Seven Labor and Employment-Related Job Killer Bills in Legislative Hearings This Week

Seven California Chamber of Commerce job killer bills that will harmfully impact employers will be heard in legislative committees this week. The job killing legislation include mandates to further expand California’s already generous leave rules, establish onerous return to work mandates, increase litigation liability under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and more.

Job Killer Bills

The job killer bills scheduled for consideration this week are:

• SB 365 (Wiener; D-San Francisco): Discriminates against use of arbitration agreements by requiring trial courts to continue trial proceedings during any appeal regarding the denial of a motion to compel, undermining arbitration and divesting courts of their inherent right to stay proceedings.
• SB 399 (Wahab; D-Hayward): Chills employer speech regarding religious and political matters, including unionization. Is likely unconstitutional under the First Amendment and preempted by the National Labor Relations Act.
• SB 616 (Gonzalez; D-Long Beach): Imposes new costs and leave requirements on employers of all sizes, by more than doubling existing sick leave mandate, which is in addition to all other enacted leave mandates that small employers throughout the state are already struggling with to implement and comply.
• SB 627 (Smallwood-Cuevas; D-Los Angeles): Imposes an onerous and stringent process to hire employees based on seniority alone for nearly every industry, including hospitals, retail, restaurants, and movie theaters, which will delay hiring and eliminates contracts for at-will employment.
• SB 809 (Smallwood-Cuevas; D- Los Angeles): Prohibits nearly every employer from considering conviction history of an applicant or existing employee in employment decisions and imposes cumbersome process on employers that are legally not allowed to hire individuals with certain convictions.
• SB 723 (Durazo; D-Los Angeles): Imposes an onerous and stringent process for specific employers to return employees to the workforce for specified industries, including hotels and restaurants that have been disproportionally impacted by this pandemic, and removes guardrails on existing law by making mandate permanent and significantly broadening the applicability of the law.
• AB 524 (Wicks; D-Oakland): Exposes employers to costly litigation under the Fair Employment and Housing Act by asserting that any adverse employment action was in relation to the employee’s family caregiver status, which is broadly defined to include any employee who contributes to the care of any person of their choosing and creates a de facto accommodation requirement that will burden small businesses.

The CalChamber and coalition members continue to urge legislators to stop these job killer bills.

Ashley Hoffman, Policy Advocate, CalChamber

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