The California Supreme Court ruling curtails the ability of public employees in the state to seek help from the courts in labor disputes.
Public agencies in California are not subject to a controversial law that gives workers the power to sue their employers over alleged labor violations, the state's Supreme Court has ruled. In the unanimous decision issued last week in a case involving a large healthcare system in the Bay Area, justices on California's top court also found that public employers are largely exempt from wage law giving workers the right to daily meal and rest breaks.
allows workers to pursue civil penalties on the state’s behalf, with a quarter of any award going to the employees who brought the claim and the rest to the state's Labor and Workforce Development Agency to help fund its enforcement of labor rules. In light of the ruling, state lawmakers could pass new legislation or amend the law to include government workers, the court said.
lawsuits by public employees in the past, but the top court's decision prevents such rulings in the future. The decision adds to a long history of 'cutting public employees out of certain rights,' said Ari Stiller, attorney for the California Employment Lawyers Assn. Treating public employers as sovereign entities 'hurts public workers,' Stiller said.
is one of the most important statutes workers have available to them to enforce their labor code rights. Although unions representing public sector workers may be able to negotiate rights for workers similar to those provided by state laws, Stiller said, 'that’s not a strong justification for depriving all public workers of those rights in the first place.'
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