Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

Two new California employment laws, taking effect over the next two years, will expand on existing workplace laws prohibiting hate speech and providing added protections for employees who request bereavement leave.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed the new legislation — Senate Bill (“SB”) 1149 and Assembly Bill (“AB”) 1803 — on September 27, 2026.  The first new law, SB 1149, expands existing bereavement leave laws, protecting employees’ right to bereavement leave by providing leave beyond the death of a close family member.  The new law, which will take effect on January 1, 2027, more loosely defines the term “family member” in a way that could include, for example, a close friend.  

The second new law, AB 1803, requires employers to add anti-hate speech to existing harassment training and will take effect on January 1, 2028.

Bereavement Leave Expansion

The California Family Rights Act (“CFRA”) already requires most employers to provide up to five days of leave after the death of an employee’s family member. And employers are prohibited from retaliating or discriminating against employees who exercise this right. This existing law, which took effect in 2023, expanded CFRA to provide separate bereavement leave, but only after the death of a “family member” then specifically defined to include a spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild or domestic partner.  

But, beginning in January, employees will also be entitled to take leave after the death of 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.”  This new term expands the existing definition of “family member.” As with the existing law, employees may take the five days of bereavement leave after the death of a “designated person” consecutively or intermittently.  And the leave must be completed within three months after the person’s death. 

But unlike with other specifically defined family members, the new law authorizes an employer to limit an employee’s bereavement leave after the death of a “designated person” to one leave per 12-month period. For specifically defined family members (e.g., spouses, children, siblings), there is no annual cap on the number of days an employee is able to take leave pursuant to the law, meaning an employee can take up to five days of bereavement leave per occurrence.

The law applies to employers with five or more employees, and employees who have been employed at least 30 days prior to the commencement of leave.

Anti-Hate Speech Training

Currently, California requires employers with five or more employees to provide harassment prevention training for all employees every two years. Supervisors must complete two hours of training while non-supervisory employees are required to have at least one hour of training. The required training has historically focused on preventing sexual and other forms of harassment.  

But, beginning January 1, 2028, employers must add training and education designed to prevent hate speech in the workplace.  Specifically, the training must provide supervisors and employees with “practical guidance” on recognizing, reporting, and confronting workplace speech that “vilifies, humiliates, or incites hatred” against people based on protected characteristics under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”). Under FEHA, protected characteristics include race, color, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, veteran status and reproductive health decision-making.

The new law does not require employers to prepare a separate curriculum that addresses hate speech specifically.  Nor does the new law require employers to add more time to existing training. In fact, the text of AB 1803 specifically provides that existing training can satisfy the new requirements if the training includes “information about the prohibition against unlawful harassment and prevention of abusive conduct that is based on an individual’s protected characteristics.”

For this reason, employers should first review existing training materials to see if that training meets some or all of the new requirements.  Employers can either add new sections or expand existing sections to cover anti-hate-speech.