Dentists in California will need to comply with new and amended employment laws in 2027, including expanded bereavement leave rights and prohibition of certain types and uses of workplace surveillance.
Ten laws will take effect Jan. 1, while one will take effect on July 1. Two additional employment-related bills were signed into California law but will not take effect until 2028. Most of the laws described here apply to employers of all sizes, and many require employers take steps to comply before the effective date.
CDA analysts compiled and provided summaries of the following laws with actions dentist-employers should take to comply. Where applicable, they’ve included relevant member-only resources.
State minimum wage, exempt salary are increasing
California’s minimum wage will rise to $17.40 an hour for nonexempt employees, and the minimum exempt employee salary for 2027 is $72,384 per year.
The minimum wage rate is adjusted annually for inflation based on the national Consumer Price Index in accordance with a law that took effect in 2016. This year, the CPI increased by 2.99%, which resulted in a 50-cent increase.
Applies to: All California employers
Effective date: Jan. 1, 2027
Employer compliance steps
- Budget and prepare to comply with new minimum wage and exempt salary thresholds.
- Determine if any local minimum wage changes apply to your employees. (Local government websites are a good place to look. CDA will also update its list of wages and paid sick leave by city/county as wage notices are released.)
- Update wage theft notices for nonexempt employees as needed.
- Post the new minimum wage notice over the 2026 notice once the Department of Industrial Relations releases it.
Wage claim enforcement: Complying with Labor Commissioner’s requests
During an investigation of an employee’s complaint to recover wages, if an employer does not produce by deadline any payroll, timekeeping, employment or other records requested by the California Labor Commission, the employer cannot use those records as evidence in proceedings. Exceptions may apply for inadvertent errors, as outlined in the law.
Under existing law, if an employee receives a wage award from the court, the Labor Commissioner may place a 10-year lien on the employer’s real estate to secure the judgment. The new law allows the Labor Commissioner to renew the lien for additional 10-year periods before it expires.
Applies to: All California employers
Effective date: Jan. 1, 2027
Employer compliance steps
- Respond to Labor Commissioner complaints and provide requested employment records by the specified time.
- Settle wage awards or appeal within 10 days of an order, decision or award to avoid further action by the Labor Commissioner.
- Consult legal counsel as needed.
Bereavement leave: Expansion of covered family members
Currently, covered employers in California must permit eligible employees to take up to five days of unpaid, job-protected leave following the death of a covered family member, defined as the employee’s spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, domestic partner or parent-in-law.
The definition of covered family member expands under new law to include a “designated person” defined as “any individual related to the employee by blood or whose association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship.” The employee may identify the designated person when they request bereavement leave.
Employers may limit an employee to one designated person per 12-month period for bereavement leave.
Applies to: California employers with five or more employees
Effective date: Jan. 1, 2027
Employer compliance steps
- Update the practice’s bereavement leave policy and, if used, the leave of absence request forms. Updated policies are included in CDA’s Sample Employee Manual.
- Educate employees who manage leave about the new rules.
Unlawful immigration-related practices
California Labor Code section 1019 already prohibits immigration-related retaliation, such as threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement or requesting additional or different documents than required by Form I-9.
The new law prohibits employers from using a worker’s perceived immigration status to dissuade the worker from exercising their rights under state, federal or local law, or to induce them to do something they can legally refuse to do. Employers are subject to a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per person per violation.
Applies to: All California employers
Effective date: Jan. 1, 2027
Employer compliance steps
- Update the workplace antiretaliation policy to address immigration-related comments and threats.
- Train managers on antiretaliation policies and practices.
- Continue distributing the Workplace Know Your Rights Notice at hire and annually to all employees. Employers must document the date of distribution.
Automatic investigation of serious workplace injuries
The Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s Bureau of Investigations is required under a new law to automatically investigate any serious workplace injury, illness or exposure where a willful violation occurred. Incidents involving five or more serious injuries or a fatality require the bureau to notify the district attorney. Willfully resisting or interfering with a Cal/OSHA inspector is a misdemeanor under the law.
Applies to: All California employers
Effective date: Jan. 1, 2027
Employer compliance steps
- Review the practice’s Injury and Illness Prevention and Workplace Violence Prevention Plan. (Members can customize CDA’s sample IIPP.)
- Stay up to date on safety trainings. (This CDA resource describes required training and training frequency and includes an employee training log.)
AI cannot be used to infer an employee’s emotional state
Under this new law, employers are prohibited from using workplace surveillance tools that use AI to collect employees’ neural data or to recognize, infer or predict an employee’s emotional state. The law defines “neural data” as “information that is generated by measuring the activity of an employee’s central or peripheral nervous system and that is not inferred from nonneural information.”
Applies to: All California employers
Effective date: Jan. 1, 2027
Employer compliance steps
- Audit and disable any AI neural collection data used in workplace surveillance technology tools.
‘Stay or Pay’ agreements: Restrictions on contracts
California’s restrictions on employment “stay-or-pay” provisions have been delayed under this law. Now, they will apply to contracts entered into on or after Jan. 1, 2027, instead of Jan. 1, 2026.
The law prohibits California employers and their agents from requiring an employee or applicant to pay a debt to the employer, training provider or debt collector if the employee’s employment ends. With limited exceptions, employers also cannot authorize an agent to impose a penalty or fee or to initiate debt collection when the employment relationship ends.
Exceptions:
- Discretionary or unearned payments meant to induce someone to join or stay are exempt as long as certain conditions are met, including that the repayment agreement terms are in a separate agreement from the main employment agreement.
- Repayment obligation related to advanced PTO paid beyond what the worker had accrued if the employee quits voluntarily.
- Sign-on or retention bonuses within some regulated professions with certain requirements.
Applies to: All California employers
Employer compliance steps
- Continue reviewing “stay or pay” provisions, such as tuition-assistance and retention bonus repayment obligations prior to Jan 1, 2027.
- Work with legal counsel on employment contracts and exceptions.
Workplace violence restraining orders: Protecting all employees
This new law lets employers obtain a workplace violence restraining order on behalf of all employees at the employer’s workplace location without having to name individual employees as protected parties, if harassment, unlawful violence or a credible threat of violence is directed at that workplace location. “All employees” includes independent contractors, and “workplace location” means the place where a group of employees performs their primary work.
Example scenario: An angry patient threatens “the practice” rather than an individual employee.
Applies to: All California employers
Effective date: Jan. 1, 2027
- No employer compliance action is required.
Surveillance in workplace bathrooms prohibited
Employers cannot use a workplace surveillance tool, including video and audio devices or applications, to monitor or surveil employees in a workplace bathroom. Employees have the right to leave location-enabled devices and other such surveillance tools behind when entering a bathroom.
Employers are subject to a penalty of up to $500 per violation of the law.
Applies to: All California employers
Effective date: Jan. 1, 2027
Employer compliance steps
- Check that surveillance cameras are not in bathrooms or angled to view inside bathrooms.
Standardized definition of sex discrimination
This bill is “declarative of existing law” and is not intended to change existing rights or responsibilities. Instead, it standardizes the definition of sex discrimination across multiple California State codes, including the Fair Employment and Housing Act, California’s main workplace anti-discrimination law. It does the same for the Unruh Act, which covers how businesses treat customers (or patients in a dental practice), linking protection to constitutional privacy and equal protection guarantees.
Applies to: All California employers
Effective date: Jan. 1, 2027
Employer compliance steps:
- Review and update written antiharassment and EEO handbook policies.
- Audit dress code, grooming and uniform policies for prohibited gender stereotypes.
- Remind managers not to inquire about reproductive decisions or medical care.
Restrictions on use of automated decision systems
Known as the “No Robo Bosses Act of 2026,” this law regulates an employer’s use of automated decision systems, including artificial intelligence tools, to make disciplinary or termination decisions.
An ADS is any computational product that makes a decision or helps a human make one. Examples include an attendance and timekeeping system that applies “points” to calculate tardies or absences or a performance-scoring system that can track front-desk metrics, such as answered calls and booked appointments, to produce an employee score.
Key requirements of the law:
- Employers cannot rely solely on an ADS to discipline or discharge a worker. A human must make the final decision after reviewing corroborating evidence.
- When an employer primarily relies on an ADS to make an employment decision, they must provide written notice to the worker and allow them to obtain data about them that the system relied on.
- The use of some systems is altogether banned in disciplinary and termination decisions, such as those that predict a worker’s behavior, emotional state and beliefs or infer protected characteristics or that a worker may exercise their legal rights.
Employers are subject to a civil penalty of $500 per violation if they rely on an ADS to make a disciplinary or termination decision but do not provide the affected employee with a written “post-use notice” at the time of the employer’s decision.
Applies to: All California employers
Effective date: July 1, 2027
Employer compliance steps
- Audit any systems that automatically generate employee write-ups or infractions or score or flag employees.
- Ensure a human reviews all disciplinary action and termination decisions.
- Create a written notice template to give to the employee when ADS is used to make or assist disciplinary or termination decisions.
CDA encourages dentists to read the text of the law, which also provides definitions of “corroborating evidence” and explains what information the post-use notice must include.
Harassment prevention training must address hate speech
Employers with five or more employees must ensure that state-mandated harassment prevention training includes an anti-hate speech component that provides supervisors and employees with practical guidance on recognizing, reporting and confronting workplace speech that vilifies, humiliates or incites hatred based on protected characteristics.
The new law does not change the hours, format or frequency of the harassment prevention training already required under state law that took effect in 2021: Two hours minimum for supervisors and at least one hour for nonsupervisory employees within six months of hire and then every two years. The training can be in person in a classroom setting or online with an effective interactive component.
Applies to: California employers with five or more employees
Effective date: Jan. 1, 2028
Employer compliance steps
- Ensure your vendor’s harassment prevention training includes the required anti-hate speech component beginning in January 2028.
California’s Civil Rights Department provides free online training for supervisors and nonsupervisors. Employers should confirm the training has been updated to include the newly required anti-hate speech component before providing it.
Qualifying military exigency under PFL
This law clarifies qualifying military exigency under the Paid Family Leave Act. “Covered active duty” includes both foreign and domestic military deployments, including stateside missions, extended training and National Guard or Reserve activation.
Applies to: All California employers
Effective date: July 1, 2028, or when the changes are incorporated in the EDD’s claims management system (whichever occurs first).
- No employer compliance action is required.