Episode 236 - Employers’ Obligations Under the Workplace Know Your Rights Act

Welcome to the Workplace, a podcast by Cal Chamber. I'm Matthew Roberts, Associate General Counsel with the California Chamber of Commerce. Hello listeners. Unbelievably, we are cruising towards the end of 2025. For employers, this is generally a time to ease into the holidays and get ready for the new Year. However, for those of us in employment, law and Human resources, we know this is a time to start to prepare and get our ducks in a row for new compliance challenges that take effect in 20. While Cal Chamber successfully worked to keep any cost driver employment laws from being enacted, there are still new employment laws coming that will change some processes for all employers in 2026. Today we will explore one of those that originated From Senate Bill 294, also known as the Workplace Know youw Rights Act. This new law, which takes effect on January 1, 2026, will create some new processes for all California employers early in the new year. So to discuss the ins and outs of this new law, we welcome back Bianca Saad, Cal Chambers General Counsel for Labor and Employment. It is a pleasure to have you on today, Bianca.

Thank you, Matt. Happy to be here.

So Bianca, the title of this new law, the Workplace Know youw Rights act, suggests to me we are looking at yet another posting requirement. But that's not quite the case, is it?

That's right. This is not another posting requirement, although it is understandable to always be on the lookout for new posting obligations in California since we have so many and there are some that get updated every year. Instead, this bill does a couple of things. First, it creates a new notice obligation for employers. This means that employers will have to proactively give a Workplace Know youw Rights notice to its employees. And second, this bill also now imposes employer requirements around emergency contacts for employees.

All right, so let's break this down since that sounds like a multi part task for us. Let's start with the notice. And what will that notice be that employers have to provide to their employees?

Yes, so the notice itself requires several categories of information to be included. So first, we have the right to workers compensation benefits including disability pay and medical care for work related injuries or illness, as well as contact information for the Division of Workers Compensation, the right to notice of inspection by immigration agencies when they have notified the employer that they will inspect i9s and other documents. We also have the protection against unfair immigration related practices against a person exercising protected rights, the right to organize a union or engage in concerted activity in the workplace, constitutional rights when interacting with law enforcement at the workplace, including an employee's right under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. constitution to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the rights under the fifth Amendment to the US Constitution to due process and against self incrimination. And lastly, the notice will also include a description of new legal developments pertaining to laws enforced by the labor and Workforce Development agency that the Labor Commissioner deems necessary, and a list of enforcement agencies that may enforce the rights identified in this notice.

Okay, so that's a grab bag of various laws described there, right, Bianca?

Yes, it's got a whole host of rights listed out in there.

Okay. But for those of us who are veterans, nothing about this new notice seems to create any new obligations or new laws.

Right, Exactly. So this notice isn't creating any new rights or obligations under the law, but it's simply the obligation to provide the notice itself.

Okay, so you said at the outset that this isn't actually a posting requirement. Instead, how do employers provide this notice to their employees?

Yeah, so we have some good news here in that employers aren't going to have to create this brand new notice from scratch. So SB294 does require the Labor Commissioner's Office to create a template notice by January 1st of 2026. Once that is available, employers will then have until February 1st of 2026 to provide that notice to their existing employees and any new hires after that date. Now, because this is not a posting requirement, employers have a few ways to provide the notice. So personal service, email, or text message, these are all viable options. Now, however you decide to provide the notice, though, you want to make sure you're doing so in a manner that that reasonably anticipates the employee will receive it within one business day of sending it. So, for example, if you send the notice via email, but some of your employees don't regularly access their email, then it may not get to those employees on time. So you'll want to keep that in mind when thinking about the method of service.

Right. And I really think about those field workers who are out there, like construction or agriculture, where they just go straight to the field and may not look at their email for two or three days at a time. I think that's what we're a little bit concerned about when we're thinking about how to deliver that notice. So, Bianca, before moving on to the next part of SB294, are there any other requirements related to this workplace know your rights notice we should know about?

Yes. So as I mentioned before, employers must provide it to all of their existing employees by February 1st of 2026 and any new hires thereafter. But this isn't just a one time notice requirement. So employers will need to provide this notice annually, which means they'll need to add this to their process for the beginning of each year. Also, employers will need to keep records of providing the notice for at least three years, and those records must include the date that each notice is provided or sent.

All right, sounds like employers need to gear up to be ready for action real early in the year on that notice requirement. Now, Bianca, let's move to the second part of SB294 and uncovering some new requirements we have for emergency contacts. What does that look like?

Yes, so with emergency contacts, of course, employers routinely obtain emergency contact information during onboarding. And until now, this has really been something that's been driven more as a practical approach for employers to be able to reach out to a designated contact in an emergency situation. However, with SB294, whether you already collect emergency contact information or not, there are going to be new obligations. So no later than March 30, 2026, employers now must allow existing employees and new hires as of March 30, 2026, going forward to name an emergency contact and to have the ability to update that information throughout employment. Lastly, and this will cause a change for a lot of employers, employees must be allowed to indicate a designated emergency contact for purposes of being notified if an employee is arrested or detained at the work site or during work hours or during the performance of their job duties not at the work site, and the employer has actual knowledge of the employee's arrest or detention.

Okay, so it sounds like SB294 gives us a lot of new paperwork changes. So maybe checklists updating our onboarding packages for 2026. But clearly that isn't all that's changed for employment laws, correct?

That is correct. As with every year, Matt, we have a number of changes. 2026 is no different. So for this upcoming year, we've got things like wage and hour rule changes, pay scale and pay data rules, employment contracts, and even personnel record changes.

All right, so the million dollar question, Bianca, where can people learn more about these upcoming changes?

Excellent question. So there are a couple of places. So Cal Chamber has a fantastic resource many may be familiar with already. That's our new laws white paper. So we have one for 2026. The beautiful thing about that is it's free for anyone to download, whether you're a member or not. And for any folks who are out there wanting to really dig into the nitty gritty of the new laws. There's always, of course, one of our 2026 ELU virtual seminars.

All right, well, thank you for joining me today, Bianca, to help employers prepare for some new notice and paperwork requirements early in 2026.

Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

And thank you listeners for joining this discussion on the workplace. Please share and subscribe to Cal Chambers podcast by visiting calchamber.com.