What's New for 2007: New Laws Affecting California Employers; Are You Up to Speed?

Many HR professionals agree, hands down, that California imposes more legal and regulatory burdens on employers than any other state in the country.

In 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger and the California legislature kept that tradition alive by passing a wide range of new employment-related statutes and rules. These changes affect everything from minimum-wage levels and sexual harassment prevention training for supervisors to your workers' overtime pay records and their use of cell phones when they're driving on the job. Do you know the new HR laws and rules that go into effect starting in 2007? Are you 100 percent confident that you're ready to comply with them? 

In this 90-minute audio conference created especially for California employers—we'll explain (in plain English) the brand-new laws and rules you need to know about. You'll learn how to gauge whether these changes apply to your workplace, as well as the practical steps you can take immediately to be sure you're in compliance. And, we'll preview the hottest HR issues on the legislature's radar in 2007, so that you'll be ready for new employment laws that may be coming down the road soon.

What You Will Learn:

• The 2007 changes to HR-related laws and regulations for California employers
• Effective strategies for complying with the new rules
• How to manage the new two-step increase in California's minimum wage levels, and what the future may hold for additional increases
• The newest updates to your obligations under A.B. 1825, the sexual harassment training law
• The best ways to comply with new regulations governing how you account for overtime hours on employees' pay stubs
• Whether proposed California legislation that failed to pass in 2006—from single-payer health insurance to higher penalties for gender pay equity violations—could come back to haunt you down the road

About Your Speaker:

Michelle La Mar is a partner in the Los Angeles office of law firm Loeb & Loeb LLP. She co-chairs the firm's employment and labor law group. Her practice comprises both counseling and litigation representing employers, with an emphasis on preventive measures. She routinely advises California-based employers in conjunction with wage and hour issues, downsizings, terminations, harassment investigations, mandated leaves of absence, disability accommodation requirements and employment-related issues associated with mergers and acquisitions. La Mar's practice also includes the drafting and updating of handbooks, policy manuals, codes of conduct, executive employment agreements, and severance packages.