Hurricane Sandy is a looming emergency for much of the East Coast, causing the closure of many private and government offices and crippling transportation. 

It may be impossible to ever be completely prepared for catastrophic emergencies. But employers can take proactive measures and should also be mindful of employment law obligations.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced cost of living adjustments affecting dollar limitations for pension plans and other retirement-related items for Tax Year 2013. 

In general, many of the pension plan limitations will change for 2013 because the increase in the cost-of-living index met the statutory thresholds that trigger their adjustment.  However, other limitations will remain unchanged because the increase in the index did not meet the statutory thresholds that trigger their adjustment.

The IRS adjustments make changes to:

The minimum wage in San Francisco will increase to $10.55 per hour, effective January 1, 2013:

In August, HRInformant blogged on the progress of proposed amendments to California’s pregnancy regulations and disability discrimination regulations. California’s Fair Employment and Housing Commission (FEHC) completed its changes to the regulations.

The FEHC filed the changes with the Office of Administrative Law (OAL), which can take up to 30 working days to accept or reject the proposed changes to the regulations. The deadline for the OAL to respond to the disability discrimination regulations is November 27, 2012, and the deadline to decide on the pregnancy disability regulations is November 30, 2012. 

If the OAL does approve the proposed regulations, the new regulations will be filed with the Secretary of State and become effective in 30 days. If the OAL does not approve the proposed changes, the changes would be sent back to the FEHC for revision and a new notice to the public. 

The proposed changes to pregnancy disability leave (PDL) regulations include:

California's Employment Development Department administers the State Disability Insurance (SDI) program, which is a partial wage-replacement insurance plan for California workers.  

The General Election is on November 6, 2012. Employees have certain rights to take time off to vote, and employers have posting obligations.

Time Off To Vote
If an employee does not have sufficient time outside of working hours to vote in a statewide election, the employee may, without loss of pay, take up to two (2) hours of working time to vote. The time off must be taken at the beginning or end of the regular working shift, whichever gives the employee the most free time for voting and the least time off from working.

You and the employee may mutually agree to a different part of the working shift when the time off can be taken. The employee must notify you at least two (2) working days in advance to arrange a voting time.

Posting Obligations
Employers must display a poster describing voting leave requirements at least 10 days before every statewide election. For a copy of the voting leave poster, and all required posters and notices, see the Required Posters for the Workplace page on HRCalifornia and visit the CalChamber store to purchase.

Sharing Information With Employees
Employers are within their rights to communicate with employees about issues, regulations, legislation or ballot measures that will have an impact on the workplace, jobs, the economy and the employees themselves.

But employers may not take certain actions: no paycheck stuffers; no coercion; no rewarding or punishing employees (or threatening to do so) for their political activities or beliefs.

For more guidelines on political communications to employees, see this brochureprepared by the CalChamber. Note the distinction between internal communications (to employees, stockholders and their families) and communications to external audiences (such as non-stockholder retirees, outside vendors, customers or passersby).

CalChamber Urges Members to Register to Vote for November Elections
The California Chamber of Commerce is urging its members to register to vote for the November 6 General Election before the October 22 deadline.

An online link to register is available this CalChamber site. Voter registration information is available at the Secretary of State website.

The last day to register to vote for the November 6 election is October 22, 2012. To register to vote, you must be a U.S. citizen, at least 18 years of age, a resident of California, not in prison or on parole for the conviction of a felony and have not been judged by a court to be mentally incompetent to register and vote.

See the CalChamber’s positions on November ballot measures.

California State Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su announced last week that a settlement of nearly $5 million has been reached in a statewide lawsuit filed to recover unpaid minimum wages for real estate agents working for a California company.

Governor Edmund G. Brown vetoed a California Chamber of Commerce-opposed bill, AB 889 (Ammiano; D-San Francisco), which would have provided the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) with authority to develop regulations placing wage-and-hour mandates on working families.

AB 889 would have required the DIR to adopt regulations no later than January 2014 for “domestic work employees,” which the bill generally defined as any individual who performs “domestic work” such as housekeeping, child care and other “household occupations.”  

The bill would have required the regulations to include provisions addressing overtime compensation, meal and rest periods and sleep periods, or to simply adopt the regulations set forth in Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Order No. 15.

Gov. Edmund G. Brown has now signed or vetoed employment-related legislation passed by the California Legislature this year. The governor did not act on many of the bills until this past weekend, even waiting until hours before the deadline of midnight on September 30. 

A few of the new laws that employers need to be aware of this year include: