Existing law, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), protects the right to seek, obtain, and hold employment without discrimination because of prescribed characteristics. FEHA makes various employment practices unlawful and empowers the Civil Rights Department to investigate and prosecute complaints alleging unlawful practices. FEHA makes it an unlawful practice for an employer or other entity to fail to make reasonable accommodation for the known physical or mental disability of an applicant or employee. FEHA further makes it an unlawful practice for an employer or other entity to fail to engage in a timely, good faith, interactive process with the employee or applicant to determine effective reasonable accommodations, if any, in response to a request for reasonable accommodation by an employee or applicant with a known physical or mental disability or known medical condition.

This bill would make it an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail to provide to an employee who is working from home at least 30 calendar days’ advance notice before requiring the employee to return to work in person. The bill would prohibit an employee from being required to return to work in person until the employer provides notice in accordance with the bill. The bill would require that notice be written and sent by mail or email and include, at a minimum, prescribed text with information about the rights of an employee to reasonable accommodation for a disability. The bill would establish specified restrictions on the interpretation of its provisions.