San Jose Rolls Out Opportunity to Work Initiative March 13, 2017

Employers with 36 or more workers who maintain a facility in San Jose or who are subject to the San Jose Business License Tax must comply with the new Opportunity to Work initiative beginning March 13, 2017.  On that date, employers must offer additional work hours to all existing and qualified part-time employees before hiring new workers.  This includes subcontractors and the use of temporary staffing workers.  The new ordinance does not apply to executive, administrative or professional employees.

Eligible workers must work at least 2 hours per week within an eligible San Jose business and must qualify as an employee under the California minimum wage law.  The provision applies to both temporary and seasonal workers.

What Employers Should Know

• Employers who do not comply with the law, may be subject to penalties.
• Employers may not penalize employees who exercise their rights under this law.
• Employers must display a poster within a public location (along with other federal, state and local posters) where all employees have access. The poster must be displayed in four languages—English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Cantonese.
• Employees who do not want additional hours, have the right to turn additional hours down.

Under this ordinance, employees have the right to the following remedies:

• Right to sue in court to enforce the right to be offered additional hours
• Award of back wages
• Civil penalties of $50 per day to each employee harmed
• Reasonable recovery of attorney fees and costs

The new San Jose Opportunity to Work Initiative joins the city’s other posting requirements (Minimum Wage and Know Your Rights) and is available in the San Jose all-in-one Complete Poster package.

All businesses within San Jose must display the new Minimum Wage notice in addition to the state and federal posting requirements.  The California  All-in-One-Poster, including all state and federal updates, is available in addition to the new San Jose Minimum Wage and Opportunity to Work notices.

The Labor Law Center offers a worry-free service to our customers through our Poster Service Plan with automatic replacements.  What this means is that we monitor the state and federal postings and automatically send you updates when they are released.  It is that simple!

We also offer our clients our newly updated Education Center.  If you are new to labor law compliance or just wanting to keep up with the latest news and changes as they come out, this is the place to bookmark and visit regularly.