AB 1512, unanimously passed by the Legislature as an urgency statute and on its way to Governor Gavin Newsom, would add an exemption for certain private security officers from the Supreme Court’s 5-2 decision four years ago in Augustus v. ABM Security Services, Inc. (2016) 2 Cal.5th 257. The opinion interpreted a statute and regulation as requiring that employees be given 10-minute rest breaks where they are not on-duty or on-call. Besides the exemption, the legislation would provide extra pay for officers who are unable to take subsequent uninterrupted rest breaks.
The Augustus case itself involved private security guards. The bill specifically states the Legislature’s intent to “to abrogate, for the security services industry only,” the Augustus opinion, “to the extent that decision is in conflict with this act.”
Other Augustus exemptions were adopted in 2018 by an initiative (for ambulance workers) and legislation (for certain oil workers).
