Senate Standing Committee on Labor, Public Employment and Retirement

The Senate Committee on Labor, Public Employment and Retirement will come to order. Good afternoon. The Senate continues to welcome public in person and via the teleconference service participation, and for individuals wishing to use the teleconference service and provide public comment in that way today, the participant number is 877-226-8216. Again, that's 877-226-8216. And importantly, the access code is 6217162. 6217162, for those who are listening currently. That will be posted, as I understand it, on the website as well.

Each side will be permitted an equal amount of time today. Lead witnesses will have two minutes each, and there is no reserving time for other witnesses. All others wishing to testify must limit their comments to their name, affiliation, and position on the measures. You will sometimes hear that referred to as #MeToos by Committee Members. Testimony taken via the teleconference service will be limited to a total of 20 minutes per bill.

We're holding our Committee hearings here in the O Street Building as the present participants in the building can see, but I want to ask all remaining Members of the Committee to be present in this Room 2100, so we can establish our quorum and begin our hearing. I do think we--looks like we have a quorum presently. Let me note that we have 17 bills on today's agenda. There are five on consent. We will take up those bills in one motion on the consent calendar, but before we get into any of that, I'm going to ask the assistant to fully establish a quorum.

[Roll Call]. We have a quorum.

Okay, thank you. Now we can take up the consent calendar. Those items would be SB 391, SB 479, SB 548, SB 698, and SB 885. There's a motion by Vice Chair Wilk, and with that, we'll ask the assistant to call the roll.

File Items Number Two, Three, Four, 13 and 17, all on consent. [Roll Call]. These items are on call and currently have three aye votes.

Okay, so we currently have three aye votes. That's enough to get the consent calendar bills out, but we will leave it on call. Now, let's hear from the first author we're going to hear from if he is here. That would be Senator Niello. And that would be on SB 330. Welcome. And you can proceed to the podium. And you're welcome to commence when ready.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to present SB 330, which provides really modest reforms to the Private Attorney General Act, otherwise known as PAGA. PAGA allows a single employee to bring representative action, that is, a lawsuit, on behalf of his or herself, as well as other employees, without the typical filing requirement of a class action lawsuit, or go to the Labor and Workforce Development Agency to resolve there the alleged labor violation.

It's important to note, by the way, that available data indicates that the current average payment a worker received from a PAGA case resolved by LWDA, if you don't mind me using the letters, is four and a half times larger than a PAGA case filed with a court while also being 29% less costly for employers. That truly is a win-win situation, despite higher payouts for the employee through the resolution by LWDA, while simultaneously costing being less costly for employers.

A 2001 report discovered PAGA lawsuits have grown exponentially in recent years, averaging 5,200 cases statewide between 2016 and 2020. There has been an estimated $8 billion in PAGA settlements since 2016. The thousands of PAGA lawsuits that are filed each year and continuing to grow are taking a true toll on California businesses and, very unfortunately, contributing to the state's reputation of having onerous complex labor laws. I'd like to do something about that.

Many of the alleged laborer violations, however, that businesses face, have little or no economic or other negative impact on an employee, such as minor technical mistakes on a pay stub and the like. In recognition of this fact, the Legislature has allowed a 33 day curing period for some violations.

Many employers, and especially small to mid-sized businesses and nonprofits who also can be subject to these lawsuits, are unaware of this curing period to find out, and that it exists or too late in the process, to take advantage of it. SB 330 will help employers fix minor labor code violations through education by ensuring that a notice brought under a PAGA action include a notice that the existing cure allowances exist.

SB 330 also brings more clarity to a PAGA action by requiring a notice to include relevant legal contentions, the number of employees impacted, and, importantly, whether there is any actual alleged harm. Now, Mr. Chair, I know that a number of groups have submitted letters of opposition raising concerns with the bill last week. I would like to commit to you that I will work with your office and with any said opposition to work for resolutions of those points. Clearly, PAGA is not working for employees or employers. And moving this bill forward today would allow us to continue the conversation. In support today, I have Ashley Hoffman with the California Chamber of Commerce.

All right. Thank you, Senator. And now we will move on to lead witness support. And, Ms. Hoffman, you can go ahead and begin when ready.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members, Ashley Hoffman, on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce in support of SB 330. Since 2016, there have been 36,910 PAGA notices that have been filed with the LWDA. In my own experience as a litigator, as well as speaking with those of the department, oftentimes these notices are pretty cookie cutter copy and paste.

They do not often contain a lot of facts about what the case is about, which inhibits both the employer and the LWDA from really knowing what truly the case is about. You know, from my experience as well, is trying to challenge the sufficiency of a notice often really gets you nowhere when you're in state court. State courts are very hesitant to throw a case out on that basis. And so oftentimes we would not advise clients to do so.

Really, the goal of SB 330 is to make what we think is a modest reform to the notice. I know some of the opposition has claimed that it's an impossible standard. That's absolutely not the goal. In fact, 90% of SB 330 was actually requested by DIR in a BCP that was filed a couple of years ago during the Brown Administration. So we are actually taking a recommendation from DIR itself as far as what they would have liked to see for changes in the notice.

And that's really where the impetus of SB 330 came from. So, again, as the Senator noticed, I really want to say, to the extent the Committee has concerns, I've watched a lot of bills, of course, go through committees as works of progress, especially in the First Policy Committee. And we just ask that you extend the same courtesy here, especially given an author who's so committed to working with opposition. So thank you.

Thank you. Is there an additional lead support witness? I did not hear a name from the Senator. But there's another lead support. You'll have two minutes. No? Okay. Yeah. We'll now move to opposition. I'm sorry? We'll now move to folks in the room who would like to express support for the bill. Name, affiliation, and support position, if that's the case. Thank you.

Thank you. Ryan Elaine with the California Retailers Association in support. Thank you.

Katie Davy with the California Restaurant Association in support.

Anthony Sampson here on behalf of the California New Car Dealers Association in support.

Good afternoon. Matthew Allen with Western Growers. Also supportive. Thank you.

Dave Butler on behalf of UCAN United Chamber Advocacy Network, a coalition of 10 local chambers of commerce in Northern California, in support.

Jack Yanos with the California Fuels and Convenience Alliance in support.

Leticia Garcia with the California Grocers Association also in support.

All right, now we will move to opposition, and we'll ask for lead opposition witness.

Hi, my name is George Warner. I'm an attorney at Legal Aid at Work and I direct our wage protection program. Legal Aid at Work represents low wage workers who have been denied their right to minimum wage, denied overtime, denied sick and rest breaks, and denied paid sick leave and other important rights. Far too often, Low wage workers cannot vindicate the rights at work. They decide not to file a claim because they're afraid of retaliation and rightfully afraid because they can't lose a single paycheck.

And there's a risk they will lose this paycheck if they file a claim. They sign forced arbitration agreements when they start their job. And those arbitration agreements make it impossible for them to file a claim in court and make them impossible to bring a claim in the Labor Commissioner. It also makes it impossible for them to bring a class action. Many California labor code provisions also just do not allow for individual enforcement. They require enforcement by the state or through PAGA.

In this environment, PAGA is an extremely effective, important tool for low wage workers to vindicate their rights. And I would just add that one of the reasons why we've been seeing a growing number of PAGA suits over the last decade is because more and more employers are asking workers to sign force arbitration agreements which don't give them other avenues for a lease. Legally at work, uses PAGA regularly.

We recently filed a claim on behalf of 350 phone bankers who were misclassified as independent contractors and required to sign a forced arbitration agreement. We brought a claim under PAGA for willful misclassification remedies. Those remedies are only available under PAGA, and that claim was the driving force behind the suit and allowed us to recover nearly all of the wages owed the 350 plus workers, and that resulted in payment of over one $1800 per worker.

The additional procedural hoops that are required by SB 330 will not improve PAGA and just will put additional barriers on workers. And a lot of the information SB 330 asks for is simply not available to workers. Asks you how many workers have been affected by this issue. Workers often don't know that.

Ask you to wrap up.

That's fine. Yeah. Just one more thing. Workers may work at a company that has multiple job sites or has multiple shifts, and workers can't know how many workers are there.

We understand your position. Thank you. Part of the reason we're strict, or I'm going to continue to be strict or more strict during the course of the Hearing on the two minutes, is because it's a fairness issue to all sides. And I don't think anyone would want to be on either side of trying to keep up with somebody else's three or four minute presentation. And at some point, a Chair has to make a decision whether to open up testimony again for the other side. So I don't want to be in that position, but I do appreciate the substance of what everyone's saying. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members. Sarah Flocks, California Labor Federation, in opposition. I will keep my comments short. I think the Committee analysis does an excellent job of going through the importance of PAGA for enforcement. After 16 years of really underfunding of enforcement agencies, the Legislature passed and the Governor signed PAGA as a tool for workers, often low wage workers, to be able to enforce their rights.

It is an added enforcement tool because we know that wage theft, misclassification, and other violations of labor law are rampant frequently in law wage immigrant industries. PAGA has increasingly become an important tool. And the author cited that there's an increase in PAGA cases. That is because there has been an increase in employers using forced arbitration agreements. This strips the right of workers to be able to go to the labor agency and file a claim and so that PAGA becomes their only option.

The idea behind PAGA was to streamline and make sure we had enforcement of the labor laws that are passed and that is accessible to workers. There is already a process, there is already information that workers have to file with the labor Commissioner to go forward with a suit. We think that this is a system that already works.

We don't want to raise the bar so high that workers, especially low wage workers, will not be able to not only file PAGA suits, but have no other option because of forced arbitration. For those reasons, we oppose and urge a no vote. Thank you.

All right, thank you for your testimony. Are there any persons in the Committee room who wish to express an opposition position, name, affiliation, and position, please?

Mariko Yoshihara on behalf of the California Employment Lawyers Association, in opposition.

Jackie Stern on behalf of the Consumer Attorneys of California, in opposition.

Christophe Mayer with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Ask Me California, in opposition.

Shane Gusman on behalf of the Teamsters, Unite Here, the Machinist Utility Workers Union of America, and the Engineers of Scientists of California in opposition.

Jazzy Graywell, UFCW Western States Council in opposition.

All right, we'll move now to the teleconference line to hear both support and opposition. Moderator, if you can please queue up any witnesses on the teleconference line at this time, we'd appreciate it.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to comment in support or opposition of SB 330, you may press 1 and 0 at this time. First we'll go to line 83. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Faith Borges on behalf of the Family Business Association of California in support.

Next we'll go to line 88. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members. Jamie Huff on behalf of the Civil Justice Association of California in strong support.

Next we'll go to line 90. Please go ahead.

Mr. Chairman and Members. Mark Chalk with California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation in opposition.

Next we'll go to line 79. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. This is Kayla Kirby with the Imperial Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce in support.

Next we'll go to line 77. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Brian Little, California Farm Bureau in support.

Next we'll go to line 89. Please go ahead.

Nayiri Baghdassarian with the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership for support.

Next we'll go to line 86. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Nick Champion on behalf of the California Trucking Association in support. Thank you.

At this time, there's no others in queue. Back to you, Mr. Chair.

All right, thank you. We'll bring it back to the Committee for comments, questions, concerns or emotion. Let me make my own comments, Senator. I appreciate your effort to step into this issue area. Unfortunately, it's much broader, of course, than the more narrow approach in your bill.

And my own experience with the doctrine that's behind this is a good experience in terms of the ability for private counsel, particularly to function in areas where there's just not the capacity or the interest of the Attorney General or local agencies that would have the power to come in and pursue these kinds of grievances.

That said, it's abundantly clear to this Committee, to me as Chair, and I think to many other people, that at some point we're going to need to go through a more thorough process in taking a look at PAGA. Which I believe will need to go down the path of informational hearings, hearing from folks on all sides of the issue, taking a look at recent litigation, trying to figure out how to navigate.

And of course, to the extent that there are abuses and I believe there are not necessarily by labor organizations, for example, I think that's sort of been called out. But the doctrine itself has been the subject of abuse that's been very difficult for businesses even outside of what would be the jurisdiction of this Committee, labor management relations. So we have discussed this. I believe that leadership in this Legislature now is very interested in seeing those broader kinds of call it reform discussions happen.

But I'm unwilling to support a bill that just comes in and tries to deal with a piece of that, no matter how honorable the intention. So I just want to be clear about where I am as a voting Member and of course, as the Chair of the Committee with that. Any other comments or concerns?

Yeah, absolutely. I'd like to make comments, if that's okay, Mr. Chair. So I've read the bill, listening to the first opponent, he sounded like you were eliminating PAGA. So does this bill eliminate PAGA?

It does not eliminate PAGA.

Okay. I didn't think so. If PAGA is so good, do you know how many other states have PAGA?

I do not, but I'm not aware of many because California is only one of maybe four or five states have any form of private right of action. This is a form of that, and I think there are no others.

That's correct. And obviously you're just looking for information so the employer can cure. So you're actually offering a solution, as small as the solution might be. I know numerous businesses that ended up having to go out of business because of PAGA. They're talking about employees. In fairness, and I agree with all that. Are you familiar with can you tell us in terms of the split on if somebody wins a PAGA suit or they settle what that financial split is?

Sure. I have four or five examples here that I can go through that are quite eye opening. In October of 2018, Walmart agreed to a $65 million PAGA settlement because its cashiers had not been provided with seats. The trial attorneys representing the employees will receive 21 million, while the affected employees will receive an average check of $108.

In an Uber case settled in January of 2018, the court approved a 7 and 3 quarter million settlement covering one and a half million drivers. Court documents show that attorneys took 2.3 million of the settlement. The state took 3.6 million of the settlement, and that left enough for drivers to take home $1.08 each. And one other, in a recent $1 million settlement with Google, the state got $408,000, attorneys received $333,000, and each employee received $15. And there are other examples.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that one. I want to salute you for--I know it's like pounding our head against the wall--but your willingness to do it, this is an important issue. There is going to be an initiative on the ballot in 2024 to correct this. I think it behooves the Legislature to do that before the voters do it.

But if we have to rely on the voters, then so be it. With that, again, I want to thank you. Support the bill and happy to move the bill when it is appropriate.

All right, we have a motion by Senator Wilk. I'm going to allow Senator Niello an opportunity to close, and then we'll come back to the roll call.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to repeat answer to one of Senator Wilk's questions. This is not a repeal of PAGA. And frankly, in terms of the data asked of the complainant, the moving employee, the only substantive change is to articulate exactly how the employee was damaged. Currently, there is no responsibility to articulate or value any particular damages.

And in the case of attorney represented cases that build a large class, the initial lawsuit requests very significant settlement that may or may not have a relationship to the damage, because we don't know. And another point about overly burdensome on the complainant is how are he and she going to know how big the class is? Well, two points there. One is a significant number of the litigated cases, if not most of them, involve classes that are indeed developed as part of the lawsuit.

In this case, the complainant is represented by an attorney on a contingent basis that does all that work for them. So the complainant really doesn't have to know all those details, just provide them as guided by counsel. And you can see, based upon the examples that I give, that ultimately the money that is provided to the employee, the complainant ends up being and anybody else in the class ends up to be rather paltry.

And I would repeat again that the LWDA settled cases have, on average, a much higher four and a half times higher, I would agree that even four and a half times a buck is not a huge amount, but the point is that it's less costly for the employers and there isn't a significant attorney fee included with that.

So with that and I would say, Mr. Chair, that I'd be happy to work with you if this bill were to move forward, to take a look at how you look at the way that PAGA should be reformed. You're agreeing that something needs to be done. Well, I very much think that something needs to be done. And if we don't here, I think there's a good chance that the voters do something about it, and the Legislature then is not involved.

Thank you, Senator.

I ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator, and appreciate your prospects or promise of future collaboration with that. I'm going to turn to the assistant for the roll call on the motion which was made by Vice Chair Wilk.

File item number one, SB 330. The motion is do pass. But first, we refer to the Committee on Judiciary. [Roll Call]

I'd like to ask for reconsideration when appropriate.

Granted.

Thank you.

And congratulations on the other bill of yours that just passed through consent.

I appreciate that. I'm one for three.

We want to make sure everyone knows you're on the winner side, too. Thank you. All right, we're going to move to File Item Five, which is SB 592, Senator Newman's bill. If he's here--he is here. Welcome, Senator, and you may proceed whenever you're ready.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Thank you for the opportunity to present SB 592, which would provide individuals and entities a good faith compliance defense for use in judicial or administrative proceedings, and direct the Department of Industrial Relations to translate its website and all materials published on it into California's most commonly spoken languages. Californians can be very proud to enjoy some of the most rigorous and comprehensive worker protections in the nation.

The experience of navigating these laws, however, can be very challenging, particularly for California's small businesses, which together account for 99.8 percent of all employers in the state, while employing roughly half of California's private sector workforce. As you might expect, many of these small businesses lack the wherewithal to hire expensive attorneys or HR departments and instead rely upon the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, also known as the Labor Commissioner, for guidance and instructions on labor matters as they confront them.

Given the DLSE's role as the entity responsible for enforcing California's labor laws, employers are fully expected to adhere to the policies and guidance it issues. Failure to comply can result in fine sanctions or under the most severe circumstances, criminal prosecution. Somewhat paradoxically, though, ambiguities in existing state law also make it likely that employers may be subject to penalties for actually following the Labor Commissioner's guidance.

Take, as an example, a typical small business who, as it strives to comply with California Labor Law, has modeled their business practices upon a template published by the Labor Commissioner. Now imagine that two years later, that published guidance is invalidated by a court of law. Suddenly, the small business owner who was operating under the rules as they existed at the time and who has been following those rules to the best of their ability may suddenly find themselves subject to retroactive fines, penalties, and prospective legal liability.

SB 592 would allow such employers a good faith compliance defense for use in judicial or administrative proceedings. If, and only if, the employer can prove to a judge that they relied upon and were in full, unequivocal compliance, then they would not be subject to additional penalties. Under the provisions of SB 592, employers would still be required to pay back wages and attorneys fees where appropriate.

Californians should be entitled to the assurance that they won't be punished by the state for simply following the guidance and materials issued by the state. If the Labor Commissioner has erred in its interpretation of the law, small business owners should not be left paying for the Commissioner's mistake. This is the legal knot that this bill seeks to untie. SB 592 would not give employers blanket immunity, nor would it grant bad actors immunity from the consequences of bad faith actions.

In requiring employers to prove that they were in full compliance with the relevant guidance and that they have represented the facts of their case to the Labor Commissioner truthfully and completely, SB 592 incorporates into state law a series of judicial safeguards which have actually been in effect at the federal level since 1947.

These safeguards would limit the bill's applicability only to good faith actors who can prove they did everything within their power to comply with the law, and it would exclude bad actors who misrepresent or cherry-pick the facts.

Further, to the extent that SB 502 would require employers to make a full and objective accounting of all of their actions to the Labor Commissioner as part of any appeal, the argument that SB 592 could serve as a screen for bad faith actors lacks merit. For an agency whose own stated mission is to help level the playing field for California businesses, we should be careful of the notion that adherence to the Labor Commissioner's free and publicly available guidance could also entail the threat of a business-killing fine.

To accept this as normal is to also accept that compliance with our laws can only be achieved by those who can afford expensive attorneys and fees, which would regulate our small businesses who enjoy no such luxury to continual uncertainty in legal jeopardy. With me to testify today are Marcus Gomez, a small business owner here in Sacramento, and Julian Canete, on behalf of the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. I am respectfully asking for your aye vote today.

Thank you, Senator. We'll move to your lead support witnesses, Marcus Gomez. Please. Either one of you can go first as long as you identify yourself.

Sure. Julian Canete, President and CEO of California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce. Thank you, Senator Cortese and Committee Members for this opportunity. First, let me thank Senator Newman for carrying this bill on behalf of small business. And we are supportive of the bill as well as a cosponsor. As the Senator said, our small business owners don't have large legal staffs or they don't have HR departments.

What they do rely on is the Labor Commission's guidance and the regs that they put out and opinions that they put out. And our thought, since they rely on this guidance, we feel they should not later be penalized for doing so in good faith. Now, when a law changes, we're not saying they don't owe the wages that are owed.

What we're saying is an employer took a good faith effort to rely on the Commission's guidance and opinions and carried those forward and they should not be penalized for doing so. And to take advantage of this defense, the employer must prove to the court or the Labor Commission that they did rely on these guidances and the facts of the case are applicable to the guidance. And as I said, workers would still receive owed wages, attorney fees, and cost.

Now, we encourage and tell our business that they need to be in compliant with the law and our businesses want to be in compliance, but at the same time, they don't want to be complying with the law and then be penalized because they did so at the guidance of the state. Again--and one of the other things is, we feel that the bill is both an employer-friendly bill and an employee-friendly bill.

One of the things we are asking for is a translation of the website completely in Spanish and other languages, not just for employers who speak a second language, but also for employees so they know their rights under the law, but they also know the obligations that their employers are held to in these cases that move forward. So again, we thank you for giving us time to give you our thoughts on the bill, but ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Next witness, please.

Good afternoon. My name is Marcus Gomez, and I'm a business owner. Been in business for 25 years. Before that I worked for my father who has been in business for 45 years. Small business owners. I support this bill. We don't always do the right things, but we do take care of our employees. I know there's a few bad apples out there that maybe they don't and they try to take advantage of them, but I can assure you, majority of small business owners take care of their employees.

Where my business is, we're in a group of businesses that are warehouses, and every one of those businesses is a small business. And we've got roofing company, we've got shop company, and you know what? Everybody around there seems like they're pretty happy. Nobody seems like they're--as far as employees unhappy with where they're working. I have one employee that's been working for me for 25 years. I helped him buy a house.

A lot of these laws that you put on us and the things that you want us to do, it gets more difficult to do--stay in business. If I could go out-of-state, I would, but unfortunately, my business is here in Sacramento, so I can't leave. But there are other businesses that are leaving. So I think you need to take a step back and listen to what small business people have to say. With that, I support the bill. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Are there others in the room who would like to express a support position on the bill? Please come forward and state your name, affiliation, and your position. Thank you.

My name is Martin McIntosh. I'm here on behalf of my employer, Barrios and Associates. We're a small, women-owned minority business out fighting to make payroll every two weeks, and this is a common sense bill and we support.

Ashley Hoffman, on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce, proud to support and a proud cosponsor. Also, if there's any technical questions, I'm also available. Thank you.

Thank you.

Bret Gladfelty, on behalf of the Associated General Contractors of California and the Associated General Contractors of San Diego, in strong support.

Thank you.

Anthony Johnson, on behalf of the Yorba Linda Chamber of Commerce. We are in strong support of this bill. There are many, many small businesses that really do try to work hard and try to do the right thing for their employees. Oh, I'm sorry.

Name, affiliation, and position. That's it.

Okay, sorry. Anthony Johnson, Yorba Linda Chamber of Commerce, in support. Thank you.

Got it. Thank you.

Jack Yanos, on behalf of the California Fuels and Convenience Alliance, in support.

Mr. Chair, Chris Micheli, on behalf of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, in support of the bill.

Good afternoon. Andrea Cao with the California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce. We are proud cosponsors of this bill and we strongly support. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee. Matthew Allen with Western Growers, in support of the bill.

Hello. Ryan Allain with the California Retailers Association, in support. Thank you.

Katie Davey with the California Restaurant Association, in support.

Leticia Garcia with the California Grocers Association, also in support.

All right, thank you. Now we will go to opposition witnesses. Is there a lead opposition witness? Two minutes each if there's more than one.

Mr. Chair and Members, Sara Flocks from the California Labor Federation. We are here in opposition. While we do support translation and language access, we oppose the rest of the bill. And I know this bill has--there was a lot of comment about a small business, but this bill applies to all businesses in the State of California. And at the same time, 19,000 workers have filed in 2021 with the DLSE with labor law violations for a total of 338,000,000 dollars in lost wages.

What this bill does is protect employers who violate labor law and eliminates the liability if they say that they are relying on an opinion letter or guidance by DLSE. And the liability, the penalties are what is supposed to act as a deterrent from bad actors and make sure that there is compliance with the law. The bill references opinion letters and enforcement actions, including frequently asked questions, templates, charts, anything that's basically on DLSE's website.

Opinion letters specifically and the other information were never intended to be legal advice or to replace the actual law that was passed by the Legislature. An opinion letter--and you can go through them on the website. I went through quite a few of them. An employer will call in or ask for legal advice, they give their version of what's happening, their facts, and DLSE tries to give their opinion. Opinion letter. They don't go out and investigate. They don't interview workers.

They don't know what was not said. Even if the employer is saying everything truthfully, there's a lot of context that is not contained in that letter, and it is very specific to one employer. And that is what this bill would allow employers to rely upon to then not have liability. So that is one piece. The other part I want to get into is that this bill is supposed to benefit--according to the author--small business.

But what it does, it actually is going to politicize the role of enforcement agencies who are supposed to interpret and enforce laws passed by the Legislature. It would allow corporate firms to go and try to get a beneficial opinion letter or fact sheet or information through DLSE by lobbying because then they could use it as a defense of their client who can afford to pay. Small business can't afford that.

So it inherently makes enforcement agencies more political and gives an advantage to large businesses who can hire corporate lawyers who can get opinion letters written in a way to protect them. For those reasons, we oppose and urge a no vote.

All right, thank you. Second opposition witness. And for those who are new to this, I know someone tried to go over, and I think that was someone new to this. We have two lead witnesses on each side: opposition and support. Everyone after that is limited to the lesser testimony expressing their opinion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. Mariko Yoshihara, here on behalf of the California Employment Lawyers Association. We support the website translation. Unfortunately, we're opposed to the affirmative defense. We believe that this bill will effectively immunize employers who break the law, but we also believe that it's likely unconstitutional. The bill would usurp the constitutional power of the judiciary to interpret California law by vesting that authority with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

Our courts have repeatedly said that the interpretation of the law is the exclusive province of the judiciary, not the departments of the executive branch, such as the DLSE. The California Supreme Court reaffirmed this well-settled judicial tenant in Brinker Restaurant Corporation versus Superior Court in 2012 when it stated, 'the DLSE's opinion letters, while not controlling upon the courts by reason of their authority, do constitute a body of experience and informed judgment to which courts and litigants may properly resort for guidance.'

In other words, DLSE opinion letters are persuasive authority but not controlling. And the reasons for this are plain. Opinion letters typically arise out of a limited set of facts presented by employers, often as part of a hypothetical situation, and always without an actual body of evidence for a trier of fact to weigh. As the Supreme Court stated, opinion letters are, by definition, meant to be instructive and not binding, precisely because the record upon which they are based is sparse and always one-sided.

Also, if AB 592 were to become law, depending on the Administration, it could create a slew of underground regulations that courts have consistently found to be contrary to the Administrative Procedures Act. If the DLSE can create binding law without utilizing the procedures required under the APA, as will occur if SB 592 becomes law, then the provisions of this bill will certainly be in conflict with those provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act. So, for those reasons, we're respectfully in opposition.

All right, thank you. Are there others in the room who are in opposition who would like to express that along with their name and affiliation?

Mr. Chair and Members, Shane Gusman, on behalf of the Teamsters, Unite Here, the Machinists, Utility Workers Union of America, and the Engineers and Scientists of California. Opposition.

Jackie Serna, on behalf of the Consumer Attorneys of California, in respectful opposition.

Christophe Mayer with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, in respectful opposition.

Mr. Chair and Committee Members, Louie Costa with the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, SMART Transportation Division, in respectful opposition.

Jassy Grewal, UFCW Western States Council, in respectful opposition.

George Warner, Legal Aid at Work, in respectful opposition.

All right, thank you. We'll go to the teleconference line now and ask the moderator to queue up any support and opposition witnesses who have called in. Moderator?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this bill, please press one then zero. Press one then zero only one time, as pressing one then zero a second time will remove you from the queue. We'll now go to line 109. Line 109, your line is now open. Going to move on to line 87.

Ben Ebbink, coming up from the California League of Food Producers, in support.

Line 88.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Jaime Huff, on behalf of the Civil Justice Association of California, in strong support. Thank you.

Line 90.

Mr. Chairman and Members, Mark Schacht, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, in opposition.

Line 104.

Kayla Kirby with the Imperial Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce, in support.

Line 97.

Michael Kalt, on behalf of the California State Council Society for Human Resource Management, in support.

Line 77. Line 77, your line is now open.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Bryan Little, California Farm Bureau, in support.

Line 101.

Lisa Rodriguez with the Gualco Group, on behalf of the California Association of Winegrape Growers, in support. Thank you.

Line 89. Line 89, your line is now open. Line 89.

Mr. Chair, there is no one else who signaled that they wish to speak.

All right, thank you, moderator. Good job on that. We'll come back to the Committee now for questions or concerns or comments. Seeing no one seeking recognition other than myself.

Do you want me to go first?

No, respectfully. I just want to let the author know where I'm at on this. I appreciate your effort.

I mean, in some ways, I guess the human nature is not by you as an author, but I think in terms of some of the supporters to come and say, this is no big deal. The guidelines are there. Let's allow the guidelines to be used in a judicial proceeding, an administrative judicial proceeding, and so forth. But that's a really big deal.

And speaking as an attorney who's practiced law, even an AG's opinion doesn't really carry the weight of precedent in a judicial proceeding, as in most cases, you have to have a published appellate court decision before you even reach that level of gravitas. And so it's just that piece of it that I disagree with.

I understand the burden people are speaking about, especially for those that are on the small business side, who would have more difficulty, I suppose, lawyering up, as they say, or defending themselves, looking for a way to get around that in a more concise, efficient way. That's noble, but it would be really, I think, a massive change in the way our process of judicial precedent is handled.

And it's that that really pushes me away and causes me to be in a position not to be able to support you on the Bill with an Aye vote. I do agree. A couple of people have said it. I mean, the other part of the Bill that deals with website translation and access, I think is extraordinarily supportable. And I know there have been some conversations about trying to bifurcate these two issues, but that didn't happen.

But again, I want to thank you for stepping into this area, for the excellent overall presentation that you made earlier. And I know you'll have an opportunity to respond shortly, unless you want to do it right now. Otherwise, I'll turn to Senator Wilk.

I'll respect Senator Wilk.

All right. Vice Chair Wilk.

Are you sure? Okay, great.

Anyway, I want to congratulate you, Senator Newman. You've got more opposition than PAGA reform today, so that's very impressive.

Do I have a choice?

So I think it's a great bill, I mean, I think it's a common sense Bill, and it's also a bipartisan Bill because Senator Vidak carried similar legislation, I think, back in 2018. And I believe that bipartisan solutions are always better solutions and longer-lasting solutions. So thank you for that. In terms of context, a lot of people talked about large corporations can game the system, but it's the little guys that get squeezed all the time. I want to step back.

If employees are owed the money, they're owed the money, and it's incumbent upon the employer to pay that. This is just dealing with the litigation which drives up costs. So I want that out there because I think that was blurred a little bit. Maybe we do some kind of amendment where this only applies to small businesses because it's the mom-and-pops that get squeezed all the time. These large corporations, I agree, have the ability to game the system.

So I don't know if anybody is open to that or not. But I think that's something maybe we should look at. And just the final thing, federal law does it, which provides affirmative defense for employers that rely on the Federal Department of Labor. And we don't have that same standard. And maybe that's something we ought to look at to be a little bit more business-friendly because this benefits employers and employees, which I don't think has been stressed enough. So anyway, this is a great proposal.

I support it and when appropriate, I move the Bill.

All right, Vice Chair Wilk, thank you for your thoughtful comments, all joking aside, and we'll turn to Senator Laird now.

Senator Newman and I have served now in the Senate for two and a half years, and I have never voted against a Senator Newman Bill yet. And I'm sorry that I am being presented with the opportunity.

What is it you're saying, Senator?

Thank you. Thank you for leading me to the rest of my comments.

I did personnel work at local government level in a 2,700-employee operation. And what you try to do at every stage in the process is make sure both parties have access to whatever it is. And if you have one party explaining the facts to get a letter and there's not the other party involved, that seems like that, on the face of it, is a problem. And the trouble is here, that to me is the problem you could advance to, then you have both.

And it costs a lot of money and you have to have more people. We could deal with that if we got to something I thought was fair. But I think that's the flaw in this, is that it is based on one person's account. And when I was doing grievances, when I was doing terminations, and the other issues, those accounts varied widely. And how people advocated for them on each side varied widely.

And so that's why I think all due process has both parties at the table and asking questions or making comments, and that is what is missing here. And so I think that there have been comments. Obviously, I support the translation part. And if that was it, I would go. And I don't know if there's a way that you could fix this Bill except to allow something based on the facts with both parties having a shot at it in a letter.

But then that's why you have the other process is to do that. So I think that's the flaw here.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Durazo.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator Newman. Good to see you. I look at this, we're in the Labor Committee and trying to look at the bills that come through here through the lens of how workers, working people, are protected. I don't look at it through how to pile up on business, but rather what does it take for working people to know that their rights are going to be enforced? That's what our role is as government when we pass these laws.

So I don't see through this Bill that workers will be more protected. In fact, I think something will be taken away from the strength of enforcing the bills. And you and I oversee the budget with labor agency. We know all the issues that labor agencies go through, our state labor agencies go through, to try to enforce the law, how difficult it is, how the backlog of cases. So looking at it through all these lenses, I don't see how working people would benefit from it.

And that's the bottom line for me. So thank you.

Thank you, Senator Durazo. I think everyone who's asked to be recognized has been recognized at this point. We'll give you an opportunity to close, and then we'll come back to Vice Chair Wilk.

Okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Members. And I do appreciate the feedback. And again, where we start is we have what I think most folks agree, we have a real problem. Right?

In a state where small businesses generally lack the resources that big companies do, they go where it seems apparent that they can find the guidance and the resources to keep them on the straight and narrow as a matter of good business practices.

What the Bill endeavors to do is to recognize that and to provide the assurance, or at least the space to good faith actors that in the event that they adhere to policies as they understand them, as they're published on the Labor Commission's website, that they would indeed be liable for any retroactive pay to sort of true up the workers, but they wouldn't be exposed to really onerous penalties or the prospect of those penalties in making a good faith effort. So to, I think Senator Laird's point, I think this whole process assumes that there would be a point in that process where both sides would be heard and an assessment would be made as to whether the employer was, in fact, dealing in good faith.

And, in fact, it would be incumbent upon the employer to prove that. But if they could, nobody takes any issue with the notion that they'd owe the back wages. What we're trying to do is save them from the heartache and expense of really severe retroactive fines that are often enough to put small businesses out of business and are seemingly enough to dissuade good people from going into business. So that's the goal here. I think you heard from the witness to that effect.

This Bill is not meant to be anti-worker. Right? It's meant to find some space that, wherein California not only protects the worker, but we provide safe harbor for good employers, nor is it meant to be anti-union. And so, you know, with that, I know, I do appreciate your feedback. I think this is an important conversation that we need to have in California, where it is increasingly hard to start and make a business survive for reasons very similar to the ones we're discussing here today.

And with that, I again respectfully ask your Aye vote.

All right, thank you, Senator. Vice Chair Wilk, just confirming your motion.

Oh, I made the motion. Yes, sir.

All right, thank you. And we'll have the assistant state the motion and call the roll call at this time.

File item number five, SB 592. The motion is do pass, but first to re-refer to the Committee on Judiciary. [Roll call]. This Bill fails with one Aye vote and three Noes.

And I would ask.

For reconsideration.

With no objection. A reconsideration is granted.

Thank you.

Thank you. We're going to move on now to file item six, SB 616, Senator Gonzalez. Welcome to you. And you can proceed whenever you wish. Thank you.

Great. Well, good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. I'm here today to present Senate Bill 616, which will increase paid sick leave and expand the current safety net for all workers. First off, I would like to be clear, and would like to be clear in amending this Bill, as described in the Committee analysis, to extend retaliation protections for employees who use their paid sick days, are under a General collective bargaining agreement, and are exempted from paid sick days law in California.

Secondly, these amendments provide seven unpaid sick days to railroad employees. California led the nation in establishing the Healthy Workplaces Healthy Families Act of 2014, which requires employers to provide three paid sick days to all employees. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and other widespread outbreaks like that of RSV and the flu have illustrated that just three paid sick days is not enough for most people to recover from such illnesses. During the pandemic, we saw the incredible benefits that increased paid sick leave had on the health of employees.

Researchers found that the emergency paid sick leave policies prevented the spread of approximately 400 new COVID-19 cases per day. However, those benefits were only temporary, and only short-term expansions of paid sick leave policies are not enough to provide a reliable safety net for workers and protect public health year-round.

SB 6116 will address this problem by increasing the amount of paid sick leave that employers are required to provide to employees from three to seven days and seven unpaid leave days for rail workers, while also ensuring employees are not discriminated against or retaliated for taking sick leave. Not only are paid sick days good for workers, studies have shown that paid sick leave decreases the probability of job separation by at least 25%, which saves businesses money on turnover expenses such as interviewing and training.

Lastly, the impetus of current law was to ensure all workers were able to stay home when they were sick or when their family members were sick. Currently, when railroad workers are struck by sudden illness and try to take even one day of sick, unpaid leave, they are penalized, risking discipline or eventual termination, which is unfortunate and not fair. Therefore, even providing unpaid sick days is essential to ensure they are able to recover at home when needed and not risk losing their jobs.

SB 6116 will grant working families across the state increased flexibility to take care of themselves and their loved ones and ensure California remains the fourth-largest economy, but leaves no one behind. Testifying in support today, I have Kelly Kick from the United Food and Commercial Workers Local Five, and Jose Hernandez, who will speak in Spanish, who works at Wendy's here in Sacramento. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I respectfully ask for an Aye vote on SB 616.

Thank you, Senator. And we'll start with the first lead, support witness.

How are you doing? My name is Kelly Kick. I'm a proud United Food and Commercial Workers member for the last 29 years, 25 of those years have been spent in the Bay Area at Safeway. I'm very, very proud of my job, and I never really took my job too seriously, and then the pandemic hit, and I became essential. Going to the store every day was a fear-based situation, and we couldn't have the opportunity to stay home and Zoom our jobs.

We went to work so that everybody could have supplies and groceries to stay and take care of their families at home. It was really a scary time when we didn't know what was happening. We had coworkers who would come to work and say that they tested in the morning and were waiting for their results. They'd work with us half the day, and then they'd find out that they tested positive, thus infecting all of us, thus infecting all of the customers. And this is not going away.

This is not the last pandemic. This will happen again at some point, it's going to shut down the state. It's going to shut down the country. We need to instill protections for all workers into law when it happens again, so that workers don't have to come to work sick and make the choice to leave their families and not be able to take care of them and pay their bills.

It allows them to stay home, take care of themselves, take care of their families, take care of their children, instead of making a choice to put food on the table. When they took supplemental paid sick leave away, it didn't mean COVID magically disappeared. Now workers come to work sick because they've used up what little bit of sick leave they do have, and they're not able to make a choice between paying the bills or putting food on the table of their family.

Paid sick leave is an important public health measure to keep our community safe by giving workers peace of mind when they get sick or need to take care of their family. They won't fall further behind in life by doing the right thing.

I have to ask you to wrap up.

Got it. I'm extremely lucky. I have a union contract that allows me to have paid sick days more than most. But not all workers are union workers. Everybody gets sick. Not everybody has a contract.

Thank you. We're at the two minutes, a little over. Next witness, please. Support? Are you another support witness?

Yes.

Okay. Please come forward and thank you for being here. We're going to time this at four minutes because this involves translation. Thank you.

[Testimony in Spanish].

And now the translation will be a couple of minutes, right?

Okay. Yes. Good morning. Good afternoon. My name is Jose Hernandez. I work at Wendy's and I am a leader in the fight for 15 and a union. In January, I had to be hospitalized for two weeks because of a neuropathy infection. In total, I was out for more than a month from my two jobs as a janitor and a fast food worker. As a janitor. I'm a part of a union, however, and fast food workers do not have a union.

At my job with a union, I was able to secure paid sick leave for my entire time as I recuperate. While at Wendy's, where I've worked for more than 24 years, I only got three days of paid sick leave. Not nearly enough. It was hard to get by, but thankfully, I was able to survive off my savings. I've seen firsthand how my coworkers in fast food are forced to work sick because they can't afford to miss work without paying.

This is why we need your support with SB 616. These four extra days of paid sick leave would bring much relief to us in the fast food industry. We shouldn't have to work sick and expose others in order to survive while we're sick or during health scares like the one I had.

I'm here today to fight not only for myself, but for the more than the half million fast food workers across the state who don't have a say in our workplace or a union to ensure rights like paid sick leave. Until that day comes. We need laws like this one to hold companies responsible for caring about our well-being. Only by working together can we improve the lives of workers across California. Please support SB 616. Thank you.

Okay, thank you for translating. We'll ask now if there are any other support witnesses who wish to express name, affiliation, and support.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members, and staff. Mitch Steiger with the California Labor Federation, proud co-sponsor of the Bill. I urge your support.

Mariko Yoshihar, on behalf of the California Employment Lawyers Association and the California Coalition for Worker Power, in support.

Sharon Terman with Legal Aid At Work, proud co-sponsor in strong support. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. Megan Stubers, on behalf of the California Professional Firefighters, in support.

Good afternoon. Nina Weiler-Harwell with AARP California in strong support.

Mr. Chairman, Committee Members. Louie Costa with the state Legislative Board of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers, SMART Transportation Division, in support. Thank you.

Hello, Scott Brent, Smart TD Local 1201. I'm a conductor out of Stockton, California for the Union Pacific Railroad and in support. And thank you.

Jacquie Serna, on behalf of the Consumer Attorneys of California, in support.

Marina Iriaga, worker at Little Caesar in Carmichael, a part of Fight for 15 and a union here in strong support of SB 16. Thank you.

Hello. Isella Haro, UFCW 324, in support.

Hello. Sarah Diaz with the California WIC Association in support.

Jenny Cassidy, on behalf of the California Work and Family Coalition, proud co-sponsor in support. I'm also testifying on behalf of the following organizations in strong support.

California Partnership To End Domestic Violence, Californians for Pesticide Reform, Center for Law and Social Policy, Pesticide Action Network, Santa Clara County Wage and Theft Coalition, and Working Partnerships USA. Thank you.

Hello. Matt Lege, on behalf of SEIU California, in support.

Good afternoon. Jenna Shankman here with Family Caregiver Alliance and The California Coalition on Family Caregiving in strong support.

David Garcia, a crew member at Chipotle in Oakland. I'm a member of Fight for 15 and I'm in support for SB 616.

Mi nombre es Jose Hernandez. [Testimony in Spanish].

Good afternoon. Shane Gusman, on behalf of the Teamsters, the Amalgamated Transit Union, Unite Here, the Engineers and Scientists of California, and Utility Workers Union of America, all in support.

Jassy Grewal, UFCW Western States Council, in support.

Kenson Owen, cannabis industry professional, in support.

Mi nombre es Dehlia Espania. [Testimony in Spanish].

Gracias.

Good afternoon. John Gomez, UFCW Local 5, in support.

Christopher Sanchez with the Western Center of Law and Poverty in strong support.

Good afternoon. D'Artagnan with the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees in support of SB 616.

Mi nombre es Ana Rivera. [Testimony in Spanish].

Buenas tardes. Soy Teresa Orozco. [Testimony in Spanish].

Okay, thank you. We will now move to opposition witnesses. Lead opposition, please.

Good afternoon. Ashley Hoffman, on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce in respectful opposition. SB 616 seeks to more than double the required amount of paid sick leave days, from three to seven. While many of our Members, including small business, often try and offer more, not all of them can afford to do so. Or if they do offer more, they are allowed to evade some of the really strict and administrative burdens, pieces of the law.

For example, they are allowed to ask for documentation if you are out for a consecutive number of days.

We have members that actually, I have data for that have seasonal workers that show that the amount of sick leave that is used towards the end of the season climbs exponentially, sometimes to 300% what it was several months before, due to sometimes what is rampant abuse of sick leave because we can't request documentation, this year is actually the first year that the business community is coming out in support of another proposal that you will hear later that would increase paid sick leave.

And the reason we are doing that is because that proposal seeks to address some of the administrative burdens that we have faced. In addition to documentation, which my colleague will talk more about, local ordinances. There are currently nine local ordinances, which equates to 10 total state laws on paid sick leave. If you have a driver coming from Santa Monica to San Diego, they can pass through four of those in one day.

We get calls on our labor law hotline all the time with small business owners who have no idea how to handle that and how to reconcile all of these different laws. Not only are there differences in the amount of time that's offered, but the accrual rates, how you accrue, the rate that it's paid at, when you can cap it, when you can use it. I have a 16-page document that actually goes through all of the differences between these ordinances. That's really confusing.

And our understanding when this law was developed was that it was not enforceable by PAGA. Courts had understood the same thing. And then about two months ago, a court of final court of appeals disagreed with that, which now opens our small businesses up to significant exposure, especially when they're wrestling between 10 different laws that they're trying to apply to one. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Chris Micheli on behalf of the Hollywood Chamber. As my colleague indicated, the fundamental problem is this Bill more than doubles the number of paid sick days without any corresponding changes or reforms, things like rate of pay documentation. I know that the COVID-paid sick leave, for example, was cited earlier today. I would note that employers can seek documentation under the COVID-paid sick leave statute that was also extended.

And fundamentally, you have to take bills like this and put them into context. There is no differentiation based on employer size or type of employee. That was one of the requirements of the author of the original paid sick leave law in this state that it applied across the board. But a more than doubling has implications, particularly for the small employer community.

And if you look back over the past 15 years or so, this Legislature, for good or for bad, has been enacting anywhere from a low of two dozen to more than 45 and 50 new statutes in the Labor Code. And this Bill, like many others that you're considering this year, have to be placed in that context and the burden it creates on the employer community in this state. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Other opposition witnesses who wish to come forward and state, name, title, and position.

Hi, Ryan Elaine with the California Retailers Association in opposition. Thank you.

Katie Davey with the California Restaurant Association in opposition.

Matthew Allen with Western Growers, also opposed.

Leticia Garcia with the California Grocers Association, also opposed.

All right, seeing no other witnesses in the room, we'll go to the teleconference moderator and ask the moderator to please queue up witnesses, either support or opposition, on the teleconference line.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to comment in support or opposition of SB 616, you may press one then zero at this time. First, we'll go to line 108. Go ahead.

Hi, my name is Christia, on behalf of Equal Rights Advocates, the National Council of Jewish Women California.

Next we go to line 106. Please go ahead.

Mr. Chair and Senators, Michelle Teran-Woolfork with the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls in strong support of SB 616. Thank you to the author for bringing this Bill forward.

Next, we go to line 72. Please go ahead. And 72 your line's open. We'll move on to line 112. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, honorable Chair and Committee Members. Thank you for the opportunity to address you today. Edgar Ortiz with the California Immigrant Policy Center, would like to express our strong support for this Bill. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 119. Please go ahead.

Ryan Snow, state Chairman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, in support. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 81. Please go ahead.

Erin Evans, on behalf of NARAL Pro-Choice California, as well as the California Nurse Midwives Association, in support. Thank you.

Line 89, please go ahead. Line 89, your line is open.

Hi, this is Nayiri from the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership and we oppose.

Go ahead line 89.

Hi. Can you hear me?

Yes

Hi. Yeah, this Nayiri from the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership, respectfully opposing.

Next, we'll go to line 113. Please go ahead.

Ben Ebbink, on behalf of the California League of Food Producers, in opposition. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 97. Please go ahead.

Michael Colton, the California State Council of the Societies for Human Resource Management, in opposition.

Next, we'll go to line 121. Please go ahead.

This is Michael Miller with the California Association of Wine Group Growers in frustrated opposition. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 96. Please go ahead.

Lawrence Gayden, on behalf of the California Manufacturing Technology Association, in opposition.

And next, we'll go to line 67. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Sabrina Lockhart, on behalf of the California Attractions and Parks Association, in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 64. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. I'm Denise Carlage with the Fair Work Week Coalition, a nonunion retail worker, in support of the SB 616.

Next, we'll go to line 90. Please go ahead.

Mr. Chairman and Members, Mark Shock, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, in support.

Next, we'll go to line 68. Please go ahead.

Emily Adele with the California Credit Union, respectfully opposed. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 77. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members. Bryan Little with California Farm Bureau Federation in opposition. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 123. Please go ahead.

Testing new Chair and Members. Gerald Dentes on behalf of UDW-AFSCMA Local 3930, in support. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 105. Please go ahead. Line 105. Your line's open.

Hello, my name is Juan Carlos. I'm with Caring Across Generations, strong supporter of SB 616.

Next, we go to line 114. Please go ahead.

Mr. Chair and Members Brett Gladfelty on behalf of Associated General Contractors California and San Diego in opposition.

And next, we'll go to line 104. Please go ahead.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Kayla Kirby with the Ivy Regional Chamber of Commerce in respectful opposition.

At this time, there's no others in queue. Back to you, Mr. Chair.

All right, thank you, moderator. Appreciate that. We'll come back to the Committee for comments or questions. Senator Durazo?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the author for bringing this Bill. Know, my experience has been that usually the lower the paid a person is for their work, they usually can't afford good health insurance. They usually live in cramped, overcrowded conditions with their families. They usually have a hard time buying healthy food, et cetera, et cetera. I am really glad that today we are trying to address just one of the many challenges that poor and working people are facing every single day.

So I support your Bill. Thank you very much.

Others? Senator Smallwood-Cuevas.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And like my colleague, Senator Durazo, I want to thank you for carrying this important Bill. It's sad that we want workers to work sick on the job. And that's essentially what's been said here, that it's okay for workers to be sick on their job, let alone the danger to themselves, the precariousness of their families because they are sick, but also their coworkers and the customers and consumers that will come in contact with them.

California is about to surpass Germany's economy, and Germany gives six weeks of paid sick leave. They even have something called burnout. So it's not even about your health. It's about your mental health and how you're feeling and burnout, sick leave. So if we are really going to throw down and rival in this global economy, we've got to figure out how to take care of California's workers. So I'm so glad that you are doing this. We're going to win this and we're going to fight for it.

And it's just the beginning because we've got a lot of catching up to do with the rest of the world since we are now a global economy. So thank you for this.

Thank you, Senator. Other comments, questions, concerns? We'll come back to the author for an opportunity to close at this time.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to Senators Smallwood-Cuevas and to Senator Durazo as well. I think over the last couple of years, we've seen about over 100,000 deaths from COVID But even aside from COVID we have seen folks that have just been ill because of the flu and RSB. And on top of that, they have families.

People are working 10,12 hours a day trying to hold down a family, trying to figure it out and find themselves every single day in a conundrum because they don't know what to do. And that's not fair, not in the fourth largest economy.

As Senator Smallwood-Cuevas said, the fourth largest economy should be supportive of these hardworking individuals who are our essential workers and that of our rail workers as well, who have been fighting at the national level because there is no federal leave policy, as we know.

So if California can lead in anything, it's to say, yes, all workers, regardless of what business they come from, whether it's a small or large one, that they all deserve the respect that they deserve, and that is to ensure that sick leave policies and that they're not being retaliated against for their sick leave requests as well, that it is included in these policies, but that we continue pushing forward.

I will also note, too, that there's about 14 other states, many of which are not very progressive at all, that have more than five days of paid sick leave. It's kind of a shame. So I would just ask us to think about that and think about the luxury that many of us elected officials have and so many of us to be able to take time off when we need to. So with that, I respectfully ask for your Aye vote. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Senator. Do we have a motion? And I want to remind that the Senator has agreed, the author has agreed to take the amendments. She stated that earlier. So the motion would include, as amended. And there's a motion by Senator Durazo. We'll ask the assistant to call the roll, please.

File item number six, SB 616. The motion is do pass, but first amend and re-refer to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll call]. This Bill is out, four to one.

All right. The Bill is out, four to one. Thank you. And we'll turn now to Senator Rubio, who. Sorry, Senator Portantino. I know you've been waiting for a while. Senator Rubio got here just in time, a good time. And on her part, she has two bills. First one's SB 626. And you may proceed when ready.

Thank you, Chair and Members of the Committee. Today I'm here proud to present SB 626, which protects employees and guests of hotels and motels from dangerous secondhand smoke. This Bill prohibits smoking tobacco products within all hotels and motel rooms in California. A recent study by San Diego State University found that hotels and motels with designated smoking rooms posed thirdhand smoke, and this exposure really puts people in danger. Even though they stayed away from the non-smoking rooms, they were still affected.

In 1973, California prohibited smoking tobacco products inside enclosed employment places, but provided an exemption that allowed smoking inside 20% of all hotels and motel rooms. And it is time that we rectify that. We know that it does affect everyone's health, and it's not healthy for those that work in these hotels. We need to protect their health, their well-being, and especially because they're there every single day, and they work tirelessly to ensure all guests leave with the great hospitality experience.

And yet, we're not taking care of them. California later led the nation when its first adopted the initial statewide ban on smoking in indoor workplaces as well as indoor public spaces. However, California is falling behind in this particular instance, as seven other states, including Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Michigan, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wisconsin, currently have a 100% banned. A study also conducted found that the seven states' policies not only protect workers from the health dangers of secondhand smoke, but they result in a more efficient work environment.

Furthermore, going smoke-free in the workplace lowers cleaning and maintenance expenses, insurance premiums, and labor costs. This can result in greater profits, healthier, safer work environments, and happier employees. And with me, I have two witnesses that will testify. Autumn Ogden, Director of Legislation for the American Cancer Society. I think she's the only one that's here today. Thank you.

All right, Committee policy, primary witnesses, two minutes.

Got you. Thank you. Chair Members Autumn Ogden-Smith with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. We know the dangers of secondhand smoke exposure are well known and a risk factor for chronic diseases, including lung cancer. Secondhand smoke can travel from one guest room to another and into common areas of hotels through doorways, cracks, and walls. Electrical lines, ventilation systems, and plumbing.

Senate Bill 626 will expand California smoking protections by closing these loopholes in California Smoke-free Workplace Law that still allows hotels and motels to permit smoking in up to 20% of the guest rooms. Smoke-free laws improve air quality, improve health, and reduce secondhand smoke exposure, receive public support, and reduce smoking. For these reasons, ACS Can ask for your Aye vote.

Thank you. Excellent.

Hi, I'm Jamie Morgan with the American Heart Association, and we are in support of this Bill. I align my comments with my colleague Autumn Ogden. The dangers of secondhand smoke exposure are well known and a risk factor for chronic diseases, including heart disease and stroke. The U.S. Surgeon General has concluded there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke, and the California Air Resources Board has classified it as a toxic air contaminant.

We support this Bill because it will protect guests and employees of hotels and motels from the dangers of secondhand smoke and urge your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any witnesses in the room for me too support? Seeing none, we'll go to any primary opposition witnesses. Seeing none. Any me too. opposition testimony in the room? Seeing none. Let's go to the teleconference line. Moderator?

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to comment and support or opposition, you may press 1 then 0 at this time. At this time, there's no one in queue.

Thank you. Moderator at this point, we'll pull it back to the Committee. Any questions, comments, concerns? Senator Laird.

I would move the Bill.

Thank you. Anything else? I'd like to make a quick comment. I'm somebody who believes in freedom, but freedom stops at your nose. And one of the most offensive things to me is secondhand smoke. Recently got back to the district and left the airport, and I'm at the red light and I smell smoke and my windows are up, and it was the car next to me smoking away. So there's wind and everything else gets in my car and still there.

So I think this is a great Bill. Plan to support it today. And with that, with the Chairman back. Clerk, let's please call the role. Oh, I didn't let you close either. I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am.

No, I just want to say I'm really glad you're doing this Senator Rubio. Frankly, I'm embarrassed to say I didn't know that there was a loophole in the hospitality industry. I thought this was something that was taken care of a long time ago. So thank you. I appreciate that.

And please close.

Thank you. I know it's shocking to know that we still expose at least 20% of hospitality workers to this. I'm not a smoker. And I'm sure, just as Senator Wilk just stated, for some people that don't smoke, it could be shocking. So I just thank you for your time and ask for your Aye vote.

All right. Was there a motion?

Senator Laird.

Senator Laird made the motion.

To re-refer to Appropriations.

All right. Should I just let you continue, Vice Chair?

I'm your wingman. Whatever you want.

All right, we'll ask Committee assistant to state the motion, call the roll at this time. Thank you.

File item number seven, SB 626. The motion is do pass, but first, re-refer to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll call]. This Bill is out, five to zero.

All right. The Bill is out, five to zero. Congratulations, and we'll move on now to your SB 848, if you're ready.

Thank you. And I still have to apologize for my voice. That's been gone for about 15 days, and it's still very raspy, but I hope everyone's okay with it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome to the committee.

We're welcoming shortened presentations today.

Thank you. Today I'm proud to present SB 848, a bill that will bring comfort to people who experience one of the worst traumas imaginable. Every year in the United States, nearly a million families experience the heartbreak of losing a pregnancy because of miscarriage.

And other families also experience different types of trauma, whether it is an adoption agreement falling through the cracks or an unsuccessful IVF treatment, all in the hopes of becoming a family. And that's also, again, very traumatic.

SB 848 will ensure that families experiencing reproductive loss have the time they need to process their grief and heal from it, by providing them up to five days of job protected leave. California leads the nation in several types of leave programs, including providing up to five days of bereavement leave after the death of a close family member.

However, California existing law doesn't acknowledge the pain and suffering after a miscarriage or a reproductive loss event, which also can be equally traumatic.

This idea of providing time of work to recover from this trauma is not unprecedented. Several other states and local governments have passed legislation to provide leave for reproductive lost events, and many private employers have already voluntarily adopted policies to provide this leave to their employees.

SB 848 takes a thoughtful, balanced approach to providing this time off and requires the employer to keep confidential the reason the employee has requested this leave in order to protect the privacy of employees who have experienced this trauma.

The bill prohibits an employer from discriminating against an employee who exercises the right to leave, and it allows an employee to either use existing paid leave policies or take this time off unpaid.

The most important thing is that employees will know that they can take that time off to heal without having to worry about their job lost. SB 848 is supported by a broad coalition of organizations, and I am committed to continuing to work with Cal Chamber and their concerns.

Today, joining me to speak on behalf of the bill is Karen Bartolome from Long Beach and Julie Ogden, a registered nurse from San Jose.

All right, we'll go to the support witnesses. The lead support witnesses at this time, please come forward. State your name. You'll have a couple of minutes each to speak.

Thank you, distinguished Chairman Cortese and Members of the Committee. My name is Heidi Pyle and I am a delegate with the Junior Leagues of California State Public Affairs Committee, also known as CalSPAC. And today I'll be amplifying the voice of a fellow everyday Californian in support of SB 848 who was not able to attend today's hearing.

Erin Bartolome is a behavioral services professional in a public school setting who resides in Long Beach, California, and she writes, distinguished Chairman Cortese, Members of the Committee, thank you for allowing me to voice my support of Senate Bill 848.

Over the course of several months in 2018, my partner and I experienced multiple unsuccessful attempts with fertility treatments. Our fertility treatment team was amazing. Our Doctor was ethical and fair. They did everything right. They walked us through the steps and what to expect.

They required an initial assessment through a licensed therapist to ensure we were doing this for the right reasons and that we understood the percentages of success based on my own personal factors for those procedures.

He stated upfront that he would not recommend any more than four to five treatments before having to make a decision on more invasive and costly options or to decide that conception was not going to be in the cards for us.

Even with that support, I was taken completely by surprise with how devastating each and every one of these attempts felt. The aftereffects of one failed attempt bled into the next when rounds of hormone shots and follow up assessments happened in short succession to track progress and viability of the monthly IUI procedure.

The stress and grief of loss was cumulative with each failed attempt. It was surreal to feel like you are mourning something or someone who never was. It was even weirder when you work in an industry populated mostly by women and seeing friends and coworkers having their own fertility successes, I struggled to not feel resentful of those around me.

Once I decided to give up on my fertility journey, it took over two full years to feel like myself again. Had leave been available to me, perhaps the time spent healing from those reproductive losses would have been less.

And now, in hindsight, do I realize I needed the time to process and give each loss the respect it deserved. I ask that the committee please consider passing SB 848. And I ask for your aye vote thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Next witness, please.

Thank you. Distinguished Chairman Cortesi and Members of the Committee. My name is Janelle Greenley and I'm a delegate with the Junior Leagues of California State Public Affairs Committee, also known as CalSPAC.

I'm delivering testimony today in support of SB 848 on behalf of another witness that cannot attend. Julie Ogden is a San Jose based registered nurse and case manager with a background in pediatrics, NICU and labor and delivery, and she writes.

Good afternoon, Chairman Senator Cortese and Members of the Committee, I want to thank you for allowing me to provide testimony on behalf of Senate Bill 848. As an RN, I'm intimately aware of the deep and fulfilling relationships between families and between parents and their children.

I've seen love and joy. I've also seen the hopes dashed when things don't go according to plan. A loss of a child, even a potential one, is a deep loss that needs to be recognized.

There's nothing like planning for a child that doesn't arrive. Parents need time to be together, to plan and to heal so that they can move forward with the next step of their lives. They don't need the added stress of having to put on a brave face and come to work and pretend like nothing is happening.

Protecting the jobs of women and their partners at this vulnerable time recognizes that they are humans with lives outside of work, and it recognizes that their employers care about them outside of their productivity within the workplace.

I believe that this is important and signals to employees that they matter and that their families or potential families matter. Chairman Cortese and Members of the Committee, I respectfully ask for your aye vote on this bill and thank you for your consideration of this important measure. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Other support witnesses in the room, anyone want to come forward and express a position?

Mr. Chair member. Shane Gusman, on behalf of the Consumer Attorneys of California, in support.

Mariko Yoshihar. On behalf of the California Employment Lawyers Association, in support.

Sharon Turman on behalf of Legal Aid at Work in support.

Jenya Cassidy, California Work and Family Coalition in support.

All right, now for the opposition side. Lead opposition witness, please.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Members. Ashley Hoffman, on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce in an opposing, less amended position, I want to thank the author first and foremost and the witnesses for bringing awareness to this issue.

I know it's really important for a lot of workers and personal to myself as well, who has also experienced pregnancy loss and failed fertility treatments. With that said, we are working very closely with the author's office.

They reached out very early just on tailoring some of the scope of the qualifying events under the bill, as well as a potential cap on the amount of leave. So again, just wanted to thank the author for raising the issue as well as for working with us. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you for coming forward with your testimony. Anyone else on the opposition side, in terms of a lead witness, anyone else wishing to express opposition. That would be name, title and opposition in the room. Seeing none, we'll go to the moderator and ask moderator to queue up any witnesses on the teleconference line at this time.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to comment on SB 848, you can press 1 and 0 at this time. And we'll go to line 81. Please go ahead.

Chair and members, this is Erin Evans. On behalf of NARAL Pro-Choice California, as well as the California Nurse Midwives Association in support. Thank you.

At this time, there's no others in queue.

Okay. Thank you very much, moderator and appreciate you remembering those bill numbers. I'm not helping you with that very much. Anyone here wish to comment or suggest anything or make a motion?

I move that we move forward the vote, but I want to just thank the author for this important piece of legislation that supports women who are dealing with fertility and pregnancy issues. It's a very personal experience and been down that road myself and just want to say how important it is for women to have time to heal.

I also want to thank the author. And just a question, is this a benefit or a right that you've seen either in some parts of the state or in other states? It's such an important piece. I had not seen it before and was wondering, how extensive is this out?

Yeah, there's other places that do offer, but in particular, what we've seen is companies themselves coming forward and offering this to their employees just voluntarily. So it's more and more common, as we know, fertility in women.

They're having a harder and harder time for many factors. But anyhow, we see it a lot in the private sector where people are voluntarily offering this.

All right. Thank you. Seeing no one else wishing to be recognized, we'll give you an opportunity to close. Senator Rubio?

Just thank you for your time, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Right, and thank you. And we do have a motion by Senator Smallwood Cuevas. We'll have the committee assistant state the motion and call the roll file.

Item number eight, SB 848. The motion is do pass, but first we refer to the committee on Judiciary.

[Roll Call]

This bill is out, 5-0.

Alright, this bill is out,5-0.

All right. The Bill is out, five to zero. Congratulations and thank you. And we will now go to Senator Portantino, who's been a very patient man today. I guess we all have been a little patient today, but you're welcome.

It's been a busy day for everybody, Mr. Chair. And I know you guys have been doing a lot, so I'm going to keep my comments relatively short, since SB 640 is very similar to a Bill that Senator Durazo carried last year that got through this Committee.

Fundamentally, the state has an interest in ensuring that our universities and our students and our taxpayers are respected. And so when universities contract out for services, the interests of the state should be protected, and we should not have disruptions due to strikes and other unfair labor practices. And so having peace agreements between entities, having folks decide up front that we're going to have the best interests of the state and the workforce and the students and the taxpayers respected, should be in law.

And so that's what this Bill does. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

All right, Senator, any witnesses at this time that you want to call?

We have Professor Letitia Saucedo from UC Davis and Dr. Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein from Santa Monica College, I believe.

All right, please just...

I butchered your names.

They'll state their names. We'll get this on the record. Somebody said earlier that there needs to be. I think it was yesterday.

There needs to be some kind of a blooper reel as to all the witness names that get messed up in all these committees. But all joking aside, we intend to get it right. State your name, and you may proceed for a couple of minutes.

It was close enough. Senator, my name is Leticia Salcedon. I'm a Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law, and the Co Director of the labor and community center at UC Davis. I teach labor law and employment law, and I also teach torts at the law school. So I'm familiar with the National Labor Relations Act. I have three points that I want to make in support of this Bill.

First, the state has the ability to use these labor peace policies because it's acting in its proprietary capacity. The Cal State system has a real interest in ensuring that the services that it contracts to be provided on its property are completed with as little disruption to its mission as possible. The state is exercising that proprietary interest in this Bill by ensuring that employers and unions operate on CSU property and enter into agreements to avoid disruptions from labor actions.

Without these agreements, the National Labor Relations Act would allow labor strikes, pickets, actions, Boycotts, which are all part of the accepted methods for negotiations between entities without labor peace agreements. Moreover, the CSU has a financial interest in the revenues that come from these service contracts, and these labor actions would disrupt these financial interests. Second, the Bill does not impose any form of negotiation on entities seeking to do business on CSU property.

That is, the negotiations between the businesses and a union for labor peace agreements is outside the scope of the Bill. The Bill simply requires that businesses seek agreements from labor organizations that represent or seek to represent workers in that industry. Third, labor peace agreements already exist in several places. They're not uncommon nationally or in the state.

They've been successfully implemented at various sites, including the Los Angeles and San Francisco airports, the states of New York and Maryland, Los Angeles City, Long Beach, Santa Monica-Malibu School District, Santa Monica College, Los Angeles County, the port of Oakland, San Francisco BART system, the cities of Portland, Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, DC, and New York City, and the counties of Miami, Dade, and Milwaukee. I thank you for your time today, and I urge you to say aye on this Bill.

All right. Thank you for your testimony. Next witness, please.

Good afternoon, Senators. My name is Dr. Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein. It's a pleasure to be here this afternoon in support of SB 640. I got to think what I am. I'm the Co Director of the Public Policy Institute at Santa Monica College, and I'm also the Vice President of the Board of Education for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

The City of Santa Monica has a large hospitality industry and has seen lots of strikes and picketing and civil disobedience causing serious disruptions in our community. The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District owns land with a prominent hotel on it. The hotel in our district land produces revenue for our district in support of our students. Prior to our school board adopting a labor peace policy, there was much conflict as the hotel was a site of pickets, student protests, lawsuits, and demonstrations at our school Board Meetings.

This went on for many years and was a problem causing disruptions. Alongside our flagship high school, Santa Monica High School, we took action to protect our revenue and our academic and educational interests by adopting a policy that businesses operating on district owned land provide a no strike pledge with the appropriate union in the industry. This policy ensures that there will be no strikes, pickets, Boycotts, or disruptions, and this move worked for us.

Since adopting the labor peace policy, there have been zero labor conflicts, no strikes, pickets, or Boycotts, and thus no disruptions to our academic and educational mission. In Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, the policy has been a success. It is successful so much that Santa Monica College has also adopted a labor peace policy. And again, I'm just happy to be here this afternoon to convey to you the success we've had with this in Santa Monica-Malibu. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate the testimony.

Others who wish to express support, others in this Committee hearing room, you can come forward now, seeing none, are there any opposition witnesses, lead witnesses, please come forward and state your name, and you'll have a couple of minutes to proceed.

Thank you very much. Eric Bakke with the California State University chancellor's office. I do not have a position on this Bill at this time. I just want to say that we do have some concerns about implementation. We have some unique circumstances amongst our 23 campuses.

We've had an opportunity to speak with the author and his staff about that, and we hope to continue those dialogues as the Bill moves forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bakke. Any other opposition witnesses, anyone wishing to express opposition to the Bill, we will go to the moderator now and ask the moderator to welcome any witnesses, support or opposed at this time on the teleconference line.

Gentlemen, if you'd like to comment, support and opposition of SB 640, you may press one then zero at this time.

First, we'll go to line 110. Please. Go ahead. Line 110, your line is open.

Hi, my name is Maya Washington. I'm a student at Cal State Long Beach. I'm here with Casey Dunmore, a student at Cal State Dominguez Hills, and we are both in strong support of this bill.

Next, we'll go to line 118. Please go ahead.

I'm Nancy Greenstein, trustee at Santa Monica College, and I'm in support of this bill.

At this time, there's no others in queue. Back to you, Mr. Chair.

Ok, thanks. Moderator. We'll come back to the Committee. Comments, questions, concerns. If not, we'll give Senator Portantino an opportunity to close.

It's about stability on our campuses, shepherding good sense in our students' best interests. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

All right, do we have a motion? The motion is by Senator Durazo. We'll have Committee Assistant state the motion and call the roll.

File item number nine, SB 640. The motion is do pass, but first re-refer to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll Call]

All right, the bill is out. Congratulations, Senator. And we'll have Senator Alvarado-Gil come up on two bills, first one being SB 660. We thank you for your patience as well. I know you were here early and often. Yeah, that's what we all say here. Thank you. All right, and you can proceed whenever ready.

Okay. Thank you so much.Thank you, Chair and Members, I'm going to start with Senate Bill 881.

660. We're taking them in file order.

I'm sorry. You said you want SB 660 first?

I called them both.

I'm so sorry.

I was just letting people know that you had two bills back to back. But file order would be SB 660 first.

We'll start there. Okay, great. All right. Thank you, Chair and Members of the Committee. Senate Bill 660 would create a California public retirement system, agency cost and liability panel within the state controller's office to provide information on pension costs and liability that each participating agency assumes by participating in a public retirement system. Last year, Senator Dahle authored SB 1420, which required an agency to absorb the actuarial liability that their employees previous public employer incurs during reciprocity agreements.

While SB 1420 did not pass this Committee last year, there was robust discussion amongst the Members that emphasized the need for a study on this issue. SB 660 is the product of that debate. Smaller government agencies in rural areas face a myriad of challenges, from limited revenue streams to employment recruitment and retention, all while being on the front lines of major wildfires. After an employee transfers from a small agency to a larger one, which has a higher salary, the liability of their pension also increases but for the first employer.

This problem often leads to smaller agencies dedicating larger portions of their budgets to paying actuarial benefits of former employees at higher salaries. By creating this panel to study the issue, the Legislature will have the necessary data to address this escalating problem. Here to testify in support are Chief Tim Cordero and Jacob Poganski with the El Dorado County Professional Firefighters.

All right, thank you. We'll have the support witnesses come up at this time in whatever order you wish. We just ask that you state your name for the record, and you'll have a couple of minutes each to speak up to two witnesses. Welcome. If I can ask you to pause a minute, I think we're having some audio difficulties. Sergeant, would just like you to come closer and see if that works. All right. Just go ahead and continue wherever you were.

Thank you. Our fire district, like many other fire districts in the foothills, we face a myriad of challenges. As previously stated, we are part of the frontline defense in the California wildfire seasons. And we also, with our proximity to the Sacramento Valley and San Francisco Bay Area, we face retention issues with employees.

Over my 36 year career, we've seen plenty of firefighters that we've brought in, that we trained them, developed them, they moved on to higher paying salaries with Sacramento Valley departments and barrier departments, which, on one hand, we take pride in the fact that we develop and create firefighters that can move on to those larger municipal departments. However, it does create an unfair burden, in our opinion, to the pension liabilities when they do move to those other departments where their salaries can increase, sometimes 40, 60%.

When you go to do the methodology on the pension obligations to our agency, and most importantly, our constituents and our taxpayers, we feel there's an unfair proportionment of that cost that comes back to our district. So we're in full support of SB 660 to do the study, do the analysis, and so we can provide clear information to our elected officials that govern our district, as well as our taxpayers, and give them the information they desire. Thank you.

All right. Thank you for being here. Next witness, please.

Good evening. My name is Jacob Poganski. I am with the El Dorado County Professional Firefighters Association, IFF Local 3556, and I'm in support of Senate Bill 660. I represent firefighters who work in small local government and in rural areas that we are not unlike employees who work for other small special districts or even small cities in the areas that you represent.

In addition, I believe that Senate Bill 660 would even have benefit to the state who employs many temporary seasonal employees, like firefighters who work for the state as well. The ability for our agency to remain competitive really relies on the ability to provide benefits, and one of those benefits that our employer provides is public employee retirement system benefits. The difference between smaller organizations, like the firefighter, like the one that my firefighters work for, and larger magnet departments is funding mechanisms.

And because of our funding constraints, we really look for every way possible to make sure that we can funnel as much revenue towards retaining and providing recruiting firefighters to work within our rural areas and to provide them with good competitive benefits. So because of that funding mix, one of the big challenges for our agency is unfunded liabilities.

And really what we're looking for with Senate Bill 660 is to look at the equity that our employers are responsible for in that mix and being able to capture some of that funding that, like the chief has stated, may be going towards paying higher unfunded pension liabilities for employers who don't work for our agency and who don't serve the people in our communities. Those monies would be better spent supporting firefighters who do work in our communities and who are with the agency.

I will reiterate that it has nothing to do with changing an employee's pension in any way. Just looking at for a review of the equity the other employers are sharing and funding their unfunded pension liability contributions. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Are there any others in the room who wish to express a support position at this time? If so, please come forward. State your name, affiliation, and your position.

Mickey Kaiserman. I'm an elected official with Placerville on the El Dorado County Fire Board. I'm Chairman of the Fire Board, and I'm also Chairman of the Finance Committee, and we are in support of this bill.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairman and other Members. My name is Paul Gilcrest. I'm on the Board of Directors for El Dorado County. I represent 11,000 people in the Shingle Springs, Colombia area. I strongly represent them and support this bill. I offer please a yes vote. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks for your testimony. Is there any lead opposition witness? If so, you can come forward at this time. Seeing no one come forward. Is there anyone in the Committee room who wishes to express an opposition position at this time? You may come forward and state that. Seeing none, we'll ask the moderator to please queue up witnesses of any kind at this time.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to comment in support or opposition of SB 660, you can press one and zero right at this moment. And at this time, there's no one in queue.

All right, thank you, Moderator. Let me just make some quick observations before I turn to the rest of the Committee and give people an opportunity. First of all, let me just indicate I'll be supporting the bill today, but a couple observations. I want to acknowledge, having been here as the Chair for a couple of years, that Senator Dahle brought a very similar bill forward last year, SB 1420.

And I and others on the Committee recognized a problem he was trying to fix at the time, but his approach would have unintended consequences. At least that was where the Committee was at, where I was at in terms of impacting public employees' ability to transfer to other public employers and public employers' ability to recruit experienced public employees. So it's a complex problem.

On the one hand, we don't want to mess with the benefits of reciprocity between agencies, but look to see if there are ways to mitigate the negative impact some local agencies experience, as we heard in the testimony today. So I'm not sure specifically that setting up a new panel is the right way to do that. It seems that there are other ways to get to the same outcome and maybe more efficiently. The California Actuarial Advisory Panel, perhaps CalPERS, maybe the LAO or the Department of Finance.

But hopefully that's something that you can consider going forward, take a look at, especially if there are other concerns expressed, if the bill advances today. Assigning the study to existing agencies, of course, can help with Appropriations. I think all of us up here who have navigated that recognize that concern. Obviously, a different approach that mitigates costs could be helpful. That's not for us to decide, I'm sure something that you, your office, and your able staff have already taken a look at.

But anyway, in the interest of letting you develop this idea further and trying to get to the outcome, I think everyone's really looking for here in terms of the testimony that we heard. I'll support the bill at this time, just as one Senator on the floor. I'll be looking to see if some of these issues that I just observed or commented on are resolved. So I'll reserve the right to vote differently if I need to. But I think at this point, it's important to see how things develop. And I appreciate you stepping into this and asserting some leadership to try to get it done.

Thank you, Chair.

Senator Durazo.

Just along the lines of what our Chair just said, I also wanted to raise the issue of why is it necessary to create the panel as this whole sort of could turn into a real bureaucracy, but why create a whole new mechanism when it's going to be located, staffed by the state controller's office? Can we just give them the duty and the responsibility to do what we're talking about here? So I also will continue to look at it, but that's just, I think it's sort of a basic question, not having to do with the actual content of what they're doing.

Yes. Thank you for that, Senator. I just want to note that, yes, I'm definitely amenable to not adding to bureaucracy and helping to protect the tax dollars and how we work within the departments and with existing agencies.

The one thing I would note is really the composition of the board that would be collecting the data and reporting on this to be inclusive of public agencies that have fewer than 100 employees and that also use the PERS benefits retirement system. So oftentimes one size fits all policy comes out of Sacramento that has unintended consequences on our small jurisdictions, our small rural communities. So just to make sure that we are also getting the voice of those that it's impacted in the smaller communities. So that's one of the things that I would be looking for, but I'm certainly open to making those accommodations as we move forward.

All right. Before you close, Senator Laird has.

Well, I don't think there's been a motion yet, has there?

No, but we'll get one. Do you want to make one?

That's what I was going to do.

We'll make that official.

I was just going to say I really appreciate all the comments on work that still needs to be done, and I would move the bill.

Wonderful. Thank you. So seeing no one else wishing to be recognized at this time, we will ask the committee assistant to state the--you did such a good job making those last comments, I think I held it as a close, but you have the opportunity. Yes.

Okay. I'll keep it short. So I just wanted to acknowledge Senator Dahle's work on this. We are co-partnering as representatives of El Dorado during this next year and a half due to redistricting. And this is an issue that's very much important to us. I also want to acknowledge El Dorado County District. I did tour the facility and saw every inch of the firehouse and how well they spend the money that's allotted to them. And there's various issues. This one in particular.

Also wildfire insurance, that really hinders our rural districts from being able to serve our community. So I would kindly urge for your aye vote on this so that we can help to address the solution.

All right, great. Thank you. And again, Senator Laird has offered the motion. We'll have a Committee Assistant state the motion and take the roll at this time.

File item number 10, SB 660. The motion is do pass, but first re-refer to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll Call]

All right, a unanimous vote. Bill is out. Thank you. And if you're ready, you can present SB 881 at this time.

Wonderful. Okay, I'm ready. So I want to thank you again. This is my second Bill on the agenda today. I do want to say that I want to acknowledge the hard work of my colleagues before me on this issue, as well as acknowledge Senator Lena Gonzalez's Bill that is very similar to the one that I have in front of you today. So, Senate Bill 881 increases mandatory paid sick leave in California from three days to five days a year.

This Bill also includes provisions to minimize the cost and the burden to small businesses and preempt any local ordinances in order to create a statewide paid sick leave standard. Many businesses in my district are very small and family operated. They are on the lifeblood of my community and line up our main streets to attract millions of tourists year round. This Bill will provide those small and large businesses alike with necessary protections.

The pandemic changed the way that we view sick leave, and it certainly changed the way that our small businesses operate on Main street. As such, the state's leave policy needs to adapt as well. Senate Bill 881 marks for the first time that the greater business community has rallied in support of increasing paid sick leaves, and I believe that this should be celebrated. Here to testify in support are Ashley Hoffman and Chris McKelly, representing the California Chamber of Commerce.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Ashley Hoffman, on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce in support of SB 881. I want to thank the author a lot for bringing this Bill. And as she stated, this is an effort by the business community to really try to support an increase in paid sick leave, and to have that discussion. I do want to note, as the Senator mentioned, a lot of small businesses were really struggling during the pandemic.

I know there was a lot of discussion about COVID and the prior sick leave Bill. I do want to reiterate that businesses shouldered a lot of the cost of the sick leave. We paid more than 240 hours per worker in Covid sick leave over the past couple of years, as well as the unlimited leave that was required under the Cal/OSHA ETS.

So when we're talking about paid sick leave, I think it's important to really think about that context in the state that our businesses, especially small businesses, are in right now. We are absolutely, again, willing to have this discussion about increasing paid sick leave. But I think for our Members, it's really important to focus on some of the administrative burdens that we have faced in the last eight years since this legislation was passed by the Legislature effective 2015.

I know I talked a lot about local ordinances on the last Bill, so I will spare you some of that. But I did just want to emphasize, with 10 different state laws, it has become really confusing for our small businesses. Again, as I mentioned previously, we get calls all the time with questions about how to comply with all 10 of these laws simultaneously.

And so that is why when we are looking at potential fixes to those statute, we think it's really important for there to be one state standard. I do acknowledge that some of the local ordinances do currently offer more than five days, and that's why the Bill was actually recently amended to acknowledge that. So it would grandfather, in any local ordinance where a worker is already mandated to receive, say, seven days, we want to make sure we're not taking leave away from a worker in that sense.

So we really are absolutely willing to have this discussion to work on any potential concerns. But again, we think it's just really necessary that if we're going to talk about increasing paid sick leave, that we take a look at what has happened over the last eight years, the struggles our businesses have had, and some of the unintended consequences that have come from the original Bill and the increased cost, especially on small business. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Next witness, please.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Chris ..., on behalf of SHRM, the Society of Human Resource Management, and also they sent a joint letter with the California State Council, Cal SHRM. We believe that SB 881 strikes the right balance. It provides a reasonable increase in the number of paid sick days from three to five, but it also includes much needed improvements to the leave policy, in addition to a statewide standard.

Despite the grandfathering, there are other administrative provisions such as rate of know. The City of Berkeley ordinance, for example, uses hourly wage for that purpose. That provides some clarity and having some consistency across the board documentation I mentioned on the prior Bill. Even the COVID paid sick leave law allowed the employer to request documentation. More than half of those local ordinances, if an employee is taken leave of three or more days, allows the employer to request that sort of documentation.

And Mr. Distinguished Chair, as you referred to earlier, I would plead with you,

I was going to correct that earlier for you.

Okay. So we shouldn't use it going forward. Okay.

I was going to correct it. As for you, it's distinguished Chair.

Fair enough. Your Committee analysis, always in the thorough manner in which they are done, has raised a number of questions and concerns. But I would plead with you that this is an important issue.

You did pass the earlier Bill that doesn't include any of these types of improvements that are included in this Bill. Would love to see this Bill give some additional time to work through some of the issues that your analysis has identified and hope that you will move it along to the Next Committee so that the author and proponents can work with the opposition on addressing some of the issues raised in your analysis. Thank you. All right. Appreciate your thoughtful testimony.

Alright, appreciate your thoughtful testimony. Others who wish to speak in support or express a support position, I should say.

Good evening. Katie Davy with the California Restaurant Association in support.

Good evening. Devin Anderson, on behalf of Caltravel, Western Car Wash Association, and Family winemakers of California in support.

Good evening. Ryan Elaine, California Retailers Association in support. Thank you.

Mike Robeson, on behalf of the California Staffing Professionals in support.

Okay. Thank you all opposition witnesses, you can come forward now. A couple of minutes each, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members and staff, Mitch Steiger with the California Labor Federation respectfully in opposition to the Bill for a few reasons that we'll detail, but overall we believe that the Bill really forgets one of the most important lessons we've learned from the pandemic, which is that workers need not just more sick leave, but they need greater access to the sick leave that they have.

We need better enforcement of the laws that we have, and we need to make improvements along those lines to make sure that we don't put workers in that position of having to choose between working while sick or losing money. The first way the Bill does this is it takes the current calculation that's used at the state level for determining what sort of wage replacement benefits a worker gets while sick, and that's the regular rate of pay, and it scales that back.

It takes that away and changes it to what's called the base rate of pay, which for a lot of workers that are paid on peace rate or that get different incentive payments when they work fast. It's very common for farm workers. Sometimes they make quite a bit more money than what their base rate of pay is.

And so if we were to go to that calculation, we would essentially be putting workers right back in that position of having to choose, do I lose a bunch of money or do I work while sick? Which is really not what we think we should be doing right now. It was mentioned that the Bill does prohibit local jurisdictions in the future from going beyond the state minimum.

And conceptually, we think it's something that, it's not something that we should move towards, because obviously we've learned since there are these nine jurisdictions that have their own standards, that this is something local jurisdictions not only believe they should do, but that they need to do, and that they believe they need to go further than the state does. And we don't think we should take that right away from them. Local jurisdictions should have the right to do more to protect the workers if they so choose.

This Bill would take that away. And the final one we wanted to touch on was that it creates a PAGA exemption, also not in current law, but this would bring it in. And much has been said in this Committee and other committees about the struggles that workers face in enforcing current law and making sure their rights are protected.

This would take one of the most important ones totally off the table, particularly for those workers who've signed arbitration agreements, which I believe is most workers now, they don't really have any real enforcement under the law anymore, except for PAGA. They would now even have that taken away from them under this Bill. And the next witness will talk more about the documentation issues.

But overall, we think that all of these reforms taken together would leave workers with something that's much weaker than current law, and we would urge your opposition. Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Chair and Members. Sharon Terman, Legal Aid at Work. We advance the workplace rights and well being of families with low incomes. And we hear from countless workers across the state who face impossible choices between keeping their jobs and income and taking the time they need to recover or care for their loved ones. We and our partners at the California Work and Family Coalition respectfully oppose SB 881. The pandemic showed us that paid sick leave saves lives.

But even beyond a pandemic, paid sick leave is vital for the health of our communities. It increases cancer screenings, it reduces ER stays, it reduces the spread of contagious illness. Now is the time to expand access to paid sick days, not to weaken existing protections. And we believe this Bill would weaken existing paid sick leave protections. It would impose new hurdles on workers seeking to access paid sick leave and would prevent localities from improving or adopting new, more generous paid sick leave provisions.

In addition to the points outlined by my colleague, I want to highlight a couple of other concerns. SB 881 would allow employers to require written verification, like a doctor's note, if a worker tries to take sick leave for more than three days. But we know that many workers earning low wages may not have access to health insurance at all, may find it extraordinarily difficult to go to the doctor to get such a note.

And furthermore, we've seen during the pandemic that public health officials have advised people to stay home when sick so as not to spread illness to others. And so this verification requirement would undermine that guidance by requiring people to go to the doctor, even when that is actually against doctor's orders. And furthermore, even if a worker is able to obtain a doctor's note, SB 881 would allow employers to deny paid sick leave based on the employer's subjective determination that that verification is false.

It is unclear how an employer might make such a determination, but this provision, we believe, could lead to very inappropriate intrusions into medical privacy and we're concerned, could open the door for workers to be disciplined for taking paid sick leave and also might discourage workers from seeking private medical care for fear of having to disclose the circumstances of their medical care to their employers.

While SB 881 would nominally increase the number of paid sick days available, it would in reality undermine current protections in California and make it more difficult for workers to access paid sick leave. And for those reasons, we respectfully oppose. Thank you.

All right. Thank you for your testimony. Others in the Committee room who wish to express an opposed position.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, Shane Gusman, on behalf of the Teamsters, the Amalgamated Transit Union, The Machinist, the Utility Workers Union of America and the Engineering Scientists of California and the Consumer Attorneys of California all opposed.

Jassy Grewal, UFCW, Western States Council in respectful opposition.

Mariko Yoshihar, on behalf of the California Employment Lawyers Association, also respectful opposition.

Jenya Cassidy, California Work and Family Coalition in opposition.

Good evening. Nina Weiler Harwell AARP California in respectful opposition.

Jenna Shankman with Family Caregiver Alliance and the California Coalition on Family Caregiving in opposition.

Louis Costa with the California State Legislative Board of SMART Transportation Division, in respectful opposition.

Pat ..., on behalf of SEIU California, respectfully opposed.

Christoph Mair with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, in respectful opposition.

All right. Thank you. We are now going to move to the teleconference line moderator, would you please check to see if there are witnesses on that line who wish to speak to this Bill, SB 881.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to comment in support or opposition of SB 881, may press 1 and 0 at this time. First, we'll go line 81. Please go ahead.

Chair and Members, this is Erin Evans. On behalf of ... California, also in an opposition. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 96. Please go ahead.

Line 96. Your line is open.

Lawrence Gayden, on behalf of the California Manufacturers Technology Association in support.

Next we'll go to line 97. Please go ahead.

Michael Colt on behalf of CalSHRM, support.

And next we'll go to line 104. Please go ahead.

Kayla Kirby with the Imperial Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce in support.

And next we go to line 67. Please go ahead.

Good evening. Sabrina Lockhart, on behalf of the California Attractions and Parks Association in support of this measure. Thank you.

Next, we'll go to line 132. Please go ahead.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, fellow Committee Members. Nicole Trujillo-Write on behalf of the California State Building and Construction Trades Council in opposition.

At this time, there's no one else in queue. Back to you, Mr. Chair.

All right, thank you very much, Moderator. We're going to come back to the Committee now for comments, concerns. I'll go ahead and express my concern concisely to the author. On the one hand, I appreciate you trying to assert some leadership in this area. Obviously, the Committee has already expressed itself to some degree that this is an important thing to be taking up.

My perspective is that the bill that you acknowledged in your opening comments that passed out a Committee earlier, SB 616, is a better approach, substantively speaking. Both great authors, but that's where I'm at. So I know that you work closely with the Committee to try to figure out how to work with our Committee staff here and with me as the chair to try to get to a place where the analysis would be more supportable, and I appreciate that very much. But with that, I will be staying off the bill today. Others wishing to comment? If not, we can entertain a motion.

I want to defer to everybody else.

Okay, perfect. Senator Durazo.

Thank you. Well, I want to first commend you for bringing business to the table in a way to discuss the acknowledgement by business, it shouldn't be always on opposite sides. Having said that, I think some of the issues concern me. In Los Angeles, we passed many, many years ago, the first sick leave across the city, because of the issues that, I'm sure you know, that led to the need. So I'm glad you addressed the issue of where grandfathering in where it already exists.

However, it still does not allow for additional paid sick days. And the ability of workers, especially low wage workers, to be able to get that proof or verification is very difficult for workers. And I know you're in areas of the state where farm workers would find it very difficult and other low paid workers would find it difficult to do that. And then this base rate of pay also concerns me.

So I think while we look to make this a statewide, I think that's a great goal to have. Make it a statewide. However, we shouldn't even it out by lowering other workers in order for some workers who don't have it to get better. So that's where I'm at. I don't see right now how I can support it, but I want to really acknowledge the steps that you've taken in the right direction. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Senator.

All right, any other comments? I'm seeing none over here on the side of the dais. We'll come back to you.

Yeah, we're going to come to the left side of the dais.

They're always over there on the left.

That's right.

Depends on which way you're facing.

True. So, in your brief time here, I've been so impressed with you and your thoughtfulness as it pertains to public policy. Actually, this proposal is very balanced and much better than the earlier one that this Committee passed. I'm not going to sit here because I think we're all tired and I think we already know the outcome. But you deserve a motion in favor, so I'm making that now.

And I want you to just keep fighting for the things that you believe, because, believe it or not, we're elected in our districts to come and do what you're doing. And I just really appreciate you.

Thank you, Senator.

All right. Vice Chair Wilk has offered a motion. I will come to the committee assistant now and ask for the motion to be stated in the roll call.

File item number 11, SB 881. The motion is do pass but first, re-refer to the Committee on Judiciary. [Roll Call]

Yeah, no, let me correct that. Let me just go down as not voting.

Once you say no.

Okay. I can't do that. Fair enough.

Permission to close, Chair. We move on. Okay.

We already started the roll call.

All right. No worries.

My apologies. Did not mean to be discourteous.

That's okay.

[Roll Call] This bill fails with one aye vote and three no votes.

Chair, I'd like to ask for reconsideration.

With no objection. Reconsideration will be granted.

Thank you.

And again, apologize for cutting off your close.

I'll be back.

You owe me one.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. We're going to move now to we've been going to file order, I think, pretty much all day, but I have two bills to present right at the end of today's agenda, and I'm going to be presenting one as a courtesy to Senator Hurtado. So I'm going to skip over the Hurtado Bill. If you're looking at the file items, that would be file item 12. I'll come back to that after file item 14, which is the Senator at the podium, Senator Smallwood-Cuevas. So thank you for being ready. And if you are ready, you may proceed.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and good evening, Senators. Evening. Night, Senators. I wanted to just say I'm pleased to present SB 725, which would create a safety net for essential workers by requiring a grocery establishment that conducts a layoff as a result of a merger or an acquisition to provide workers at least one week of severance per every year of service. This is a common sense safety net piece of policy that is really about helping our workers weather these economic storms.

From 1993 to 2019, the number of grocery stores nationwide declined roughly by 30 percent. One reason for this significant decline is the increase we have seen in food industry mergers and acquisitions, which exceeded over 300 in 2019 alone. And not only is that impacting workers, but access to food, creating food deserts in our communities. These grocery store mergers and acquisitions can have devastating impacts on workers in all of our communities.

While employees have some protections under the WARN Act, it does not require employers to provide any material support to workers trying to transition. In 2015, when Albertsons and Haggen merged, many workers were faced with extreme financial insecurity as they scrambled for new employment. With me today--oh. I'm going to share a story first before I announce the speakers who are here. And this is from a worker, Christina Rubina, who was a UFCW worker who was deeply impacted by the Haggen merger.

And when Haggen went bankrupt and shut down the store that she worked in, she applied for work at numerous different stores, and it took months. And after being unable to find a similar or comparable job, she ended up having to take two, three jobs as a seamstress, cleaning houses, doing other odd chores to make ends meet. That's what happens when you lose a good job.

And in our economy, we have far more low-wage jobs, and so workers have to piece together jobs to equal what they were earning when they had a good union-protected job. Now, a new grocery store establishment merger is on the horizon between Kroger and Albertsons.

And when just this past year, a 2022 report conducted by the economic roundtable sort of looked at what are the potential impacts of this merger on workers, on our communities, and the report found that Kroger employees reported that 78 percent of them are already food insecure, 67 percent cannot pay for the basic expenses for every month, 44 percent were struggling to pay their rent, about 30 percent who were working--because this is in the store, it's in the distribution centers, right--and those jobs were near the poverty level and some below. And 14 percent were homeless and had been for the past year.

So we know that this merger is only going to exacerbate those conditions, and we have to ensure that these essential workers--and we know when during Covid, we counted on the grocery store workers to be there. They were some of the only workers who were there for us. These essential workers are already among some of the most vulnerable in our state. And yet again, they're going to be faced with another extreme situation of trying to find food, housing, and to make their ends meet.

SB 627 will protect these workers by providing them with the financial support they need to transition after a mass layoff. With me today to testify is Christopher Sanchez with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. And additionally, I'm speaking today--with me on this issue is Michael Bott. He's a produce manager with Vons and a UFCW Local 770 member. And lastly, I wanted to ask Jassy Grewal to join me from the UFCW here, who may be able to answer some of your technical questions.

We will ask those witnesses to come forward at this time. As you probably heard, we have a couple minutes each for lead testimony, and you're welcome to start at this time.

Good evening. Good evening, Mr. Chair and Committee Members. My name is Michael Bott. I'm a produce manager at Vons Grocery Store in Santa Barbara and a proud shop steward and member of the UFCW Local 770. I've worked in the grocery industry for 34 years, all of my adult life since I started working at Lucky's when I was 16 years old. I was, in fact, already working at Lucky's in 1998 when Lucky's and its parent company, American Stores, were acquired by Albertsons.

I can tell you firsthand what it was like for working families to be left without a safety net to strive during rainy days. Our other employees decided to merge with large grocery chains. I went through the Albertsons and Safeway merger back in 2015. As part of the merger deal, my store was bought by Haggen, and the majority of my workers were laid off. This was devastating for us workers.