
That Newsom Proposal For Six-Month Paid Family Leave? It’s Bold—But Less So Than It Seems
Californians who like the idea of getting more paid time off work to care for a new baby may find good news and bad news in the details of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget.

Dilemma Of The Month: How To Handle An Activist Employee
One of our employees is a vegan activist, and has started posting material on the “evils of eating meat” outside his cubicle or leaving them strewn around shared spaces (in the kitchen, near the copier, etc.). Is there anything I can do about this behavior?

These Masks Protect Against Particulates From Wildfire Smoke
Toby Lewsadder stepped outside an Ace Hardware store wearing a simple one-strap dust mask. He knew it wasn’t the right defense against the wildfire smoke lingering in the air, but it was all he could find.

Why Is California’s Rent-Control Initiative Tanking So Badly?
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.

Dilemma of The Month: When HR And Department Heads Clash
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?

Disaster Contractor Gives Big Money to California Dems
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.

Also on the November Ballot? Lots and Lots of School Bonds
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.

Climate Change Is Going to Cost California, and the Bill Will Be Staggering
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.

Dilemma of the Month: Who Follows the Dress Code?
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?

Gig Companies Beg for Relief from Pro-Labor Supreme Court Ruling
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.