California's 2027 Employment Law Wave: AI Decisions, Surveillance, Stay-or-Pay

A Jackson Lewis special report surveys a dozen California employment bills from the 2026 legislative session, most operative January 1, 2027, with training and leave measures later. Automated decisionmaking: SB 947, the "No Robo Bosses Act," would bar reliance solely on an automated system to discipline or terminate, require human corroboration plus a separate written notice, and prohibit systems from inferring protected status or predicting the exercise of legal rights. The report's summary and body disagree on whether the law starts July 1, 2027 or 2028, so the operative date needs verification against the chaptered statute. Surveillance: AB 1883 reaches AI tools that infer emotional state or collect neural data, while AB 1331 covers video, audio, GPS, time-and-pace tracking and biometric tools, barring bathroom monitoring and requiring off-duty disabling. Other measures rework stay-or-pay agreements and exceptions (AB 1697), make FAA-unenforceable arbitration clauses unenforceable in California (AB 2155), raise repeat pay-data-report penalties to $1,000 per employee (SB 1237), mandate Cal-WARN "technology displacement" language (SB 951), expand designated-person bereavement leave (SB 1149), and widen immigration-related retaliation protection (AB 2495); AB 1940 on menopause accommodations was vetoed. Counsel care because the work — tool inventories, corroboration records, separate agreements with advance disclosure, audits of embedded monitoring — is multi-year. Next to watch: chaptered statutory text and implementing guidance.