A California initiative to allow more rent control appears to be failing overwhelmingly, despite the state’s exploding housing costs and ever-rising rents, and its sponsors are already talking about trying again in 2020.

I’m the HR manager for my company, and a director wanted to write up an employee for posting an article titled “Employees Don’t Leave Jobs, They Leave Managers” on her personal LinkedIn account. The director had already spoken with the employee and asked her to remove the article from LinkedIn, which she did. However, this doesn’t appear to be a violation of our organization’s social media policy. What should I do?

A Florida-based company accused of botching the clean-up after last year’s devastating fires in Santa Rosa has jumped into California politics, writing big checks to Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign and the California Democratic Party.

Californians in November will weigh billions of dollars’ worth of ballot measures for low-income housing, children’s hospitals and more. But one of the biggest asks will be mostly invisible to most voters—100 or more local proposals to sell bonds for school construction projects that, if passed, could total more than $12 billion in local borrowing in coming years.

As California lawmakers struggled this week to address an apparent new normal of epic wildfires, there was an inescapable subtext: Climate change is going to be staggeringly expensive, and virtually every Californian is going to have to pay for it.

My organization’s dress code is business casual — jeans are acceptable with nice tops. But our leadership team disagrees over who should have to follow this dress code. Should all our employees have the same expectations or is there a different standard for those that come in contact with clients or vendors more regularly?

State and federal labor laws give employees a wide range of worker protections, from overtime pay and minimum wages to the right to unionize. But those rights don’t extend to independent contractors, whose ranks have grown dramatically in the gig economy.

It was Arnold Schwarzenegger at his most persuasive: The then-California governor laid out an audacious vision, borrowed from legislators, of the Golden State leading the world in fighting the damaging effects of climate change.

Jennifer Randlett Madden, partner at Delfino Madden O’Malley Coyle & Koewler, offers her insight into independent contractor classification. For more from Madden, check out “Classification Complications” in our August issue, and now online.

Employee classification is already murky territory for many business owners, and recent changes have further tightened requirements. Yet, with huge penalties attached to mistakes, the laws are critical to understand.

Dilemma of the Month: My business is quite seasonal. We have work year round, but in the off-season we don’t need the same number of employees. It’s just not profitable to keep everyone on the payroll 12 months out of the year. Can I drop hours? Can I lay people off and rehire? Are there things that make one option better than the other?

Diana Dooley may have led the largest agency in California’s government as secretary of health and human services for the past eight years, a job that led to her current post as Gov. Jerry Brown’s chief of staff—but she’s also a country gal from Hanford, in the Central Valley.

Democratic legislators say they’ve settled their differences on net neutrality in California, advancing bills that, if passed, would create the most far-reaching internet regulation in the country.

In April, investigators arrested a suspect in the decades-old case of the Golden State Killer after sifting through online genetic data. The arrest has set off one of the most vigorous recent debates about privacy in the digital age. 

This year’s tax-filing deadline of April 17 will arrive whether or not your business is ready. What’s at stake? Comstock’s spoke with experts in the Capital Region to learn how your business can avoid tax audit triggers and abide by the rules.

The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on a high-profile case that could slash the power of public-employee unions. But California labor leaders are already planning to push for new state laws to blunt the impact of an unfavorable ruling.

A client recently threatened to quit working with us after seeing politically-charged posts she deemed offensive on one of my account manager’s social media accounts. I’ve asked the employee not to let this happen again, but he countered that we have no policy in place (which is true), and furthermore, these are his personal accounts and he is entitled to free speech. How can I deal with this situation?

California rang in the new year with a newly legal product: cannabis.

The world’s biggest chipmakers and software companies, including Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp., are coming to grips with a vulnerability that leaves vast numbers of computers and smartphones susceptible to hacking and performance slowdowns.

I interviewed a job candidate who was severely overweight and had trouble walking. While the job is mostly a desk job (administrative assistant) the admins are expected to run things back and forth when needed. Could I have asked her about her health? I didn’t. I didn’t offer her the job, either, and now I’m feeling guilty. What should I have done?