Senate Standing Committee on Labor, Public Employment and Retirement

We're holding our committee hearing here in the O Street Building. I just want to announce that all Members of the committee appear to be present now in room 2200 so we can establish our quorum and begin our hearing. We have one Bill on today's agenda, but before we hear presentation of the Bill, let's establish the quorum. Secretary, please call the role.

Senator Cortese. Here. Cortese. Here. Senator Wilk? Present. Wilk. Present. Senator Durazo? Durazo. Here. Senator Laird? Laird. Here. Senator Smallwood-Cuevas. Smallwood-Cuevas? Here. We have a quorum.

Thank you. And we will, of course, meet with a larger agenda later on. But I want to just take the moment to acknowledge new Members to this committee this year. Vice Chair Wilk, Senator Smallwood-Cuevas, Welcome to the committee.

Senator Larry Durazo and I have served here for the past two years. So before we take up our first and only Bill today, we do need to adopt our committee rules for the 2023-2024 legislative session. Without objection.

Oh, I was going to move them, but it fits. Without objection. I'm going with that.

We're going to without objection. The rules have been adopted. Now I'm going to hand things over to Vice Chair Senator Wilk and ask him to please allow me to present SB 41.

Thank you, sir. That feels good. All right. Well, welcome, Senator Cortese. You can do it from your desk. Oh, you're going to actually go down and present wherever you're comfortable. You're the boss here. All right, Senator Cortese, whenever you're ready, you may present SB 41.

Thank you, Vice Chair. At the moment. Chair Wilk. Mr. Chair and Members, thank you for allowing me to present SB 41 to you today. This Bill reflects months of negotiations and an agreement between commercial airlines and cabin crew labor representatives and has no opposition. The Bill exempts certain flight crew employees from California's Labor Code provisions regarding meal and rest breaks.

Compliance with the California Meal and rest break statute for in flight cabin crews is impossible for commercial airline flights longer than two and a half to 3 hours because the FAA requires these employees to remain on duty at all times during a flight, including during meal and rest periods. Under California's meal and rest break law, employees must be off duty during meal and rest break times. Further, the statute requires an employee must be able to leave the premise, which is not possible, of course, for employees who are in flight.

This Bill provides a course correction for incompatible state and federal regulations. SB 41 would exempt California based cabin crews from the meal and rest breaks, but only if there is a collective bargaining agreement that provides for breaks or appropriate compensation. The Bill would protect any settlement agreement or final judgment of any civil action brought by a cabin crew employee against an employer or on a claim of a meal or rest break violation.

With us today is Robert Longer from Communication Workers of America. As my lead witness.

Please come to the desk. Well, again, I don't know what the I would let you come to the desk, but I'm not in charge.

Alright, thank you. Chairman Cortese, Members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on support of urgent passage of SB 41. My name is Robert Longer, and I'm here on behalf of my union siblings, the association of Flight Attendants, CWA, representing 50,000 flight attendants at 19 airlines, and the hundreds of thousands of us and the Communications Workers of America who stand with them.

California meal and Rest law is an important protection for workers in California, but flight attendants based in California have yet to experience the benefits of it. Problem is that, as written, there is no way to ensure that the airlines comply with the statute, because flight attendants cannot simply leave the property for a break or go off duty during their workday. According to federal regulations, the law does not describe how to comply.

And in the federal court case, management took the position that airlines are exempt from complying with this law. The courts decided otherwise, but did not provide instruction about how to comply. SB 41 finally codifies that this law applies to flight attendants as well, and airlines will comply with the law when they bargain meal and rest breaks language in a contract.

There are several advantages to this approach. Each airline operation is unique, and this allows the flight attendants and management determine how best to provide these benefits within the unique operations at each airline. California can only enforce the law within the state, and the plaintiffs even argue that the law only applies to intrastate flying, which was key in the Supreme Court decision to deny cert on the case.

But there are very few flight attendants based in California who only fly within the state's borders during their workday. SB 41 ensures these provisions will apply to all California based flight attendants, no matter where their work takes them. In the country, 80% of the California based flight attendants have a union and a union contract.

Those who don't can still file claims. Finally, this is also about job security for our work in California. We don't need airlines making decisions based on their inability to comply with the current law that jeopardizes our jobs in California or the kinds of assignments we can bid for here in this state. We look forward to urgent passage of this Bill and signing by the Governor as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other witnesses in the room in support, please come forward and do not sit at that desk.

Will do. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members and staff, Mitch Steiger with the California Labor Federation, also in support. Thank you.

Morning, Vice Chair, Senators. Alex Torres with the Bay Area Council in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Vice chair and senators Tatum Ackler with Samson advisors on behalf of Alaska Airlines in support.

Good morning, vice chairs and senators. Ruben Zaragoza with Southwest Airlines in support of this Bill.

Thank you.

Good morning, chair and Members, Kate Bell. On behalf of American Airlines co-sponsor in support.

Good morning, chair and Members, Papia Gambelin with United Airlines and we're in support. Thank you.

Good morning, chairs and Members, Blaine Miyosato with Hawaiian Airlines in strong support. Thank you.

Good morning, Chris Rose on behalf of Silicon Valley Leadership Group in support.

Thank you. Now we will move on. Are you still in support? Neutral? You want to go ahead and share that you're neutral, then before we shift over? Sure.

Good morning, chair and Members, Jacqueline Serna on behalf of the Consumer Attorneys of California. We appreciate the chair's willingness to work on our issues with the retroactivity. And we are now neutral with the language that preserves cases filed before December 5, 2022. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Members, Mariko Yoshihara, representing the California Employment Lawyers Association. Also just want to thank the author and the committee and committee staff for working with us to address our concerns about the retroactivity. We're also neutral. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Now we'll move on to opposition. Any opposition in the room? Seeing none, we will now move to teleconference service.

Please hello, there we go. In support or opposition, please press one and zero. We do have one that has queued up one moment while they're giving their line number.

Thank you.

And our first comment comes from line eleven. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Ashley Hoffman on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce in support of SB 41. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Anyone else?

Yes, our next one comes from line ten. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Senators. This is Sara Nelson, President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, and I am calling in support and glad I don't have to bail out Robert.

Thank you.

And there are currently no more in the queue.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. With that, any questions, comments, or concerns from Members of the committee? So move. Okay, Senator Cortese, you may close.

Thank you very much, Chair. Well, let me just first acknowledge what you just saw. A good representative or a good representation of is the many, many folks from a variety of interests who negotiated long and hard to get us to a point where we have a Bill without opposition.

As I said earlier, that will align with federal regulations and California law. I also want to thank the committee staff of this committee, the Labor Committee, for being part of that long, long effort. And my own staff, especially Sunshine Braille, who seemed to work day in and day out over a number of weeks to get us to this point and a lot of other folks, including some colleagues, have provided really valuable input down the stretch.

So, in summary, SB 41 allows flight attendants to negotiate meal and rest break benefits while providing the respective employers ability to comply with California law. That's the summation of all this I respectfully ask for your aye vote

File item number one, SB 41. The motion is due. Pass. But first, rerefer to the Committee on Judiciary. Senator Cortese. Aye. Cortese, aye. Senator Wilk. Aye. Wilk, aye. Senator Durazo. Aye. Durazo, aye. Senator Laird. Aye. Laird, aye. Senator Smallwood Cuevas, . Aye. That Bill is out 50.

Congratulations, Mr. Chair. Turn it back over to you.

All right, thank you so much. Again, I want to thank those who are here today and provided public testimony, those who called in on the teleconference line. If you were not able to testify for some reason and you are reviewing this in the aftermath, please submit your comments or suggestions in writing to the Senate Labor, Public Employment or Retirement Committee or visit our website.

Your comments and suggestions are important to us. We want to include your testimony and official hearing records and we thank and we appreciate all of your participation. Again, thank you, everyone, for your patience and cooperation with the setting of this Bill on this particular day, at this particular time, this early in the year, we have concluded the agenda.