California SB 947 is now law: on September 30, 2026, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the No Robo Bosses Act, chaptered as Chapter 859 of the Statutes of 2026, adding a new part to the California Labor Code starting at Section 1520. The one thing it does is this: beginning July 1, 2027, a California employer may not discipline or terminate a worker based solely on the output of an automated decision system (ADS).
What the law actually restricts
An ADS here means software that scores, ranks or flags employees — attendance-point systems that auto-generate write-ups, scheduling tools that label workers unreliable, camera analytics, performance scoring. When such a system is the primary basis for discipline or termination, the law requires a human to corroborate the output against independent evidence such as supervisor evaluations, personnel files, the worker's own output or witness interviews. If the output cannot be corroborated, or the reviewer finds it inaccurate, incomplete or misleading, the employer cannot use it.
Three further duties attach. The employer must give the affected employee a written post-decision notice in plain language. The employee may request a description of their own data the system primarily used over the preceding 12 months. And the system may not be used to infer a worker's protected characteristics under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act, to evade employment, safety or civil-rights law, or to predict and punish workers for exercising legal rights. Retaliating against an employee who asserts these rights is itself prohibited.
Who is — and is not — covered
The duties attach to employment relationships in California and to discipline and termination of current employees; they do not govern applicant screening in hiring. A valid collective bargaining agreement that explicitly waives these provisions takes the parties outside the act, and uses tied to national security, military, space or defense work under federal requirements are carved out. This is a California statute, not a federal or global rule: Connecticut's rules that took effect on October 1 govern written notice in hiring, while California's act governs what happens after someone is already employed. Employers subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act should also note that the act expressly keeps them under the Privacy Protection Agency's automated decision-making technology regulations as well — the two regimes run in parallel.
What to fix before July 1, 2027
First, inventory the tools: list every system whose output can feed a disciplinary or termination decision, including ones bought as ordinary HR software. Second, turn human corroboration into a documented step, not a rubber stamp — name who reviews, which independent sources they must check, and what happens when the output fails verification. Third, prepare the paperwork now: a template for the post-decision notice and a process for answering employee requests for a description of their data, plus vendor questions about what employee data a system uses and whether its reasoning can be exported.
Where the real risk sits
The civil penalty is $500 per violation, enforced by the Labor Commissioner or public prosecutors — modest per case, but it accrues across employees and decisions, and injunctive relief is available. The larger exposure is evidentiary: once a worker challenges a termination, an employer who cannot show the corroboration step will struggle to defend the decision itself. The nine months before the operative date are best spent making the human review real, because a signature added after the fact is exactly what this statute is written to reject.
