Workforce Bulletin

What employers should know about key developments this week:

• Two Federal Agencies Target DEI: The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is urging its employees to file whistleblower complaints and report diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) activities that violate the administration’s ban. Additionally, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released a 2025-2029 National Enforcement Plan that prioritizes enforcement against DEI-related discrimination.
• DOL Opinion Letters: The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division published four opinion letters addressing overtime exemptions, bonuses, meal breaks, and compensable work. While these letters do not signal dramatic shifts in the DOL’s position, they provide greater clarity, consistency, and transparency.
• PAGA Standing: A California appeals court held that an employee who loses in individual arbitration may also lose standing to bring a representative claim under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA).

Following the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana (2022) U.S. 639 and the California Supreme Court’s decision in Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc. (2023) 14 Cal. 5^th 1104, when faced with employee arbitration agreements, California trial courts have regularly compelled plaintiffs to arbitrate their individual Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) claims first, while staying their representative, non-individual PAGA claims.

In an attempt to avoid arbitrating the named plaintiffs’ individual PAGA claims – and knowing that the representative, non-individual claims would be dismissed if the employers prevailed in an individual arbitration – more than a few plaintiff’s counsel have tried to circumvent Adolph by asserting that their clients were not bringing individual claims at all, but were only bringing claims on behalf of others. 

In response, employers have argued that, based on the clear statutory language, every PAGA action necessarily includes an individual PAGA action such that those individual claims have to be arbitrated first.

On August 1, 2024, in Turrieta v. Lyft et al., the California Supreme Court held that a plaintiff in a Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) action does not have a right to intervene -- or to object to or vacate a judgment -- in a separate PAGA action involving overlapping claims.

The Court’s conclusion resolves an issue that is not uncommon in PAGA litigation where a resolution is reached in one of several separate PAGA lawsuits filed against the same employer. And it will make it easier for parties to resolve PAGA actions without fear that settlements will be toppled by other employees or their lawyers. 

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday®: This week, we’re examining California Governor Gavin Newsom’s new deal that was brokered to amend the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA).  

Last week, Governor Newsom announced that California’s business and labor groups had come to an agreement to reform PAGA. Two legislative bills encompassing the agreed-upon PAGA reforms (AB 2288 and SB 92) were signed into law by Governor Newsom on July 1, 2024. Epstein Becker Green attorney Kevin Sullivan tells us more about the PAGA reforms, their potential impact on California employers, and who the likely winners and losers are.

As featured in #WorkforceWednesday: This week, we present a California labor and employment update featuring the upcoming deadline for non-compete notice rules, workplace violence regulations by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA), and the recent Estrada decision's implications for the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA).

Here’s a question you likely have never considered: Are hackers overseas infiltrating employers’ computer systems just to sign arbitration agreements with class action waivers for random employees?

While there is no evidence that this has ever happened anywhere, and no logical reason why it would, plaintiffs’ lawyers and even some courts seem to believe this could happen. And that is at the heart of the latest battleground over arbitration agreements with class actions waivers.

Since the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis, more and more ...

On January 18, 2024, the California Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, resolving a dispute among the appellate courts and concluding that Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) claims may not be stricken as unmanageable. 

While some have read the decision as a resounding victory for the plaintiffs’ bar that will force every PAGA case to settle for large amounts, the decision does no such thing.

It may challenge employers and their lawyers to be more creative, but it does not mean that every PAGA action now warrants an outsized ...