Employment discrimination.

Existing law, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) , protects the right to seek, obtain, and hold employment without discrimination because of prescribed characteristics. FEHA makes various employment practices unlawful and empowers the Department of Fair Employment and Housing to investigate and prosecute complaints alleging unlawful practices. This bill would expand the protected characteristics to include family responsibilities, defined to mean the obligations of an employee to provide direct and ongoing care for a minor child or a care recipient. The bill would define additional terms for this purpose. FEHA makes it an unlawful practice for an employer or other entity to fail to make reasonable accommodation for the known physical or mental disability of an applicant or employee. FEHA further makes it an unlawful practice for an employer or other entity to fail to engage in a timely, good faith, interactive process with the employee or applicant to determine effective reasonable accommodations, if any, in response to a request for reasonable accommodation by an employee or applicant with a known physical or mental disability or known medical condition. This bill would additionally make it an unlawful practice for an employer or other entity to fail to make reasonable accommodation, and to fail to engage in a timely, good faith, interactive process to determine effective reasonable accommodations, the known family responsibilities of an applicant or employee related to obligations arising from an unforeseen need to care for a minor child or care recipient whose school or place of care is closed or otherwise unavailable. The bill would also make it an unlawful practice for an employer or other entity to retaliate or otherwise discriminate against a person for requesting accommodation under the bill's provisions, regardless of whether the request was granted.