BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1506
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ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB
1506 (Committee on Labor and Employment)
As Introduced March 4, 2015
Majority vote
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|Committee |Votes |Ayes |Noes |
|----------------+------+---------------------+----------------------|
|Labor |5-2 |Roger Hernández, |Harper, Patterson |
| | |Chu, Low, McCarty, | |
| | |Thurmond | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+---------------------+----------------------|
|Appropriations |12-5 |Gomez, Bloom, Bonta, |Bigelow, Chang, |
| | |Calderon, Daly, |Gallagher, Jones, |
| | |Eggman, Eduardo |Wagner |
| | |Garcia, Holden, | |
| | |Quirk, Rendon, | |
| | |Weber, Wood | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY: Makes a clarifying change to add a statutory
cross-reference to a provision of existing law related to
specified "waiting time" penalties.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, this bill will result in minor and absorbable costs to
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the Department of Industrial Relations.
COMMENTS: When an employee is discharged, the wages earned and
unpaid at the time of discharge are due and payable immediately.
When an employee quits, their final wages are generally due not
less than 72 hours later, unless they had given 72 hours previous
notice of their intention to quit.
As an exception to the time for final payment of wages discussed
above, certain industries have special time periods for the final
payment of wages due to the unique nature of their industries.
For example, payment of wages for employees laid off or discharged
from production of motion pictures may be made by the next regular
payday (Labor Code Section 201.5). Existing law also has special
provisions related to temporary service employees, which generally
requires weekly pay (Labor Code Section 201.3).
Existing law provides that if an employer pays an employee any
wages or fringe benefits, or both, and the check, draft or voucher
is subsequently refused payment because the employer has no
account with the bank or has insufficient funds, those wages or
fringe benefits, or both, shall continue as a penalty from the due
date thereof at the same rate until paid or until an action
therefor is commenced. However, the law provides that those wages
and fringe benefits shall not continue for more than 30 days and
this penalty shall not apply if the employer can establish to the
satisfaction of the Labor Commissioner or an appropriate court of
law that the violation of the law was unintentional (Labor Code
Section 203.1).
Labor Code Section 203.1 specifically cross-references the special
Labor Code provisions noted above to provide that these penalties
are still applicable once the special time for payment of wages
has lapsed in those unique industries.
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However, Labor Code Section 203.1 fails to cross-reference one
special rule for final payment of wages - those governing live
theatrical and concert events. Current law allows employees at
venues that host live theatrical and concert events and their
employers to enter into a collective bargaining agreement to
establish a time limit for payment of wages after an employee is
discharged or laid off (Labor Code Section 201.9).
This appears to be an oversight, and this bill will amend the law
to add to Labor Code Section 203.1 the appropriate cross-reference
to Labor Code Section 201.9.
This measure is very similar to AB 2743 (Labor Committee) of 2014,
which amended a different section of the law that failed to
properly cross-reference Labor Code Section 201.9. Last year,
Legislative Counsel identified Labor Code Section 203.1 as
containing a similar error, but it was too late to amend AB 2743
to make the additional change. Therefore, this bill makes the
additional clarifying change identified by Legislative Counsel.
Analysis Prepared by:
Ben Ebbink / L. & E. / (916) 319-2091 FN: 0000214
AB 1506
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