Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a slate of new bills in the past few days that impact employer workplace policies and practices. Let’s look at some of the significant new laws:
Automated Decision Systems in Employment
As discussed earlier this year, this bill imposes significant safeguards on the way in which California employers can use automated decision systems (ADS) in disciplinary and termination decisions. SB 947 prohibits an employer from using an ADS to perform certain functions and would restrict the purposes for and the way in which such systems are used. SB 947 is effective July 1, 2027.
SB 951, the California Worker Technological Displacement Act, mandates covered employers to give at least a 90-day advance written notice before any technological displacement or termination of contract impacting 25 or more workers or 25% of the workforce (whichever is less). The bill would require an employer to provide a “written technology hiring disruption notice” to affected employees, the Employment Development Department, and specified state and local entities. The notice must contain specific information, as covered in our earlier post.
AB 1883 prohibits an employer from using a workplace surveillance tool that uses AI to, inter alia, collect neural data or recognize an individual’s emotional state. “Neural data” means information that is generated by measuring the activity of an employee’s central or peripheral nervous system, and that is not inferred from nonneural information. The bill also defines an employer to include a governmental entity, including, among other entities, charter cities and the University of California.
“Workplace surveillance tool” is defined as:
Any system, application, instrument, or device that collects or facilitates the collection of employee data, activities, communications, actions, biometrics, or behaviors by means other than direct observation by a person, including, but not limited to, video or audio surveillance, continuous incremental time-tracking tools, geolocation, electromagnetic tracking, photoelectronic tracking, or that utilizes a photo-optical system or other means.
AB 1883 authorizes the Labor Commissioner or a public prosecutor to enforce the bill’s provisions. The law subjects an employer who violates the bill’s provisions to a civil penalty of up to $500 for each violation. The law takes effect January 1, 2027.
Workplace Surveillance and Privacy
SB 690 amends California Invasion of Privacy Act’s (CIPA) private right of action in § 637.2. Pen register and trap-and-trace claims under section 638.51 that arise from conduct on a website, online application, or mobile application could be brought only by the California Attorney General. Private plaintiffs won’t have the ability to file such claims.
The law would also apply retroactively. Claims in actions initiated within the two years before the bill’s January 1, 2027 operative date would be covered. As a result, many lawsuits currently pending could be within its reach. However, SB 690 changes just the remedy provision but doesn’t alter the definition of a pen register in §§ 638.50 or 638.51. Read our analysis of SB 690 here.
AB 1331 restricts the use of workplace surveillance tools by employers. This includes the prohibition of employers from monitoring or surveilling employees in a workplace bathroom. As of January 1, 2027, employers are not permitted to use a workplace surveillance tool to monitor employees in a workplace bathroom unless under court order. This prohibition of an employer’s monitoring or surveilling employees in a bathroom at the workplace. The bill would provide an employee with the right to leave behind workplace surveillance tools that are on their person or in their possession when entering a bathroom.
“Workplace surveillance tool” is defined as:
A system, application, instrument, or device that collects or facilitates the collection of employee data, activities, communications, actions, biometrics, or behaviors by means other than direct observation by a person, including, but not limited to, video or audio surveillance, continuous incremental time-tracking tools, geolocation, electromagnetic tracking, photoelectronic tracking, a photo-optical system, or other means. “Workplace surveillance tool” does not include smoke or carbon monoxide detectors or weapon detection systems that automatically screen a person’s body.
The bill would subject an employer to a civil penalty of up to $500 for each violation.
Bereavement Leave
This law (SB 1149) expands extended and chosen family to include a designated person identified by the employee, as specified, in the definition of “family member” and authorize an employer to limit an employee to one designated person per 12-month period for purposes of these provisions relating to bereavement leave.
“Designated person” means any individual related to the employee by blood or whose association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. This designated person may be identified by the employee at the time the employee requests the leave. An employer may limit an employee to one designated person per 12-month period for bereavement leave.
Harassment Prevention
AB 1803 requires employers to include an anti-hate speech component to their required sexual harassment prevention training beginning January 1, 2028. The required training and education must include information and practical guidance concerning the federal and state statutory provisions for the prohibition against and the prevention and correction of sexual harassment, as well as the available remedies to victims of sexual harassment in employment. The training and education must also include practical examples designed to instruct supervisors in the prevention of harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.
Sex Discrimination Definition Harmonization
This bill (AB 2563) creates a uniform definition of “sex discrimination” for all state statutes. This definition includes discrimination based on nonconformity with sex or gender stereotypes.
Workplace Incident Investigations
Cal/OSHA will enjoy added enforcement power, and interference becomes a crime pursuant to AB 2321. It makes it a misdemeanor to willfully resist, prevent, impede, or interfere with the chief or their authorized representative in the performance of their duties or to willfully violate a court order relating to those duties. By creating a new crime, this bill imposes a state-mandated local program. This bill also makes it a public offense if that violation caused serious injury, illness, or exposure.
Unlawful Immigration Related Retaliation
AB 2495 expands the prohibition of an unfair immigration-related practice. This bill expands the prohibition to include retaliating against any person for exercising any right under any local, state, or federal statute or regulation applicable to employees, and would prohibit preventing a person from exercising this right. The bill also prohibits an employer or any other person from engaging in any other conduct, related to any person’s perceived immigration status, that would reasonably tend to dissuade a person from engaging in conduct that the person has a legal right to engage in under any local, state, or federal statute or regulation applicable to employees, or to induce a person to engage in conduct that the person has a legal right to abstain from under any local, state, or federal statute or regulation applicable to employees. The bill makes an employer or other person who violates these provisions liable for a civil penalty not exceeding $10,000 per employee or person for each violation.
Workplace Violence Restraining Orders for Groups of Employees
AB 1961 allows an employer to seek a workplace violence restraining order on behalf of all employees at the employer’s workplace or a location at which a group of employees performs their primary job duties if harassment, unlawful violence, or a credible threat of violence is directed at that workplace or location. The bill doesn’t require an employer to name any individual employee as a protected party if the employer seeks a workplace violence restraining order on behalf of all employees at the employer’s workplace or a location at which a group of employees performs their primary job duties.
Public Works: Disclosure of Wage and Hour Violations
AB 1838 requires a contractor, as a condition of submitting a bid to a local agency for a public works contract, to fully disclose any history of wage and hour violations and provide supporting documentation. Under the bill, a contractor that fails to provide the required disclosures and supporting materials is disqualified from the bid. The bill would require a local agency to establish a process for a contractor to appeal their bid disqualification. By requiring local agencies to establish a bid disqualification appeal process, this bill imposes the creation of a state-mandated local program. The bill exempts public works contracts covered by a project labor agreement, and projects where local agencies require contractors to prequalify as a condition of bidding.
Labor Commissioner Liens and Evidence
SB 1316 precludes a contractor or subcontractor from introducing as evidence at a hearing or writ of mandate proceeding, any books, documents, or records that aren’t provided pursuant to a duly served written request by the Labor Commissioner within the time that the Commissioner requests those books, documents, or records to be produced. The bill requires the Commissioner to consider a reasonable request from the contractor or subcontractor for an extension of time for production of books, documents, or records. The bill also allows the labor commissioner to renew a wage judgment lien on an employer’s real property for additional 10-year periods.
Pay Data Reporting Penalties
SB 1237 increases pay data reporting penalties for repeat failures. This bill requires the department to annually publish the number of total pay data reports submitted. California employers with 100 or more employees (or 100 or more workers hired through labor contractors) must file an annual pay data report with the Civil Rights Department. The maximum penalty for a subsequent failure to file increases from $200 to $1,000 per employee; however, the limit for a first violation will remain at $100 per employee.
“Stay or Pay” Effective Date Adjustment
AB 1697 delays the 2025 Anti-Trap Act’s restrictions on stay or pay repayment clauses so they apply to contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2027, instead of January 1, 2026. The bill broadens the new hire bonus exception to include post-hire bonuses and adds new exceptions for grant funded programs, securities or insurance producer agreements, and advanced paid time off benefits.
This is a follow-up to AB 692 in 2025, which promotes employee mobility and attempted to prevent “stay or pay” provisions in employment. The 2025 law prohibited specific employment contracts that required a worker to repay an employer when the employment relationship or work stopped.
As originally enacted, the law provided an exception in the following two situations: (i) transferable credential tuition costs; and (ii) discretionary monetary bonuses at the outset of employment (e.g., a sign-on bonus or relocation expenses) not linked to specific job performance.
Takeaway
Most of these new laws take effect January 1, 2027; as a consequence, California employers should start updating handbooks, policies, notices, and training materials. Employers using automated decision systems or AI-driven workplace tools should review the systems they use that potentially qualify as “automated decision systems” under the new legislation.
Contact Eanet, PC to make certain your business complies with the new laws by the effective date.
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About the author
Danielle G. Eanet, Esq.
Danielle is a shareholder at Eanet, PC, a Los Angeles litigation boutique. She defends employers in discrimination, harassment, wage-and-hour, PAGA, and trade secrets matters in California state and federal court, and previously practiced at Littler Mendelson, the world's largest employment law firm. She co-authored the intellectual property chapter of The Littler Mendelson Guide to International Employment and Labor Law (LexisNexis) and is regularly quoted on California employment law developments.
Reviewed October 2026