weeks ago, but it's now available on our store. And the great thing about this is that we have the presentation itself where we really dove into all of those specific requirements and laid that basic foundation. But then we compiled almost 150 questions, and we sorted those out, organized them, and added on to that recording to talk about those questions and answers to really give some context to the legal requirements. A lot of we saw certain questions, as you know, Matt, were very popular around things like even just coverage, some of the threshold issues, and then into some of the more nitty gritty talking about the definition of workplace violence. So there is really a lot there for somebody who is wanting to really kind of sink their teeth into this very meaty law. And then another piece of that is anybody who buys that training, we did provide a workplace violence incident log, so that will be a great resource for them to have again having all of those required components. And then of course, that is also something that our members will have access to once that is made live on our HR California website, as well as a checklist and key definitions to assist with the plan creation and training.

Well, excellent, Bianca. It was wonderful to have you back on the show today. Thank you for all of your insight into SB553 and everything that employers should start getting ready to do as we head towards the July 1st effective date.

Thanks so much for having me, Matt. It's always a pleasure.

And thank you listeners for joining this discussion on the workplace. Again, please check out the Cal Chambers store for that excellent SB553 webinar and Q and A session. And as always, please comment, share and subscribe to Cal Chambers podc cast by visiting calchamber.com.