Workplace Violence Prevention in California: SB 553

Overview

California has taken significant steps to protect employees from workplace violence through Labor Code § 6401.9, added by Senate Bill 553 and operative July 1, 2024. This law establishes full requirements for workplace violence prevention, including mandatory violence prevention plans, employee training, incident reporting, and retaliation protections. The law represents one of the most full workplace violence prevention statutes in the nation.

SB 553 Overview

The operative law is Labor Code § 6401.9, which Senate Bill 553 added (it also amended § 6401.7). From here on this guide cites the code section, because the section is what an employer is measured against and what Cal/OSHA enforces.

Who Is Covered, and the Five Exemptions

Section 6401.9(b)(1) reaches "all employers, employees, places of employment, and employer-provided housing." Subdivision (b)(2) then exempts five categories, and the list matters because three of them are commonly assumed to be covered:

• Health care facilities covered by the separate Cal/OSHA standard at 8 CCR § 3342
• Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation facilities in compliance with 8 CCR § 3203
• Law enforcement agencies meeting POST compliance standards
• Employees teleworking from a location not under the employer's control
• Workplaces with fewer than 10 employees that are not accessible to the public and comply with 8 CCR § 3203

Effective Date

Section 6401.9(i) makes subdivisions (b) through (g) operative on and after July 1, 2024.

Workplace Violence Definition

Under § 6401.9, workplace violence is defined as an incident involving the attempted, threatened, or actual conduct of a person that causes or is likely to cause physical or psychological injury or harm to employees or other individuals at the workplace. The definition includes:

• Physical assaults or threats of physical assault
• Verbal or written threats
• Bullying or harassment that creates safety concerns
• Intimidating behavior that threatens an employee's psychological well-being or safety

Prevention Plan Requirements

Employers must develop, implement, and maintain a written workplace violence prevention plan. The plan must be developed with input from non-managerial employees and must include:

Required Plan Components: All Thirteen

Section 6401.9(c)(2) lists thirteen, (A) through (M). A plan missing any of them is incomplete:

• (A) The names or job titles of the persons responsible for implementing the plan, with clearly described roles
• (B) Active involvement of employees and their representatives in identifying hazards, designing training, and reporting incidents
• (C) Coordination procedures with other employers at a multiemployer worksite. This one is routinely left out and applies to anyone sharing a site with a contractor, staffing agency, or tenant
• (D) Procedures for accepting and investigating reports without retaliation
• (E) Procedures for supervisor and employee compliance
• (F) Communication methods for reporting incidents and learning investigation results
• (G) Emergency response procedures, covering alerts, evacuation, and contacting law enforcement
• (H) Procedures for developing and delivering training
• (I) Hazard identification procedures, including periodic inspections
• (J) Timely hazard correction procedures
• (K) Post-incident investigation procedures
• (L) Plan effectiveness review, at least annually and after any incident
• (M) Any additional procedures the Division of Occupational Safety and Health requires
• Evaluation and revision procedures
• Accountability procedures

Employee Involvement

The workplace violence prevention plan must be developed and implemented with the meaningful participation and input of non-managerial employees. This requirement ensures that employee perspectives and frontline experience inform the prevention strategy.

Employee Training

Employers must provide regular training to all employees on workplace violence prevention. The training must cover:

• Workplace violence recognition and prevention
• De-escalation techniques and conflict resolution
• Reporting procedures
• How to respond to threats or violent behavior
• Employer policies and procedures
• Employee rights and responsibilities

Training Frequency

Employers must provide training to:

• All new employees at the time of hire
• All existing employees, initially, from the July 1, 2024 operative date
• All employees annually thereafter
• Additional training whenever a new hazard is identified or the plan changes, addressing that specific change. This is a separate trigger under § 6401.9(e) and is not satisfied by the annual session

Training must cover the plan and how to access it, the statutory definitions, how to report without fear of reprisal, the hazards specific to the employee's job and the corrective measures for them, the violent incident log and how to obtain records, and an interactive opportunity to ask questions and get answers.

Incident Logging and Investigation

Employers must establish and maintain procedures for logging and investigating all workplace violence incidents.

The Violent Incident Log, and What Must Be Left Out of It

Section 6401.9(d) requires a log entry for every workplace violence incident. The most important rule about it is a negative one, and it is the opposite of what most incident-reporting habits produce.

Subdivision (d)(1) requires the log to omit "personal identifying information sufficient to allow identification of any person", and names names: no names, addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, or social security numbers. An employer logging the parties involved is recording what the statute tells it not to record. Investigation files are a separate matter; the log itself is de-identified.

Subdivision (d)(2) sets what the entry does contain:

• The date, time, and location
• The type of violence, by the statute's Type 1 through Type 4 classification
• A detailed description of the incident
• A classification of who committed it, for example a client, a customer, a co-worker, or a family member
• The circumstances, and where in the workplace it happened
• The nature of the incident: physical attack, use of a weapon, threat, sexual assault, animal attack, or other
• The consequences, and what security response followed
• Who completed the entry and when

Retention, and Employee Access

Subdivision (f) sets four retention periods, and they are not the same:

• Five years: hazard identification, evaluation, and correction records
• Five years: the violent incident log
• Five years: incident investigation records, excluding medical information
• One year: training records, which must show the dates, a summary of the content, the trainer's qualifications, and the names and job titles of attendees

All of it goes to the Division on request. Employees and their representatives are entitled to it within 15 calendar days of asking, and free of charge. That deadline is the one an employee can actually hold an employer to.

Investigation Procedures

What the statute actually requires here is narrower than most summaries suggest, and it is worth being exact because the gap between "the plan must address this" and "the employer must do this in a particular way" is where compliance advice goes wrong. Section 6401.9(c)(2)(K) requires the plan to include procedures for postincident response and investigation. Section 6401.9(f)(4) requires records of workplace violence incident investigations to be maintained for five years.

The statute does not prescribe who conducts the investigation. There is no requirement that it be handled by trained personnel or by an outside investigator, however sensible either may be as a practice. Treat those as good practice, not as statutory duties, and do not tell an employer it is out of compliance for using its own HR staff.

Employee Rights to Report

Section 6401.9 requires the plan to cover the following. Note that these are obligations on the plan and the employer, which is what makes them enforceable:

• Section 6401.9(c)(2)(D): effective procedures for the employer to accept and respond to reports of workplace violence, and to prohibit retaliation against an employee who makes one
• Section 6401.9(c)(2)(F)(i): procedures ensuring that employees can report a violent incident, threat, or other workplace violence concern to the employer or to law enforcement without fear of reprisal. The statute does not specify the mechanism, so there is no statutory entitlement to an anonymous hotline; an employer may provide one, but it is not required to
• Section 6401.9(c)(2)(F)(ii): how employee concerns will be investigated, and how employees will be informed of the results of the investigation and any corrective actions. This one is real and is often left out of summaries: the plan has to say how you will be told what happened

Protection from Retaliation

Section 6401.9 provides critical protections against retaliation for reporting workplace violence or participating in related activities. Employers may not:

• Discipline, discharge, threaten, or discriminate against an employee for reporting workplace violence
• Retaliate against employees for participating in investigations
• Discourage or prevent employees from reporting violence
• Retaliate against employees for requesting accommodations related to safety concerns

Retaliation Claims

Employees who experience retaliation for reporting workplace violence may have claims for:

• Violation of Labor Code Section 6401.9 (enforced by Cal/OSHA, not through a private right of action)
• Wrongful termination in violation of public policy
• Retaliation under whistleblower statutes

Employer Obligations

Section 6401.9 imposes full obligations on employers:

Hazard Assessment

Employers must conduct a written assessment of workplace violence hazards. This assessment should consider:

• The nature of work activities that may expose employees to violence
• Job categories and locations at higher risk
• Work history and past incidents
• Environmental risk factors

Corrective Action

If investigations confirm that workplace violence has occurred, employers must take corrective action that may include:

• Disciplinary measures against perpetrators
• Environmental or procedural changes to prevent recurrence
• Providing support services to affected employees
• Temporary suspension of the perpetrator pending investigation (in appropriate cases)

Cal/OSHA Enforcement

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) enforces the § 6401.9 workplace violence prevention requirements.

Inspection and Citations

Cal/OSHA may:

• Conduct inspections to verify employer compliance
• Issue citations for violations
• Require remedial action plans
• Impose penalties

Penalties

Employers who fail to comply with § 6401.9 may face:

• Civil penalties from Cal/OSHA
• Liability for injuries resulting from workplace violence and employer negligence in prevention, on ordinary tort and workers' compensation principles rather than under this section

Section 6401.9 does not create a private right of action. An employee cannot sue for a violation of the section itself; enforcement runs through Cal/OSHA. A worker harmed after reporting still has the routes set out under "Protection from Retaliation" above, which are separate causes of action resting on other law.

Healthcare and Special Standards

Some industries carry more exposure to workplace violence, and two of them are treated differently by the statute in a way that is easy to get backwards.

Health Care Is Governed by a Different Standard, Not This One

Health care facilities covered by 8 CCR § 3342 are exempt from Labor Code § 6401.9 under subdivision (b)(2). That is not a gap in protection. Cal/OSHA's health care workplace violence prevention standard has applied to those facilities since 2017 and is in several respects more demanding, including its own plan, log, and reporting requirements. A hospital or clinic asking which rules apply to it should be looking at § 3342, not at § 6401.9.

The practical trap runs the other way too: a health care employer whose facility falls outside § 3342, such as some administrative or billing sites, may well be back inside § 6401.9.

Law Enforcement, and Other Higher-Risk Work

Law enforcement agencies meeting POST compliance standards are also exempt under § 6401.9(b)(2). Section 6401.9 does not name or rank high-risk industries anywhere, and it does not carve out special rules for retail, transit, or social services. Those sectors are covered on the same terms as everyone else, which is the point of a standard that starts from "all employers."

Domestic Violence Accommodations

Employers must provide reasonable accommodations to employees who are victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, to ensure workplace safety. Accommodations may include:

• Modified schedules or work locations
• Security measures to prevent perpetrator access
• Restraining order compliance
• Temporary leave or reassignment
• Enhanced security or support services

Conclusion

Labor Code § 6401.9, added by SB 553, represents a major expansion of workplace violence prevention protections in California. The law creates affirmative employer obligations to prevent violence and protects employees who report incidents. If you experience workplace violence or retaliation for reporting violence, consult with a qualified employment attorney to understand your rights and potential remedies.