Catherwood LibraryILR School

On Monday, the California Supreme court ruled that employers cannot deny a worker a place to sit just because they prefer that the person stand while doing their job. The court's opinion was in response to lawsuits brought by cashiers at the CVS drugstore chain and tellers at Chase Bank who said they were wrongly denied a place to sit while working and clarifies state labor regulations that require employers in California to provide workers with "suitable seats" when the nature of their work reasonably permits the use of seats. In CVS' case, cashiers also stock shelves and perform other tasks that require them to stand, which would allow CVS to classify their jobs as "standing jobs" and deny them seats while working. But the court rejected that interpretation, saying that it ignored the "duration of those tasks, as well as where, and how often, they are performed." and called for an assessment of employees' tasks and duties at particular work stations and not their overall duties when determining whether a seat is provided for the employee. The decision was a victory for millions of California workers who have been denied a place to sit while they perform repetitive tasks in fixed locations.