Office of Administrative Law Disapproves FEHC Regulations on AB 1825
Posted by Nancy Berner
On Tuesday, January 30, the Office of Administrative Law ("OAL") informed the Fair Employment Housing Commission ("FEHC") that it would not approve the regulations submitted by FEHC on December 14, 2006 regarding the requirements of AB 1825, the existing law that requires California employers with 50 or more employees to provide sexual harassment training to all supervisory employees every two years. The OAL disapproved the regulations as lacking sufficient clarity and because of procedural mistakes made by FEHC in propounding the regulations. Under the California Administrative Procedures Act (Gov. Code 11349.4) the agency has 120 days to correct the errors and resubmit the regulations to OAL for further review.
From a practical point of view, this is unlikely to have a significant impact on clients. The proposed regulations contain a form of grandfather clause saying, in effect, that any business that has made a good-faith effort to comply with the statute as of the effective date of the regulation (whenever that turns out to be) will be deemed to be in compliance with the regulation. Clients who are familiar with the requirements of regulation, and can document their efforts at compliance will have little to worry about.