Today, and largely due to the coronavirus pandemic that we have been experiencing in recent years, the way people work has also changed. From now on, there are numerous companies that decided to transmit all their operations to a virtual mode, in order to avoid the expenses generated by office rents. The “home office” as it is known, is here to stay and with it, laws had to be established to protect the rights of workers regardless of whether they are working from the comfort of their homes.
Work from home in California: Laws
The state of California made its work from home laws effective as of January 1 of this year, 2022, so employers had to accommodate and make the necessary adjustments to comply with the law right at the beginning of the year.
One of the first laws that were established has to do with being able to take paid days off in case of being infected with coronavirus to be isolated and regardless of whether you work from home, you can request these days in case you have symptoms that prevent you from doing your activities due to discomfort or severity of illness.
In addition, another of the established laws, now allows employers to send important notices by mail since people who work from home cannot review the bulletin board that companies post or posted in offices and in this way, all employees they can and should be aware of any important announcements.
Apart from these two new laws, employees who carry out their activities from home have the same rights that they had when they went to the offices and employers must continue to respect them. Even working from home, any type of abuse, discrimination, wage theft, payment below the minimum wage (which also increased at the beginning of the year to 15 USD), among others, is still illegal.
In case you feel that your employer is not respecting your rights as when you were working in person, do not hesitate to contact us. We can help.