As an employee, it is always worth keeping up with changes in employment laws, as doing so allows you to better understand your rights as they stand at that point in time.
Sometimes employers ignore new laws, hoping they can get away with things for a while longer. Other times, they just don’t realize the law has changed.
Here are some of the changes that have come into play in 2025.
Employers cannot force you to go to religious or political meetings
If your employer wants to talk to you all about business, they can call a meeting to do so and tell you that you must attend. Yet sometimes an employer insists on employees attending meetings that have nothing to do with work. For example, your employer might have been trying to win the favor of one of the presidential candidates and insisted that you all turn up waving flags to a rally supporting that candidate.
Or maybe they have flown their favorite preacher in from across the country and expect you all to attend what they bill as motivational staff training, but is more like an attempt to convert you to their religious beliefs. Senate Bill 399 puts making religiously or politically motivated meetings mandatory firmly off the agenda.
Employers cannot use an AI version of you
There’s a lot of talk about who will lose their jobs to AI. Yet clients will always have a soft spot for contact with a human rather than a machine. Hence, some employers might figure they can get the best of both worlds by using an AI-generated version of your voice or image or both. Assembly Bill 2602 makes it clear that any clause in an employment contract that allows for this is unenforceable.
If your employer is breaching these laws and unwilling to stop, you might want to consider your legal options.