COVID-19 AB 685 Employee Notice Requirements Updated and Extended Until 2024

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On Sept. 29, 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 2693, which amends and extends the COVID-19 workplace notice requirements stipulated in AB 685 until Jan. 1, 2024. AB 2693 is here.

AB 685 was enacted in 2020, and requires employers to provide written notice to employees who may have been exposed to COVID-19 in the workplace. The notice must be provided to all employees at the worksite within one business day, and must include information regarding benefits available to employees, the company’s disinfection and safety plan, and a statement of anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation. For a full description of AB 685 see CAL/OSHA Imposes New Notice and Reporting Obligations for COVID-19 Workplace Exposure. Originally, the notification requirement was set to expire Jan. 1, 2023. AB 2693 extends the reporting requirement to Jan. 1, 2024, and gives employers another option for complying with the notification requirements.

AB 2693 allows employers to post the notification of a potential COVID-19 exposure as an alternative to written notification. If the employer elects to post notification, it must comply with several requirements.

• The notice must be displayed in all places where notices to employees concerning workplace rules or regulations are customarily posted. If the employer posts workplace notices on an existing employee portal, this notice also must be posted on that portal.
• The notice must be posted within one business day from when the employer is notified of a potential COVID-19 exposure and must remain posted for no fewer than 15 calendar days.
• The notice must be provided in English and in the language understood by the majority of employees.
• The notice must provide:
  • the dates on which an employee, or employee of a subcontracted employer, with a confirmed case of COVID-19 was on the work site within the infectious period;
  • the location of the exposures, including the department, floor, building, or other area (absent the specificity that identifies individual workers);
  • the name and contact details of the employer representative from whom employees can receive information regarding benefits related to COVID-19 to which employees might be entitled under applicable federal, state, or local laws, as well as anti-retaliation and anti-discrimination protections;
  • the name and contact details of the employer representative whom employees should contact to receive a copy of the employer’s cleaning and disinfection plan.

In addition, the employer must keep a log of all dates the notice was posted and must allow the Labor commissioner to access those records.

Although AB 2693 gives employers an alternative to providing the written notice to employees required by AB 685, it still requires them to provide written notice to the union representatives of any COVID-positive employee and employees who were exposed. The notice still must be provided within one business day.

Some definitions in the original law have been updated and tied to Cal/OSHA and California Department of Health Care Services definitions. They are:

• "Close contact" is an individual who has been in close contact with a person with a confirmed case of COVID-19, as defined by Cal/OSHA. Cal/OSHA has updated the definition to "being within six feet of a COVID-19 case for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or greater in any 24-hour period within or overlapping with the infectious period defined by this section, regardless of the use of face coverings ..."
• "Infectious period" is the time a confirmed case of COVID-19 is infectious, as defined by the California Department of Public Health. The CDPH defines the infectious period as:
  • For symptomatic confirmed cases, from the day of symptom onset until 24 hours have passed with no fever, without the use of fever-reducing medications, AND symptoms are mild and improving. The potential​ infectious period is two days before symptoms began or the positive test date (if no symptoms) through 10 days after symptoms began or testing positive.
• "Work site" is the building, store, facility, agricultural field, or other location where a worker worked during the infectious period. It does not apply to buildings, floors, or other locations that an individual with a confirmed case of COVID-19 did not enter, locations where the worker worked alone without exposure to other employees, or to a worker’s personal residence or alternative work location chosen by the worker when working remotely.

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