California Sexual Harassment Laws - SB 1300 and SB 1343

California's sexual harassment prevention laws have been expanded several times over the years, most recently in 2018 with SB 1300 and SB 1343. As with other states, three of the primary components of California law include:

• displaying a state-approved sexual harassment poster in the workplace;
• distributing a state-approved sexual harassment information sheet to all employees; and
• requiring that employers who are subject to the requirements of the law to provide training. For California, those employers include all public employers and any private employer with at least five employees, including employees who are seasonal, part-time, and temporary. (A previous version of the law required workplace training for only those employers with at least 50 employees.) Training is also now required of managers and employees instead of just managers.

The current California law also includes provisions that:

• make all workplaces, both public and private and regardless of industry, subject to the same law;
• expand the definition of a hostile work environment;
• prevent an employer from being released from liability for a sexual harassment claim as part of a deal to allow an employee to remain employed or to receive a raise, bonus, or promotion; and
• prevent an employer from requiring that sexual harassment be kept confidential as a condition of settling a sexual harassment claim.

More information about sexual harassment prevention in the state of California can be found here:

https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/

To help employers in the state of California to develop and implement effective sexual harassment prevention policies, the state has provide the following toolkit:

https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2018/12/SexualHarassmentandAbusiveConductPreventionTrainingToolkit.pdf