CALIFORNIA STATUTES AND CODES
SECTIONS 601-611
UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE CODE
SECTION 601-611
601. "Employment" means service, including service in interstate
commerce, performed by an employee for wages or under any contract of
hire, written or oral, express or implied.
601.5. For the purpose of this division only, "employment" includes
any service in an artistic or literary capacity performed by an
individual pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement between an
employer and a labor organization in the motion picture, radio or
television industry where the employer has the right to control and
direct the services to be performed and the individual is defined as
an employee under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement.
602. "Employment" includes an individual's entire service,
performed within, or both within and without, this State if:
(a) The service is localized in this State; or
(b) The service is not localized in any state but some of the
service is performed in this State and (1) the base of operations,
or, if there is no base of operations, then the place from which such
service is directed or controlled, is in this State; or (2) the base
of operations or place from which such service is directed or
controlled is not in any state in which some part of the service is
performed, but the individual's residence is in this State.
603. Service is localized within a state if:
(a) The service is performed entirely within the state; or
(b) The service is performed both within and without the state,
but the service performed without the state is incidental to the
individual's service within the state; for example, is temporary or
transitory in nature, or consists of isolated transactions.
603.5. "Employment" includes an individual's entire service,
wherever performed within the United States or Canada, if such
service is not covered under the unemployment compensation law of any
other state or Canada, and the place from which the service is
directed or controlled is in this state.
604. "Employment" includes an individual's entire service, if such
service is deemed performed in this State by virtue of an arrangement
made pursuant to this division and does not include any service
which by virtue of such an arrangement is deemed performed in another
state.
605. (a) Except as provided by Section 634.5, "employment" for the
purposes of this part and Parts 3 (commencing with Section 3501) and
4 (commencing with Section 4001) includes all service performed by an
individual (including blind and otherwise disabled individuals) for
any public entity or Indian tribe, if the service is excluded from
"employment" under the federal Unemployment Tax Act solely by reason
of paragraph (7) of Section 3306(c) of that act.
(b) For purposes of this section:
(1) "Public entity" means the State of California (including the
Trustees of the California State University and Colleges, and the
California Industries for the Blind), any instrumentality of this
state (including the Regents of the University of California), any
political subdivision of this state or any of its instrumentalities,
a county, city, district (including the governing board of any school
district or community college district, any county board of
education, any county superintendent of schools, or any personnel
commission of a school district or community college district that
has a merit system pursuant to any provision of the Education Code),
entities conducting fairs as identified in Sections 19418 to 19418.3,
inclusive, of the Business and Professions Code, any public
authority, public agency, or public corporation of this state, any
instrumentality of more than one of the foregoing, and any
instrumentality of any of the foregoing and one or more other states
or political subdivisions.
(2) "Indian tribe" means any Indian tribe described by subsection
(u) of Section 3306 of Title 26 of the United States Code.
606. Each individual employed to perform or to assist in performing
the work of any individual employed by an employing unit shall be
deemed to be employed by that employing unit for all the purposes of
this division, whether or not he was hired or paid directly by the
employing unit if the employing unit had actual or constructive
knowledge of the work.
606.5. (a) Whether an individual or entity is the employer of
specific employees shall be determined under common law rules
applicable in determining the employer-employee relationship, except
as provided in subdivisions (b) and (c).
(b) As used in this section, a "temporary services employer" and a
"leasing employer" is an employing unit that contracts with clients
or customers to supply workers to perform services for the client or
customer and performs all of the following functions:
(1) Negotiates with clients or customers for such matters as time,
place, type of work, working conditions, quality, and price of the
services.
(2) Determines assignments or reassignments of workers, even
though workers retain the right to refuse specific assignments.
(3) Retains the authority to assign or reassign a worker to other
clients or customers when a worker is determined unacceptable by a
specific client or customer.
(4) Assigns or reassigns the worker to perform services for a
client or customer.
(5) Sets the rate of pay of the worker, whether or not through
negotiation.
(6) Pays the worker from its own account or accounts.
(7) Retains the right to hire and terminate workers.
(c) If an individual or entity contracts to supply an employee to
perform services for a customer or client, and is a leasing employer
or a temporary services employer, the individual or entity is the
employer of the employee who performs the services. If an individual
or entity contracts to supply an employee to perform services for a
client or customer and is not a leasing employer or a temporary
services employer, the client or customer is the employer of the
employee who performs the services. An individual or entity that
contracts to supply an employee to perform services for a customer or
client and pays wages to the employee for the services, but is not a
leasing employer or a temporary services employer, pays the wages as
the agent of the employer.
(d) In circumstances which are in essence the loan of an employee
from one employer to another employer wherein direction and control
of the manner and means of performing the services changes to the
employer to whom the employee is loaned, the loaning employer shall
continue to be the employer of the employee if the loaning employer
continues to pay remuneration to the employee, whether or not
reimbursed by the other employer. If the employer to whom the
employee is loaned pays remuneration to the employee for the services
performed, that employer shall be considered the employer for the
purposes of any remuneration paid to the employee by the employer,
regardless of whether the loaning employer also pays remuneration to
the employee.
607. If the services performed during one-half or more of any pay
period by an employee for the person employing him constitute
employment, all the services of the employee for that period shall be
deemed to be employment; but if the services performed during more
than one-half of any pay period by an employee for the person
employing him do not constitute employment, then none of the services
of the employee for that period shall be deemed to be employment.
As used in this section "pay period" means a period of not more
than 31 consecutive days for which a payment of remuneration is
ordinarily made to the employee by the person employing him.
608. "Employment", except as provided by Section 634.5, includes
service excluded from "employment" under the Federal Unemployment Tax
Act solely by reason of paragraph (8) of Section 3306(c) of that act
because it is service performed in the employ of a religious,
charitable, educational, or other nonprofit organization described in
Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 which is
exempt from income tax under Section 501(a) of that code.
609. (a) "Employment" includes service performed for an employing
unit on or in connection with an American vessel operating on
navigable waters within or within and without the United States or on
or in connection with an American aircraft operating within or
within and without the United States, if the employing unit maintains
in this state an operating office from which the operations of the
American vessel or American aircraft are ordinarily and regularly
supervised, managed, directed, and controlled, and such services are
included in "employment" under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act.
(b) All of the provisions of this division shall be applicable to
an employing unit and to service performed in "employment" under this
section in the same manner and to the same extent as to all other
employers, and the wage credits given to, and the payment of benefits
to, any employee of an employing unit under this section shall be in
the same amount, on the same terms, and subject to the same
conditions as applied to employees of other employers under this
division.
610. "Employment" shall include the service of an individual who is
a citizen of the United States, performed outside the United States
(except in Canada), after December 31, 1971, in the employ of an
American employer as defined in Section 125.4 other than service that
is deemed "employment" under Section 602 or 603 or the equivalent
provisions of another state's unemployment compensation law, if:
(a) The employer's principal place of business in the United
States is located in this state; or
(b) The employer has no place of business in the United States,
but:
(1) The employer is an individual who is a resident of this state;
or
(2) The employer is a corporation or limited liability company
that is organized under the laws of this state; or
(3) The employer is a partnership or a trust and the number of the
partners or trustees who are residents of this state is greater than
the number who are residents of any one other state; or
(c) None of the criteria of subdivisions (a) and (b) of this
section is met but the employer has elected coverage in this state
or, the employer having failed to elect coverage in any state, the
individual has filed a claim for benefits, based on such service,
under this division.
611. "Employment" includes agricultural labor.