SB 553: California Workplace Violence Prevention Requirements

California’s SB 553 workplace violence prevention requirements apply to almost every employer in the state and have been fully enforceable by Cal/OSHA since July 1, 2024. The law added Section 6401.9 to the Labor Code and requires covered employers to build, maintain, and actively use a written Workplace Violence Prevention Plan (WVPP), train employees on it every year, log incidents, and keep specific records for defined periods.¹

The statute defines workplace violence broadly. It covers any act or threat of violence at a place of employment, including verbal threats that cause psychological trauma or stress and incidents involving a weapon or object used as one, whether or not anyone is physically injured. Threats made by text, email, or social media count. The only carve-out is lawful self-defense or defense of others.²

The plan has to address all four categories the statute recognizes: violence by someone with no legitimate business at the site (Type 1), violence by customers, clients, patients, students, inmates, or visitors (Type 2), violence between current or former coworkers or supervisors (Type 3), and violence at work by someone with a personal relationship to an employee, such as a domestic partner or family member (Type 4). Different worksites have different exposures. A retail store’s primary risk is often Type 1 and Type 2; an office is often more exposed to Type 3 and Type 4. A plan that only addresses part of the spectrum leaves gaps Cal/OSHA will notice.¹

Who Has to Comply

SB 553 applies to all employers, employees, places of employment, and employer-provided housing in California.² The exemptions are narrow:

Employers with fewer than 10 employees at a location that is not open or accessible to the public, provided the employer already complies with California’s Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP) standard.
Employees teleworking from a location the employer does not control.
Health care facilities already covered under Cal/OSHA’s Violence Prevention in Health Care standard at Title 8, Section 3342.
Certain operations run by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and specified law enforcement agencies.

The telework exemption is narrower than it looks. It only applies when the employee works from a location outside the employer’s control, such as a personal home. A satellite office, coworking space, or any location the employer arranges is covered, even if it isn’t the main office.

What the Written Plan Must Contain

The WVPP must be in writing, specific to each worksite, and accessible to every employee at that site. It can be folded into an existing IIPP or kept as a separate document. Boilerplate that isn’t tailored to the actual workplace will not satisfy the standard.¹

Named Personnel and Employee Input

The plan must name the people responsible for implementing it. A vague reference to a committee with no clear owner is a common weak point. The plan also has to include procedures for active employee involvement in developing and executing it. The statute treats frontline input as a structural requirement, not an optional feature.²

Hazard Assessment and Correction

Employers must conduct an initial workplace violence hazard assessment, then repeat it after any incident and whenever new hazards are identified. Cal/OSHA has flagged conditions that heighten risk, including handling cash, working alone, late-night or early-morning hours, and guarding money or valuables.¹ The assessment should look at all four violence types, physical layout, staffing, and the nature of interactions with the public.

Once hazards are identified, the plan must set out how the employer will correct them in a timely way. Corrections can be engineering controls, such as physical barriers, better lighting, panic buttons, and secured entry points, or work practice controls, such as staffing adjustments, cash-handling procedures, and visitor check-in protocols.²

Reporting, Emergency Response, and Post-Incident Review

The plan needs a procedure for employees to report workplace violence incidents or concerns to the employer or law enforcement, with explicit protection against retaliation. It also has to include emergency response protocols for unanticipated life-threatening situations or situations posing a risk of significant injury.¹

After any incident, the employer must run a post-incident review and investigation, and the findings should feed back into the hazard assessment and drive concrete changes to the plan. Logging incidents without updating the prevention measures is checking a box, not complying.

Training Requirements

Employers must provide interactive training to all employees when the WVPP is first established and at least once every year afterward. “Interactive” means employees can ask questions of someone qualified to answer them. A pre-recorded video with no discussion does not meet the standard.²

Training must cover:

The contents of the employer’s specific WVPP.
The statutory definition of workplace violence, including all four types.
How to report incidents or concerns without fear of retaliation.
Workplace violence hazards specific to the employee’s job assignment.
The corrective measures the employer has put in place.
Strategies employees can use to avoid physical harm.
How employees can participate in developing and updating the WVPP.

Additional training is required whenever new hazards are identified or plan changes affect how employees should respond. Recycling the same slides year after year without incorporating lessons from actual incidents falls short of what the law demands.¹

Records and Retention Periods

SB 553 imposes specific retention periods, and misjudging them is one of the easier ways to draw a citation.

Every workplace violence incident must be recorded in a violent incident log kept for at least five years. Each entry has to capture the date, time, and location of the incident, a description of what happened, a classification of who committed the violence using the four-type framework, the type of incident, and the consequences, including corrective actions.²

Records of hazard identification, evaluation, and correction must also be kept for at least five years. Training records must be kept for at least one year and should include the training date, a summary of what was covered, and the names and job titles of everyone who attended.¹

All of these records must be made available to Cal/OSHA on request. Employers should also be prepared to share the plan itself and the incident log with employees and their representatives when asked.²

Penalties for Noncompliance

Cal/OSHA enforces Section 6401.9, and the penalties are meaningful. Under the current schedule, a serious violation carries a base penalty of $18,000 and can reach up to $25,000 per violation.³ General and regulatory violations, including record-keeping failures, can be penalized up to $16,285 each. Willful or repeat violations reach up to $162,851 per violation, with a minimum of $11,632 for each willful violation.⁴

These amounts adjust annually with the Consumer Price Index. Each deficiency can be cited as a separate violation, so an employer missing a written plan, lacking training records, and failing to maintain an incident log could face three independent penalties from a single inspection. Cal/OSHA can also require employers to immediately report any serious injury, illness, or death resulting from workplace violence.¹

Workplace Violence Restraining Orders

SB 553 also expanded the civil tools available after violence or a credible threat has occurred. Under amended Section 527.8 of the Code of Civil Procedure, an employer can seek a temporary restraining order on behalf of an employee who has experienced unlawful violence or a credible threat of violence that can reasonably be connected to the workplace.⁵

Starting January 1, 2025, collective bargaining representatives can also petition for these restraining orders on behalf of employees they represent. Before filing, the employer or union representative must give the affected employee the opportunity to decline being named in the order. If the employee declines, the employer can still seek protection for other workers at the same location.⁵

Practical Starting Points

Cal/OSHA has published a model Workplace Violence Prevention Plan for general industry, non-health care employers, available as a downloadable document on Cal/OSHA’s workplace violence prevention page. It provides a framework that still has to be tailored to actual worksite conditions, hazards, and operations.¹

For most employers the practical sequence is straightforward. Run the initial hazard assessment across all four violence types. Designate a plan administrator with real authority and time. Bring frontline employees into the drafting process. Deliver the first round of interactive training. Stand up the incident log and record-keeping systems, mindful of the five-year and one-year retention periods. Employers with a solid IIPP already in place can integrate the WVPP into that framework rather than maintain a separate document.

1
Cal/OSHA. Cal/OSHA Workplace Violence Prevention for General Industry
2
California Legislative Information. California Labor Code LAB 6401.9
3
Legal Information Institute. California Code of Regulations Title 8 Section 336 – Assessment of Civil Penalties
4
California Department of Industrial Relations. Cal/OSHA Increases Civil Penalty Amounts for 2025
5
California Legislative Information. Compare Versions – SB 553 Occupational Safety