Legislative Update: Broadening California’s Anti-Harassment Training Curriculum
In Part 2 of our legislative update series, we will take a look at an important expansion to the already-existing anti-harassment training for employees in the workplace. Governor Gavin Newsom has now signed Assembly Bill (AB) 1803, adding anti-hate speech training for employees.
The California Fair Employment and Housing Act makes specified employment practices unlawful, including the harassment of an employee directly by the employer or indirectly by agents of the employer with the employer’s knowledge. Under existing law, the Civil Rights Department administers these provisions. Existing law requires a specified employer with 5 or more employees to, by January 1, 2021, provide at least 2 hours of classroom or other effective interactive training and education regarding sexual harassment to all supervisory employees and at least one hour of classroom or other effective interactive training and education regarding sexual harassment to all nonsupervisory employees in California and, after that date, once every 2 years. Existing law requires an employer to include prevention of abusive conduct as a component of that training and education.
Now California law will additionally require that, beginning January 1, 2028, the above-described training and education include, as a component of the training and education, anti-hate speech training, as specified.
Looking a bit more in depth, AB 1803 requires the anti-hate speech training to provide supervisors and employees with practical guidance on recognizing, reporting, and confronting workplace speech that vilifies, humiliates, or incites hatred against people based on characteristics protected under FEHA.
It also provides that a training that includes information about the prohibition against unlawful harassment and prevention of abusive conduct that is based on an individual’s protected characteristic, pursuant to FEHA, satisfies these additional training requirements. Existing law defines “abusive conduct” to mean “conduct of an employer or employee in the workplace, with malice, that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive, and unrelated to an employer’s legitimate business interests. Abusive conduct may include repeated infliction of verbal abuse, such as the use of derogatory remarks, insults, and epithets, verbal or physical conduct that a reasonable person would find threatening, intimidating, or humiliating, or the gratuitous sabotage or undermining of a person’s work performance. A single act shall not constitute abusive conduct, unless especially severe and egregious.”
Training on hate speech may already be included in your workplace as part of the training on “abusive conduct” prevention which, as noted above, already includes the infliction of verbal abuse. This bill does not increase the hours required for the training nor does it impose restrictions on freedom of speech but rather, this bill ensures that anti-hate speech is specifically included as part of the existing anti-discrimination training mandates.
Although AB 1803 is not required to be part of your anti-harassment training until 2028, as noted, this is a good opportunity to evaluate your current workplace training to see if any adjustments will need to be made or if the additional training required by the newly enacted law is already being satisfied. Rosasco Law Group specializes in keeping our clients workplace compliant, which includes creating and updating those employee handbooks. Although this particular law might be sitting on the back burner for a bit, give our office a call to ensure your handbooks are 2027 compliant!
