CALIFORNIA COVID19 EXPOSURE NOTICE REQUIRED UNTIL 1/1/2024

General Exposure Notice Changes

Methods of Notification

As California employers are well aware, legislation enacted early in the pandemic requires that written general exposure notification be provided to employees who were at the same worksite at the same time as a person with COVID-19, advising them that they “may have been exposed” to COVID-19, providing information about available benefits, and providing information the employer’s cleaning and disinfection plan. That legislation was set to expire at the end of 2022. However Governor Newsom just signed a new bill—AB 2693—which extends the general exposure notification requirement until January 1, 2024.

But there’s good news too: AB 2693 significantly reduces the burden on employers by allowing an option for the notice of potential exposure to be posted at the worksite, or on an employee portal if other workplace notices are posted on the portal. Like the notice required under the current legislation, it must be posted within one business day from when the employer learns of the COVID-19 case, and remain posted for at least 15 calendar days.

Employers still have the option to provide written notice to covered workers, and the employers of subcontracted workers, if they prefer. But, employers must still provide a written notice to the exclusive representative, if any, of the COVID-19 case(s) and any employees who had close contact.

Records of the written notices provided and a log of the dates of the notices posted must be maintained for 3 years.

Content of the Notice

The information required in the notice is also changing. Now, employers do not need to notify employees or other workers on site that “they may have been exposed.”

Rather, the new version of the notice has been streamlined, and now requires the following be included:

1. The dates on which an employee, or employee of a subcontracted employer, with a confirmed case of COVID-19 was on the worksite premises within the infectious period.
2. The location of the exposures, including the department, floor, building, or other area, but the location does not need to be so specific that it would allow individual workers to be identified.
3. Instead of providing detailed information on the specifics, employers now only need to provide contact information for where employees may receive information regarding COVID-19-related benefits they may be entitled under applicable federal, state, or local laws, as well as antiretaliation and antidiscrimination protections of the employee.
4. As a reminder, these benefits may include categories such as workers’ compensation, COVID-19-related local or emergency leave, company sick leave, state-mandated leave, recently extended COVID supplemental sick leave (which we recently blogged about here), or negotiated leave provisions.
5. As a best practice, companies should ensure that their HR, Safety, or designated management personnel are prepared to provide this information upon request and are familiar with the local options for both paid and unpaid leave.
6. Likewise, employers now only need provide contact information for where employees may receive the cleaning and disinfection planthat the employer is implementing per the guidelines of the CDC and the Cal/OSHA standards.
7. Note: Workplace cleaning and disinfection plans are not currently part of CDC guidelines or Cal/OSHA requirements, so many employers will likely refer to their normal cleaning and/or disinfection protocols that may be independent of COVID-19 mitigation measures.

AB 2693 also requires the notice to be in English and the language understood by the majority of the employees.

Source: Seyfarth Shaw LLP – Ilana R. Morady, Patrick D. Joyce, Coby M. Turner, Juan Rehl-Garcia and Elisabeth C. Watson