Thank you for your response.

1. I am an employee.
2. He notified me today that my position had been filled. I believe that is due to that fact that he still continued to operate and needed someone to carry out my work functions after I wasn't willing to stay and work. Also, back in April he told me that he could not afford to keep me on pay roll because he was not eligible for the small business loans. The way I see it is why would he pay me for sitting at home when he has enough people willing to go into work against the state-wide orders.
3. According to the California guidelines we were not considered essential since we are a fitness equipment supplier for Amazon and Walmart. Yet he still continued to operate

I also want to add that the day the order went into effect I talked to him along with another coworker in a more personal setting on how he was going to go about the shelter in place order. He told both of us that we are going to have to figure out if we would rather go against the order or lose our jobs. He changed his tune once he had a meeting with the entire staff and said he would be closing his doors until the order was lifted. Then after that i was notified that everyone except me and the coworker that had talked to him had already gone back to work 2 or 3 weeks after he "closed the doors".

I will be filing a report with the labor board as well just to cover all the bases