The California Legislature closed out the legislative year on September 15, 2017, and will not be returning to Sacramento until January 3, 2018. All attention is now on Governor Brown who has until October 15 to sign or veto the bills that have made it to his desk. It is important to note that the bills that did not pass out of the Legislature this year have become two-year bills and have the opportunity to be pursued next year.
Provided below is some of the key bills that Western Growers (WG) has been lobbying on behalf of our members:
AB 5 (Gonzalez Fletcher) WG Oppose: This bill would create the Opportunity to Work Act and would require an employer with 10 or more employees to offer additional hours of work to an existing nonexempt employee before hiring an additional employee or subcontractor. The bill was held in the Assembly and is now a two-year bill.
AB 168 (Eggman) WG Oppose: This bill would prohibit an employer from seeking salary history from a job applicant. Employers would also not be able to rely on salary history as a factor in determining whether or not to extend a job offer to an applicant or what salary should be offered to the applicant. The bill was passed and WG is requesting that it be vetoed.
AB 450 (Chiu) WG Neutral: This bill would impose various requirements on public and private employers with regard to federal immigration agency worksite enforcement actions. The bill would prohibit an employer from providing a federal immigration enforcement agent with access to a place of labor without a judicial warrant. It would also prohibit an employer from providing voluntary access to a federal government immigration enforcement agent to the employer’s employee records without a subpoena. Late amendments to the bill allowed WG to remove opposition. The bill was passed and is awaiting approval or veto by the Governor.
AB 1209 (Gonzalez Fletcher) WG Oppose: This bill would require California employers with 500 or more employees to collect gender wage differentials of their exempt employees and board members. This information would be provided to the California Secretary of State who would then post the company specific information on its website. The bill was passed and WG is requesting that it be vetoed.
AB 1565 (Thurmond) WG Oppose: This bill would exempt an executive, administrative or professional employee from overtime compensation if the employee earns a monthly salary equivalent to either $3,956 or an amount no less than twice the state minimum wage for full-time employment—whichever amount is higher. AB 1565 was held in the Senate and is now a two-year bill.
SB 100 (De Leon) WG Oppose: This bill would establish the 100 Percent Clean Energy Act of 2017, which would increase the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) requirement from 50 percent to 60 percent by 2030. The bill also creates a policy goal of having all of the state’s retail electricity be generated with 100 percent clean energy by 2045. This bill was held in the Assembly and is now a two-year bill.
SB 772 (Leyva) WG Oppose: This bill would exempt Cal/OSHA from conducting a Standardized Regulatory Impact Assessment, which is an assessment that is required of all state agencies when they are developing a regulation that will have an annual economic impact of $50 million or more. SB 772 would reduce accountability and transparency in government. This bill was held in the Assembly and is now a two-year bill.
For more information, contact Matthew Allen at (916) 446-1435.