SB 951: Employment: technological displacement: notice.

Existing law establishes the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, which is composed of various departments responsible for protecting and promoting the rights and interests of workers in California, including the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, led by the Labor Commissioner (commissioner), within the Department of Industrial Relations. Existing law establishes the Employment Development Department (EDD), which is administered by the Director of Employment Development. Under existing law, the Director of Employment Development is vested with specified duties, purposes, responsibilities, and jurisdiction related to job creation activity functions, among other things.

This bill would establish the California Worker Technological Displacement Act, which would require an employer, as defined, to provide at least a 90-day advanced written notice, as described, before any technological displacement affecting 25 or more workers or 25 percent of the workforce, whichever is less. The bill would require an employer to provide that notice to affected workers, the EDD, and specified state and local entities. The bill would also require an employer to provide a written technology hiring disruption notice to the EDD and specified local entities the local workforce investment board when it executes a technological cessation in hiring directly and primarily due to the adoption of artificial intelligence or other automating technology. The bill would impose various reporting requirements on the EDD.

For employers with more than 100 workers, this bill would entitle workers affected by technological displacement to a right of first bid on other positions with the employer. The bill would prohibit an employer, during the 90-day period from when notice is provided to the worker, from discharging a worker affected by a technological displacement without reasonable and substantiated cause.

This bill would make an employer that fails to give notice before ordering a technological displacement liable for back pay and benefits to each worker for a maximum of 60 days or one-half the number of days the worker was employed, whichever period is shorter. The bill would also impose a $500 civil penalty for each day of the employers violation, except as provided.

This bill would set forth procedures for reporting violations to the commissioner and filing a civil action in court. The bill would provide enforcement authority and related powers to the commissioner. The bill would establish the Technological Displacement Act Fund, require all civil penalties recovered by the commissioner to be deposited in the fund, and make all moneys in the fund available to the commissioner upon appropriation. The bill would make its provisions severable.