Lola Smallwood-Cuevas

Existing law establishes the Civil Rights Department within the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency to enforce civil rights laws with respect to housing and employment and to protect and safeguard the right of all persons to obtain and hold employment without discrimination based on specified characteristics or status.

Existing law requires a private employer that has 100 or more employees to submit an annual pay data report to the Civil Rights Department that includes the number of employees by race, ethnicity, and sex in 10 specified job categories, the number of employees by race, ethnicity, and sex whose pay falls within federal pay bands, within each job category the median and mean hourly rate for employees having any combination of those characteristics, and the total number of hours worked by each employee counted in each pay band during the "Reporting Year," as specified.

This bill would require an employer to collect and store any demographic information gathered by an employer or labor contractor for the purpose of submitting the pay data report separately from employees' personnel records, and, beginning January 1, 2027, increase the number of job categories, as specified above, to 23.

Existing law authorizes the department, if it does not receive the pay data report, to seek an order requiring an employer to comply with these provisions. Existing law provides that upon the request of the department, a court may impose a civil penalty upon any employer for failure to file the required report, which shall be payable to the Civil Rights Enforcement and Litigation Fund.

This bill would require a court to impose a civil penalty against an employer that fails to file the report if requested to do so by the department.