Workplace Safety

Employers and unions are grappling with the opioid crisis, while the state inches toward requiring Narcan in workplaces.

The state Labor Commissioner sometimes struggles to get back pay to workers when it reaches wage theft settlements. It tries social media, TV and hotlines. But money owed to employees is still sitting in state accounts.

California failed to ban private detention centers. Now, it’s focusing on their working conditions, for immigrants who toil for $1 a day.

California prison workers were wrongly excluded from indoor heat regulations passed earlier this year, despite facing brutal conditions that will only get worse in the coming decades.

The California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board is about to pass long-awaited rules to protect workers from indoor heat. The governor’s office demoted the board’s chairperson and removed another member who criticized the administration.

State workplace safety officials plan to protect employees from indoor heat this summer. But due to cost concerns, a separate rule is in the works for state prisons that will take more time.

The US Labor Department investigated a company it says employed underaged workers as deboners then shipped its product. The company’s lawyer denies it.

The Private Attorneys General Act is a unique California law making it easier for employees to sue their bosses. For two decades, it's been the subject of political and legal infighting but a pending ballot measure would decide its fate.

Under two new laws, employers in California can’t ask workers about their use of cannabis outside the workplace and can’t use hair or urine tests. Employees in construction are excluded, as are applicants for federal jobs with background checks.

The Exclusive Poultry Inc. agreed to pay $3.8 million in wages, damages and penalties in part for hiring children for dangerous work. The case is one of hundreds federal labor officials investigated last year.