California employees in 2025 have key workplace protections covering pay, breaks, discrimination, safety, leave, retaliation, and wrongful termination. Know your rights under state and federal laws to safeguard fair treatment, prevent harassment, and maintain safe, equitable working conditions.
By Brad Nakase, Attorney
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The following are ten of your most significant employee rights in California under California employment law:
If you have the status of a non-exempt employee, you are entitled to all of these employee rights in California. You have no right to overtime, minimum wage, or safeguards for meals and rest periods if you qualify as an exempt employee.
You must devote over fifty percent of your working hours to “exempt duties” (usually executive, professional, and administrative work) in order to qualify. Also, you must earn more than twice the minimum wage in California to be able to work full-time: That would be $68,640 a year until 2025.
None of these labor safeguards, however, applies in the case of independent contractors. However, independent contractors can still sue their employers in the event that they get injured, either financially or physically, during the course of doing their job.
I will go over the essential information regarding these ten employee rights in California in this blog article.
As a non-exempt worker in California, you are entitled to overtime compensation, which is 1.5 times the usual rate of pay, if you work more than:
Additionally, you can receive double your income in overtime premium pay if you function:
However, you can modify your overtime entitlements by:
Employers can try to misclassify you as a freelancer or an exempt worker to reduce potentially costly premiums, like paying overtime pay.
According to this right, California employees who are non-exempt receive a 10-minute paid break period of relaxation every four hours (or the “major fraction” of that).
Moreover, you have a right to a 30-minute unpaid lunch break, provided that you are working more than five hours per day. Another 30 minutes of supper break belongs to you, provided that you are working beyond ten hours a day.
Federal & state laws of California secure you against discrimination at work. The corporations in California are not allowed to discharge you, reject the promotion, deny the employment or training, demote, reprimand, harass, or treat you differently on the basis of the protected characteristics:
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (federal) or the California Civil Rights Department will accept reports of discriminatory actions in the workplace. You may sue them if they fail to deal with your dispute.
Two types of sexual harassment exist. It can:
Both these forms of sexual harassment are prohibited by Title VII (Civil Rights Act of 1964) & the Fair Employment and Housing Act of the state of California. It can be applied to companies with a workforce of 15 or more.
Remember that sexual harassment may refer to words, actions, and other ways that degrade your gender, as well as harass you sexually. As a rule of thumb, not all joking is harassment, especially of the one-time, mild variety.
When caring for a sick family member, you are entitled to a maximum of twelve weeks of unpaid leave from work. These employee rights in California originate from:
During your leave of absence, your employer must:
Non-exempt employees in California are required to make at least the minimum wage set by the state. That works out to $16.50 per hour in 2025. ($7.25 is the federal government’s minimum wage.)
Your employer is prohibited from taking adverse action against you in California for either:
Any unfavorable employment action directed at you because you participated in one of the protected acts is considered retaliation. In addition to termination or demotion, examples of unfavorable employment actions include:
Employers in California must:
You can also complain to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or Cal/OSHA, which is the California version of the same, citing dangerous work conditions.
Within the framework of workers’ compensation, you should be compensated at the workplace in case you are injured. Keep in mind that if you refuse to labor because you have a reasonable belief that the place of employment is unsafe, your employer cannot take adverse action against you.
You have the right to a fair expectation of privacy at work in addition to safety. Accordingly, you have a broad right to the privacy of your private belongings, including briefcases, backpacks, handbags, and storage lockers, provided that no one else can access them.
As long as your private phone chats and calls do not conflict with work-related tasks, you also have an entitlement to privacy. However, devices like computers and phones that are owned by the firm are not covered by your privacy rights.
You must accrue paid sick leave in California at a rate of a minimum of one hour for every thirty hours of employment. Full-time employees are required to receive at least forty hours of paid time off for illness annually.
However, the sick leave policies of the majority of firms are more generous.
California companies are prohibited from firing or terminating you for a number of reasons, including:
In the event that you are dismissed for any of those reasons, you can legally sue your employer.
Obtain a copy of your employment file and any applicable contract of employment or employee handbook if you believe your rights as an employee have been breached. Make sure to record any illegal or retaliatory activities performed against you, and decline to sign any paperwork you find uncomfortable.
Think about presenting the proof of your rights violations to the human resources department of your business. This can often be sufficient to make things better.
If HR is unable to assist you, get in touch with a credible labor law attorney so that they may talk about submitting a claim to the relevant state agency, usually the Civil Rights Department or the Labor Commissioner. As an alternative, they could bring a conventional lawsuit.
They would look for the following solutions, depending on your situation:
With the amount of harassment that you endured at your previous workplace, it is not surprising that you may not want to work there again. Your lawyer would advocate for a substantial severance benefit under those circumstances.
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