California Labor Guidance
Free plain-English summaries of opinion letters, administrative policies, and interpretive notices from California's labor agency, with the current status and the official source on every page.
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Requiring employees to buy excess auto insurance: reimbursement under Labor Code section 2802
An employer planned to require employees who regularly drive personal vehicles for business to carry auto insurance coverage above California's legal minimum. DLSE said Labor Code section 2802 does no…
Expense reimbursement by mandatory direct deposit may not be compelled
A national payroll company asked whether it could require its California employees, as a condition of employment, to receive business expense reimbursements only through direct deposit rather than by …
Requiring an employee to apply for a corporate credit card does not violate Labor Code 450
An employee asked whether his employer could require him, as part of his travel-heavy job, to apply for a corporate American Express card based on his personal credit in order to access negotiated ven…
Labor Code 450: employer cannot require a sales employee to buy a branded truck from chosen vendors
An attorney asked whether Labor Code section 450's ban on compelling employees to patronize third persons applies only to specifically named vendors, or more broadly, and what happens if the employer …
Employer generally need not pay the cost of licensure training
An attorney asked whether an employer must pay for a class an employee needed to complete to keep her job, where the position had come to require an insurance-sales license. DLSE explained that Labor …
IRS mileage rate is presumptively reasonable for auto, not truck, reimbursement
Following a phone conversation, an attorney's letter suggested DLSE had said employers reimbursing below the current IRS mileage rate would not violate Labor Code section 2802. DLSE corrected the reco…
On-call time, travel time, and vehicle expenses for beeper-dispatched service technicians
An attorney asked whether on-call vending-machine repair technicians who carry a beeper and drive their own cars between calls are owed pay for on-call waiting time, travel time to and between calls, …
A mileage reimbursement covers accident/theft losses on a personal vehicle used for work, and an employer can't shift that cost onto the employee
A retail employer asked whether paying managers 25 cents per mile to use their own vehicles on company business satisfied Labor Code §2802, and whether it could also require managers to buy their own …
Employers must pay for mandatory safety-orientation training and certification, for both current employees and job applicants
Counsel for a general contractor asked whether workers could be required to complete, on their own time and at their own expense, an 8-hour industry safety orientation program needed to badge into ind…
Owner-operator truck driver pay plans must separately reimburse vehicle operating costs under Labor Code §2804, and extra commute time beyond a customer delivery must be paid
A trucking company's counsel described a proposed pay plan for employee-drivers who own their own trucks, paying an hourly wage plus a share of the broker's revenue, and asked whether commute time aft…
A reasonable per-mile car allowance (e.g. the IRS's 26 cents) is presumed to already cover the employee's auto-insurance cost
Following up on a phone conversation, DLSE clarified its position on whether an employer that reimburses an employee 26 cents per mile (the IRS-suggested rate at the time) for using the employee's own…
Employer-required uniforms: who pays, and who pays for cleaning, when an employee opts into a different color or fabric
A hospital employer asked DLSE about uniform-cost and cleaning obligations under IWC Order 5-89 §9(A). DLSE explained that if a nurse or other health-care professional in an occupation that generally …
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These are official interpretive documents from California's labor agency: opinion letters answering questions from employers and workers, administrative policies, and interpretive notices. They show how the agency applies wage-and-hour and workplace law to real situations, but they are guidance, not statutes or court decisions, and the agency can supersede or withdraw them. Every page above shows the document's current status, when that status was last verified, and a link to the official source.