Posts tagged California Labor Federation
A Win For California’s App-Based Drivers
March 17, 2023 // In an ironic twist, California Attorney General Rob Bonta argued in favor of Prop. 22 to the Court of Appeals even though he voted for AB5 when he was an assemblyman in the California state legislature and was personally opposed to Prop. 22. The state correctly asserted that the will of the voters should prevail, and the Court of Appeals agreed. Former assemblywoman and author of AB5 cried foul about Monday’s ruling, claiming the “system is broken” and that the appeals court “chose to stand with powerful corporations over working people, allowing companies to buy their way out of our state’s labor laws.” Gonzalez, who now heads the California Labor Federation representing 1,200 unions in the state, has no such concerns about the millions of independent contractors and small businesses adversely affected by her disastrous law. From transcribers and translators to sign-language interpreters, videographers, wedding planners, regional theaters, pharmacists, the independent film industry, and more, AB5 has wielded a wrecking ball to the independent workforce in California, particularly impacting female entrepreneurs who have been disproportionately harmed by the law.
California Court Rebukes War on Workers
March 16, 2023 // This obviously poses an existential threat to emerging app-based companies that rely on a contractor model, but it also posed an entirely predictable threat to many traditional professions where workers eschew the 9–5 cubicle or factory floor work model. When the Legislature codified Dynamex via Assembly Bill 5, which went into effect in January 2020, it exempted many industries — primarily those with the most influential lobbies. Nevertheless, economic destruction ensued. Companies eliminated jobs rather than hire people as salaried employees. Publications — including Vox, which ran a piece championing AB 5 — laid off its California stringers. Musical groups that relied on gig workers had to shutter their operations. All types of freelance workers — from photographers to sign-language interpreters to rabbis — suddenly found themselves in a pickle. The same Gov. Gavin Newsom who used his vast executive powers to suspend laws during the COVID pandemic refused to suspend AB 5, even as people who were forced to stay at home lost their stay-at-home freelance opportunities. Some Californians embraced the workaround of starting an LLC, but that imposed new costs on workers who already were struggling. Dynamex Operations West v. Superior Court of Los Angeles
A new try for unionization of legislative staff
December 14, 2022 // It’s fair to say that Democrats would not have attained their immense majorities in the California Legislature – more than 75% of its 120 members – were it not for money and other resources from the state’s labor unions. In return, Democratic legislators have bent over backwards to help unions increase their memberships and expand members’ wages and benefits. Notable examples are the famous – or infamous – Assembly Bill 5, which tightly restricted employers’ use of contract workers, this year’s bill to make it easier for the United Farm Workers Union to win representation elections, legislation making child care and home health care workers employees so that they could become union members, and innumerable measures essentially mandating union labor in public and private construction projects. Assembly Bill 1
Widespread strikes descend on California
November 18, 2022 // It’s strike season in California, again.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom approves farmworker unionization law
September 30, 2022 // The new law will allow farmworkers who provide much of the nation's fruits and vegetables to vote by mail in union elections as an alternative to physical locations. Proponents say that would help protect workers from union busting and other intimidation, while owners say such a system lacks necessary safeguards to prevent fraud. It will give owners a choice between “a flawed mail-ballot scheme or ... an unsupervised card-check scheme,” said the California Farm Bureau Federation in opposition before Newsom announced the agreement on additional safeguards. Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong,
California lawmakers kill bill that would have let legislative staff unionize
September 5, 2022 // California legislative staff will not have the option to unionize after a bill allowing them to organize was killed by lawmakers Wednesday evening. Lawmakers in the Assembly Committee on Public Employment and Retirement ultimately rejected Assembly Bill 1577 on Wednesday, a measure that would have provided collective bargaining rights to legislative staff starting in July 2024. The measure was a step away from a hearing on the Assembly floor, where lawmakers would have decided whether or not to send the bill to Gov. Gavin Newsom. Jim Cooper, Lorena Gonzalez, Mark Stone, Tina McKinnor
UNION SPONSORED AB 5 HITS INDEPENDENT TRUCKERS
August 24, 2022 // For a while, AB 5, passed in the fall of 2019, didn’t affect truckers. It affected plenty of other people in plenty of other lines of work, prompting belated carve outs by the legislature to expand the list of exempted professions. Passage of AB 5 even provoked the ride share industry, led by Uber and Lyft, to raise over $200 million to qualify and run an initiative campaign, Proposition 22, to repeal the portions of AB 5 that affected their businesses. After Prop. 22 was approved by voters in November, four “gig drivers,” backed up by the SEIU, successfully challenged Prop. 22 in court. That ruling is now being appealed by Uber before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "business to business” exemption, Borello test, California Globe
Column: Farmworkers join California Labor Federation as Lorena Gonzalez takes over
July 29, 2022 // As Gonzalez told me Monday, two days before becoming the first woman and the first person of color to lead the Fed, joining with the farmworkers is a message: “We are going to ruffle some feathers, and you are not going to get any apologies.” McDonald’s, Amazon, Big Ag, Gov. Gavin Newsom — she’s talking to you. But I’ll get to that. UFW is down to fewer than 7,000 members by most counts and last fall suffered an ugly legislative defeat when Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed mail-in ballots for its unionization drives. immigrants, UFW President Teresa Romero, Cesar Chavez,
Will California Legislature allow its workers to unionize?
July 26, 2022 // Just last month, for instance, language was slipped into a very lengthy budget trailer bill declaring the state’s intention to provide union members who do not itemize their income tax deductions with a refundable tax credit offsetting their dues. In effect, under the “Workers Tax Fairness Credit,” as it’s dubbed, taxpayers would underwrite some or all of the dues members pay to their unions. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, Assemblyman Mark Stone, Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee, Assembly Bill 1577, sexual harassment, HR1096, Rep. Ro Khanna,
California: Anti-worker or pro-worker? Why labor unions are fighting over a housing bill
May 12, 2022 // Under Wicks’ bill, developers would have to pay union-level wages — which are common to builders of exclusively affordable housing, but rare among market rate developers. Projects larger than 50 units would require health benefits for workers and contractors would need to request the dispatch of apprentices, but if they’re unavailable, the project would move forward anyway.