California Increases Workplace Compliance Requirements for 2027

10.09.2026

California employers face new obligations and expanded employee protections following the close of the Fall 2026 legislative season. This Alert outlines the new employment laws and compliance updates that California businesses must now prepare to implement in their policies and practices. Unless otherwise noted, the laws described below will take effect on January 1, 2027.

SB 1149 (Bereavement Leave for Designated Persons)

California Government Code section 12945.7 requires covered employers to permit eligible employees to take up to five days of unpaid, job-protected leave following the death of a covered family member, defined to include the employee’s spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, domestic partner, or parent-in-law. SB 1149 adds “designated person” to the list of individuals for whom an employee can take bereavement leave. Within SB 1149, a “designated person” is defined as someone related to the employee by blood or whose association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship. An employee may identify the designated person at the time they request the leave, but the employer may limit the employee to one designated person per 12-month period for bereavement leave purposes. Employers should update their employee handbooks per SB 1149.

SB 947 (Human Review of Automated Discipline and Termination Decisions)

Effective July 1, 2027, SB 947 adds provisions to the Labor Code prohibiting employers from relying solely on an automated decision system (“ADS”) to make disciplinary or termination decisions. For purposes of SB 947, an “ADS” is defined as any computational process derived from machine learning, statistical modeling, data analytics, or artificial intelligence that issues simplified output, including a score, classification, or recommendation, that is used to assist or replace human discretionary decision-making and materially impacts natural persons. Ordinary tools such as spam email filters, firewalls, antivirus software, identity and access management tools, calculators, databases, datasets, and other compilations of data are excluded from the definition of an ADS.

When an employer primarily relies on ADS output to make a disciplinary or termination decision, the employer must direct a human to corroborate the decision using the underlying data or other supporting information, such as supervisory evaluations, personnel files, employee work product, peer reviews, witness interviews, or relevant online customer reviews. If the ADS output cannot be corroborated, or the reviewer finds it inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading, the employer may not use it to make the disciplinary or termination decision. When the employer primarily relies on an ADS, it must also give the affected employee a written, plain language, standalone notice when the decision is communicated. The notice must disclose the employer’s ADS reliance and the human corroboration, identify a human contact, advise the employee of the right to request a description of the employee’s own data the ADS used, and state that retaliation is prohibited. Upon request, the employer must provide a meaningful, objective description of that data. When an employer is required to provide a description of the data, that description shall be provided in a manner that anonymizes the customer’s, other employee’s, or individual’s personal information.

SB 947 also prohibits an employer from using an ADS to infer an employee’s protected status under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”), to predict and take adverse action against employees for exercising legal rights, or to prevent compliance with, or to violate, labor, employment, safety, or civil rights laws. SB 947 also protects employees from retaliation for exercising their rights under the law, filing a complaint, including with the Labor Commissioner, or participating in an investigation relating to an alleged violation of the law. The law empowers the Labor Commissioner and public prosecutors to enforce SB 947 with possible damages including civil penalties, injunctive relief, punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees and costs.

SB 951 (AI-Related Disclosures in Cal-WARN Notices)

SB 951 amends the California WARN Act within the Labor Code to require additional notifications when a mass layoff, relocation, or termination is caused, in whole or in substantial part, by an AI system or other automated technology that replaces or automates positions. Under these circumstances, the 60-day Cal-WARN notice must state:

the number, classification or occupation, and work location of the layoffs substantially due to the replacement or automation by AI or other automated technology;
the job functions performed by those replaced workers that will be automated by AI or other automated technology; and
the specific category or type of AI system or other automating technology that substantially resulted in technological displacement.
The statement, “This notice is for a technology displacement” must be included at the top of the notice.

The Employment Development Department (“EDD”) must publish summaries of these notices on its website, along with quarterly statewide summaries. By January 1, 2028, the EDD must also report to the Legislature on AI’s effects on hiring and give recommendations as to whether the state should require notice when employers permanently stop hiring or contracting for positions because of AI or other automated technology. Cal-WARN’s coverage thresholds, 60-day period, and penalties are unchanged by SB 951.

AB 1883 (Limits on AI-Enabled Workplace Surveillance)

AB 1883 bars employers from using an AI-powered workplace surveillance tool on employees in order to recognize, infer, or predict an individual’s emotional state, or to collect neural data. For purposes of AB 1883, “neural data” is information generated by measuring the activity of the employee’s central or peripheral nervous system, and that is not inferred from nonneural data. The statute also broadly defines “workplace surveillance tool” to mean 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 video and audio surveillance, continuous incremental time-tracking tools, geolocation, electromagnetic tracking, photoelectronic tracking, or that utilizes a photo-optical system or other means.

Employers may still use workplace surveillance tools to ensure safety or for other legitimate reasons, provided the use does not violate AB 1883’s prohibitions. The statute also exempts uses reasonably necessary under federal law or federal contracts for aircraft development and certain national security, military, space, or defense purposes. AB 1883 applies to all private sector employers, certain public employers, labor contractors, farm labor contractors, foreign labor contractors, and any business that contracts with a labor contractor. The Labor Commissioner and public prosecutors enforce the law and may seek injunctive relief, punitive damages, civil or statutory penalties, and attorney’s fees.

AB 2150 (Opioid-Related Emergency Preparedness)

AB 2150 adds to the Health and Safety Code a new requirement that employers who mandate CPR training of their employees must also require those same employees to take an online video module training on the use of naloxone that has been approved by the Emergency Medical Services Authority, in order to increase the rate of opioid overdose reversals. The employer must pay the costs of the training. AB 2150 also requires the Emergency Medical Services Authority to review and approve the online video module trainings to ensure that the training includes, at a minimum, information on recognizing an opioid overdose, appropriate response actions, and the proper administration of naloxone or other approved opioid antagonists. An employee who has completed CPR certification, first aid certification, or other training through a program that the Emergency Medical Services Authority determines includes training that meets or exceeds these minimum standards need not be provided with a separate opioid overdose training, provided the employer maintains records of the qualifying training.

AB 2495 (Unlawful Immigration-Related Practices)

AB 2495 amends California Labor Code section 1019 by making it unlawful for an employer or any other person to engage in unfair immigration-related practices in order to retaliate against a person for attempting to exercise any right protected by any local, state, or federal employment laws. This includes protections for reporting any employment law violations in good faith, seeking information regarding whether applicable employment laws are being followed, and informing someone else of their rights under employment laws and assisting them in asserting their rights.

AB 2495 also prohibits employers from engaging in any conduct related to a person’s perceived immigration status that would reasonably tend to dissuade the person from engaging in protected activity or induce the person to engage in any conduct that they have the legal right to decline to do. The new law also provides for a rebuttable presumption of retaliation in the event that an employer violates Labor Code section 1019 within 90 days of a person’s exercise of protected rights under any employment law. AB 2495 includes a civil penalty of $10,000 per employee or other aggrieved person for each violation of the law.

AB2155 (Validity of Agreements to Arbitrate)

AB 2155 amends the California Arbitration Act (“CAA”) to provide that any arbitration agreement that is unenforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) is likewise unenforceable under the CAA. The new law’s stated purpose is to ensure that California’s arbitration statute is in line with federal law and that parties who fall outside the FAA’s reach or whose claims are otherwise excluded from mandatory arbitration under federal law cannot be compelled to arbitrate under the CAA as an alternative pathway. For additional information about AB 2155, please read our prior Alert.

AB 1697 (Stay-or-Pay Revisions)

AB 1697 went into effect on September 30, 2026 and delays the effective date of California’s stay-or-pay provisions in the Business and Professions Code and Labor Code to January 1, 2027. AB 1697 also adds new exceptions to the law’s general rule prohibiting contractual terms that require employees to repay debts or pay fees, penalties, or costs upon separation from employment. The new exceptions include:

Certain contracts entered into per a recruitment and retention program funded by governmental agencies that offer certain bonuses.
Contracts for the receipt of a retention bonus that is not tied to specific performance, provided certain conditions are met.
Contracts for the receipt of retention and sign-on bonuses for specified securities, insurance, and investment businesses and certain of their agents.
A repayment obligation of up to 40 hours of advanced PTO arising from an employee’s voluntary separation, provided all conditions in the statute are met.

AB 2054 (Paid Family Leave Expansion)

AB 2054 expands the definition of “covered active duty” under Unemployment Insurance Code section 3302.1 for purposes of eligibility for the state’s Paid Family Leave (“PFL”) benefits. Under current law, “covered active duty” includes deployment of a member of the regular Armed Forces of the United States to a foreign country and deployment of reserve components to a foreign country under a federal call or order. AB2054 expands this definition to also include: (1) deployment to a location other than a foreign country; (2) for a member of the regular Armed Forces of the United States, duty during the member’s deployment or training with the regular Armed Forces; and (3) for a member of the reserve components of the Armed Forces of the United States, including the National Guard, duty performed during training or a call or order to federal or state active duty. These changes will take effect when they can be incorporated into the EDD’s integrated claims management system or on July 1, 2028, whichever occurs sooner.

AB 1803 (Anti-Hate Speech Training)

AB 1803 requires employers to include an anti-hate speech component within the state-mandated workplace harassment prevention training starting January 1, 2028. Anti-hate speech training shall provide both supervisors and employees with practical guidance on recognizing, reporting, and confronting workplace speech that vilifies, humiliates, or incites hatred against people based on their FEHA-protected characteristics. Harassment prevention training that includes information about the prohibition against unlawful harassment and prevention of abusive conduct based on an individual’s FEHA-protected characteristics will satisfy the anti-hate speech training requirement.

AB 1961 (Workplace Violence Restraining Orders for Workplaces)

AB 1961 amends Code of Civil Procedure section 527.8 to permit an employer to seek a temporary restraining order on behalf of all of its employees at a workplace or location where a group of employees perform their primary job duties, when harassment, unlawful violence, or a credible threat of violence is directed at that workplace or location. This includes when no specific employee is named as the target of the threat or when the entire workforce is specified. The law previously only permitted employers to seek such restraining orders on behalf of specific individual employees. AB 1961 also permits the issuance of a restraining order that restricts a person from making phone calls, contacting, or coming within a specific distance of the identified workplace.

AB 187 (Labor Code Provisions for Goat Herders)

Effective immediately, AB 187 adds certain wage and hour provisions to the Labor Code applicable to specified goat herders. Among other things, the bill permits an employer to pay a statutory monthly minimum wage for goat herders employed on a regularly scheduled, 24-hour, seven-days-per-week “on call” basis. The bill also provides specific rules for goat herders relating to tools and equipment, meal periods, rest periods, seating, lodging, worksite requirements, and posting requirements. AB 187 remains in effect only until January 1, 2029.

AB 2646 (Agricultural Employee Minimum Wage)

AB 2646 establishes a $19.75 minimum hourly wage for “approved agricultural employees” and “corresponding employees,” with regular annual cost-of-living adjustments to that rate of pay. “Approved agricultural employees” are defined within the law as employees engaged in agriculture who reside outside of California and are permitted to work in California on a temporary or seasonal basis (i.e., generally not longer than one year) through an application process and with the approval of the California Labor Workforce Development Agency (“LWDA”) or the California EDD. “Corresponding employees” are defined as those employees who are engaged in agriculture, reside in California, and perform the same or substantially similar work during the same time period as approved agricultural employees, for the same employer and in the same county.

AB 1331(Workplace Surveillance in Private Areas)

AB 1331 amends the Labor Code to prohibit employers from using any “workplace surveillance tool” to monitor or surveil their employees in workplace bathrooms. The law also gives employees the right to leave behind any workplace surveillance tools that are on their person or in their possession upon entering a bathroom, except when the employee is required to remain on duty during meal or rest periods per applicable law. However, an employer is not in violation of AB 1331 if an employee brings a workplace surveillance tool (e.g., a badge or personal alarm system) into a workplace bathroom because the employer has a policy that requires that workplace surveillance tool to be in the employee’s possession while on work premises for identification or safety purposes or if the tool is required to access a locked or secured bathroom, if the workplace surveillance tool does not detect or record audio or video and does not have physically embedded or attached artificial intelligence.

For purposes of the new law, a “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. AB 1331 will be enforced by the Labor Commissioner and public prosecutors and violations may result in injunctive relief, punitive damages, attorney’s fees and costs, and penalties.

AB 2563 (Amending FEHA Definition of “Sex Discrimination”)

AB 2564 amends the FEHA to expand the definition of “sex discrimination” to include discrimination based on any of the following actual or perceived characteristics or actions:

(A) Assigned sex or gender category, including female, male, or nonbinary.

(B) Degree of conformity to sex or gender stereotypes.

(C) Gender, including gender identity, gender expression, and access to, and use of, gender affirming care and other related health care.

(D) Pregnancy or related medical conditions.

(E) Decision-making, access to care, or potential or actual use of a drug, device, product, or service relating to pregnancy or related medical conditions.

(F) Sexual orientation.

(G) Variations in sex characteristics, including intersex traits or differences in sex development.

AB 2564 frames these changes as reflective of the existing protections within the law.

The definition of “sex discrimination” under the FEHA would have been expanded further by AB 1940 to protect “perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause or medical conditions related to perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause.” However, Governor Newsom vetoed AB 1940, so it will not become the law.

Employers with questions regarding any of the above new laws and obligations may contact one of this article’s authors or their usual employment law counsel at AALRR.