Costly Workplace Mandates
AB 22 (Mendoza; D-Artesia) Hampers Employment Decisions: Unfairly limits private employers’ ability to use consumer credit reports for legitimate employment purposes, such as those positions that have direct and unsupervised access to any amount of cash and/or valuable non-financial assets.
AB 1155 (Alejo; D-Watsonville) Erodes Workers’ Comp Reforms: Increases costs and lawsuits in the workers’ compensation system by eroding the apportionment provision that protects an employer from paying for disability that did not arise from work.
Employee Benefit Mandates
AB 325 (B. Lowenthal; D-Long Beach) Unpaid Bereavement Leave: Requires an employer to provide employees with up to three days of unpaid bereavement leave and elevates the significance of the right to bereavement leave to the same level as the right to be free from racial or gender discrimination and harassment, thereby adding to California businesses’ legal costs and responsibilities.
Inflated Liability Costs
AB 559 (Swanson; D-Oakland) Undermines Judicial Discretion: Unreasonably increases business litigation costs by limiting judicial discretion to reduce or deny exorbitant attorneys fees in fair employment and housing claims that should have been raised in a limited civil proceeding.
Vetoed by the Governor on June 28 was:
SB 104 (Steinberg; D-Sacramento) This bill would have essentially eliminated a secret ballot election and replaced it with the submission of representation cards signed by more than 50 percent of the employees, and left employees susceptible to coercion and manipulation by labor organizations.
CalChamber believes the current provisions of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) adequately protect the rights and interests of employees and employers, as well as unions.
The end-of-legislative year status of other "job killers" is available at www.calchamber.com/jobkillers.