“Delano Regional Medical Center in Kern County defended its English-only policy as necessary for patient care.” Nonetheless, without admitting wrongdoing, it yielded to a complaint from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center that it had improperly penalized Filipino-American workers for communicating with each other in their own language. The suit had alleged, among other things, that the hospital had been more liberal in permitting the use of other languages other than English, and that it had not prevented workers from making fun of accents and expressing ethnically-based hostility. [L.A. Times, ABA Journal]
Posts Tagged ‘California’
Schools roundup
- “Background Checks for School Volunteers: Helpful or The Opposite?” [Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids] And Kennedy interviews anti-helicopter mom Skenazy at Reason.tv;
- NAACP asks Department of Education to strike down entrance exam used by NYC for selective high schools [Roger Clegg, NRO]
- Even as feds restrict school lunch calories, they pump up new breakfast program. Both ways their power grows [James Bovard/USA Today, Ira Stoll] And here comes an expanded federal program of afterschool, weekend and holiday meals, relieving parents even further of responsibility [FRAC]
- If fiscal stringency is destroying U. Calif., you’d never guess from the diversity end of it [Heather Mac Donald, City Journal] Ilya Shapiro op-ed on Fisher v. University of Texas [Jurist, background] Why not let universities run themselves? [Richard Epstein]
- NYC: “Interesting that this all happened at the High School for *Legal Studies*.” [Ann Althouse]
- Bill vetoed by California Gov. Brown would require state university professors seeking tenure to engage in “service.” Research, teaching don’t count? [John Leo, Minding the Campus; history]
- After Tucson’s ethnic “solidarity” curriculum [New York Times via @NealMcCluskey]
Gov. Brown starts vetoing
The California legislature this term chose to pass a raft of exceptionally bad legislation burdening business and employers, and Gov. Jerry Brown, perhaps mindful of the state’s ongoing poor economic performance, last week vetoed many of them [Ira Stoll, NY Sun; Steven Greenhut, City Journal] Among the vetoes: bills widening the rights of housekeepers’, babysitters’ and other domestic workers to sue their employers [earlier here, here]; greatly widening the survivors’ benefits paid for public safety workers [earlier, update]; unionizing grad student research assistants [Daily Californian] and an ostensible farmworker safety measure [Ruth Evans, Fresno Bee]
P.S. “Starts” isn’t really accurate, since, as David Boaz has pointed out, Gov. Brown cast some good vetoes last year.
A CALPERS power grab for private pensions?
Coyote has some questions about a sweeping yet underpublicized new California law.
P.S. Josh Barro writes via Twitter (adapted), “I don’t buy this. Worker participation is voluntary, and if it looks like they’re paying into a slush fund, they’ll withdraw. I’d worry more that CALPers will start offering a tax-backed defined benefit to private workers, atop public promises. I think it would be a fine idea to let people participate in the CALPers investment fund, with the participant bearing all risk. Big pension funds do have real administrative cost advantages over 401(k)s. The problem is they get in the risk-shifting business. The bill says California must ‘secure private underwriting and reinsurance to manage risk and insure the retirement savings rate of return.’ I think that means there’s no reliance on a taxpayer guarantee — risk must be borne by a private firm and therefore priced right.”
P.P.S. Scott Shackford at Reason has further analysis, calling attention to “guaranteed return” language as well as to the AP’s description of the program’s must-make-an-effort-to-get-out structure: “The program directs employers to withhold 3 percent of their workers’ pay unless the employee opts out of the savings program, which can be done every two years.”
“New California law kickstarts home-based food businesses”
“The California Homemade Food Act clears the way for home cooks to make and sell a wide range of products, such as jams and jellies, without the need to invest in commercial kitchen space or comply with zoning and other regulations.” [Christian Science Monitor]
Labor and employment roundup
- “Wisconsin Judge To Voters: Drop Dead” [Matt Patterson, CEI; Adam Freedman, PoL; J.D. Tuccille, Reason]
- “How much of Occupy rally shrinkage is due to unions moving on and focusing their energy elsewhere?” [@daveweigel]
- Should babysitters be legally entitled to work rules and meal breaks? California Senate approves “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights” pushed by celebs, AFL-CIO [Politico, earlier]
- Good luck in getting that “don’t disparage or defame” employment policy past the NLRB [Molly DiBianca, Delaware Employment Law Blog]
- “Hospital unionization harms the sick” [David Bier and Iain Murray, Capital Research Center]
- Penn, Columbia: we’ll use this big cash pot to discriminate in faculty hiring [Minding the Campus: KC Johnson, John Rosenberg, Roger Clegg]
- More on NLRB’s new curbs on confidentiality in internal employee investigations [WSJ Law Blog, earlier]
Prop 37 and GMOs, cont’d
The California proposition [earlier here, here, and here] is now running into a wave of disapproving editorials in California newspapers, including the Sacramento Bee. Tyler Cowen administers a well deserved rebuke to tendentious NYT food-policy columnist Mark Bittman [Marginal Revolution and followup] Also check out the analysis by Jonathan Adler [“How Not to Label Biotech Foods,” New Atlantis] and Baylen Linnekin [“California’s GMO Labeling Law Isn’t the Answer,” Reason] And in California Political Review, John Hrabe notes my Daily Caller piece in the course of observations about the ambition of some Californians to play regulator to the world. (& Matt Bogard)
Somewhat relatedly, it is now clear that Vitamin-A-laden golden rice could fight child blindness arising from nutritional deficiency in the underdeveloped world; alas, it’s being held back by Greenpeace anti-GMO efforts [Margaret Wente/Toronto Globe and Mail; Art Caplan, NBC]
September 19 roundup
- “Ohio Man Cites Obesity as Reason to Delay Execution” [WSJ Law Blog]
- West Hollywood bans sale of fur, no bonfires on the beach, and a thousand other California bans [New York Times]
- “Volunteers sued for ‘civil conspiracy’ for planning an open rival to WikiTravel” [Gyrovague]
- Practice of check-rounding at some Chipotles allows class action lawyers to put in their two cents [Ted at PoL]
- Daniel Fisher on business cases in the upcoming Supreme Court term [Forbes]
- In Bond v. U.S., coming back like a boomerang from an earlier ruling, Supreme Court may at last have to resolve whether the federal government can expand its constitutional powers just by signing on to treaties [Ilya Shapiro and Trevor Burrus, Cato]
- Law nerd’s heavy-breather: “50 Shades of Administrative Law” [LawProfBlawg]
Annals of California wage and hour law
Why “we recently were forced to institute an HR policy in California that working through lunch is a firing offense.” [Coyote]
Finally: California moves to curtail ADA shakedowns
AP: “SB1186 by Democratic Senate leader Darrell Steinberg and Republican Sen. Bob Dutton would ban so-called ‘demand letters’ in which lawyers threaten to sue over a violation unless a business pays a set amount. It also would require attorneys to give businesses notice before filing a lawsuit.” Sacramento Bee: “A key element of SB 1186 is that potential damages for disability access violations would drop from a minimum of $4,000 to much less, $2,000 in some cases, $1,000 in others, if the defendant corrected violations very quickly.” The damages would still remain higher than are available in most states, however, and “one-way” attorney fee shifts would remain available. The bill would also restrict “stacking” of multiple damage demands based on repeat visits to premises before the suit is heard. More: The Recorder.
We’ve been covering the disgrace of California access litigation for years and years. Because large sums will still be recoverable under the new rules, I expect the industry of complaint-filing will continue in some form, even if it becomes somewhat less lucrative.