Small business regulation: COVID-19 pandemic: employment: work hours: compensation.

Existing employment law, with certain exceptions, establishes 8 hours as a day's work and a 40-hour workweek, and requires payment of prescribed overtime compensation for additional hours worked. Existing law authorizes the adoption by 23 of employees in a work unit of alternative workweek schedules providing for workdays no longer than 10 hours within a 40-hour workweek. This bill would permit an individual nonexempt employee to work an employee-selected flexible work schedule, without any obligation on the part of the employer to pay an overtime rate of compensation, if the employee requests this schedule and the employer approves the request. The bill would not apply to employees covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement or public employees. Existing law, the Administrative Procedure Act, governs, among other things, the procedure for the adoption, amendment, or repeal of regulations by state agencies and for the review of those regulatory actions by the Office of Administrative Law. Existing law requires a state agency proposing to adopt, amend, or repeal specific administrative regulations to assess the potential for adverse economic impact on California business enterprises and individuals. This bill would require the head of each state agency to conduct a review of the regulations the state agency has adopted to identify which regulations impose the greatest costs and barriers to small businesses in this state by April 1, 2021. The bill would authorize the head of the state agency, based on the findings of a review pursuant to the bill, to temporarily suspend any identified regulation, to the extent consistent with statute, until small businesses recover from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill would require a state agency to notify the office of suspended regulations and to post suspended regulations on the agency's internet website.