From the White House to the state capital, employers in California are fielding significant industry shakeups from all sides this year.
At the 2026 edition of the annual Employment Law Update this week, presented by the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce at College of the Canyons, two major takeaways from attorney Brian Koegle’s annual presentation prevailed.
First, federal immigration activity stands to be a specter over employers as well as employees throughout 2026. Secondly, the California Legislature gave employee labor rights a boost during this year’s legislative session.
“All of a sudden, mid-July … the California Legislature kind of woke up from their slumber,” said Koegle. “They ended up passing a flurry of bills. Twelve different bills were passed in a two-month period.”
Koegle’s presentation focused on about 10 of those bills, covering everything from expanded paid family leave, to new prohibitions on letting managers cash in on tip pools and restrictions on “stay or pay” contracts that keep employees locked into employment agreements in exchange for certain benefits.
One California Supreme Court case that could have a major impact on the way employers are allowed to track their employees’ time for compensation – minute to minute, instead of hourly – still has yet to be decided, despite being fully argued in June this year, Koegle said.
Plaintiffs in the case argued that Home Depot’s electronic timekeeping system “captured each minute worked by employees, but that due to Home Depot’s quarter-hour rounding policy, employees were paid for less time than reflected in Home Depot’s timekeeping system,” according to the decision filed by the appellate court in 2022.
“We’re sitting here now in early-December, we do not have a decision from the (state) Supreme Court,” Koegle said. “They have been dragging their feet, and none of us really know why … they were supposed to have a decision for us by mid-October, and we still don’t have it.”
Areas where Koegle commonly sees successful lawsuits, such as reimbursable expenses, also got a 2025 update: as of January of this year, the mileage reimbursement rate sits at 70 cents a mile.
“These are all reimbursable expenses, and we see these as tack-ons to these class actions and pocket cases all day, every day,” Koegle said. “If you’ve got an employee who’s driving their personal vehicle for business, and you’re not reimbursing them at 70 cents per mile, you better be able to explain to me why you’re not doing that.”
This year’s legislative move with arguably the biggest scope of applicability for all types of business owners hit on a theme of many of Koegle’s past presentations: expanded personnel file requirements.
Employer-side documentation has taken on new weight in the wake of recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across the country, and multiple attendees at Wednesday’s presentation had questions about how they should respond to ICE agents at their business.
In the after-presentation Q&A session, Koegle said that ICE agents could have either a search warrant or an arrest warrant, and in the case of a search warrant, agents aren’t allowed to remove documents or people from the premises outside the scope of the warrant.
He added that, while ICE raids at businesses had been less common in California, that could change in 2026.
When it comes to employee documentation, Koegle said it’s important for employers to keep employees’ I-9 forms in order, which means ensuring they’re countersigned.
“When ICE is coming, or you’re getting an I-9 audit, there’s a penalty for every one that’s not done right now,” Koegle said.
