Senate Standing Committee on Labor, Public Employment and Retirement

Good afternoon Members. Our co chair is on the way for this hearing. I want to thank you all for attending today's Joint Hearing on the critical importance of SB 150, this groundbreaking legislation that will have a far reaching impact on California's workers in the transition to a green economy. Before we get started, there have been some slight changes in our agenda today.

We know Covid is still out there and the CEO of Sparks, Sanjeev Mahotra, is unfortunately unable to join us for the hearing today, and we wish him a healthy recovery. I wanted to lift up the fact that Dr. Mahatra has submitted his written testimony for today's record, and we will include it on our Committee website and in the materials upon a German if you'd want to read his testimony, and we thank him for providing that to the Committee.

SB 150 is the landmark infrastructure package signed into law in July of 2023 that will support at least $40 billion in federal funding, IIJA, Ira and Chips act dollars. This package includes funding for California's transportation and green infrastructure, and it will improve our state's ability to compete for valuable federal funding as well as enhance California's workforce training pipeline.

These efforts will bring high tech manufacturing to our state and improve our infrastructure while decreasing the state's reliance on fossil fuels, thusly ensuring equity and compliance opportunities throughout the process. SB 150, along with the zero emissions Jobs Roadmap funded in this year's budget, will make California more competitive for these funds. One of the biggest challenges we face is strategizing not only how to create high quality unionized jobs, but also how we ensure all communities benefit from these opportunities, especially our most disadvantaged in California.

Let's be clear, California is facing a poverty crisis. More than a quarter of our state's residents are living at near and below the poverty level. This reality is even more severe for those from marginalized communities of color. Last summer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 90% of unemployed us citizens are black Americans. With California reflecting similar unemployment disparities.

It is absolutely vital that we lead on this great as a great state on this issue and ensure that SB 150 and the policies we pass are complied with to create equitable job opportunities. Career pathways for our hardest hit communities of predominantly poor people of color, immigrants and women. SB 150 is the next step in our long journey toward economic justice for Californians.

Actualizing this vision will require our state agencies to work together to ensure that contractors stay accountable and on track with their equity goals and ensuring labor standards. We want to return to affirmatively auditing and enforcing non discrimination obligations on contractors receiving funds rather than putting the onus on workers to police equity standards.

I look forward to partnering with the Civil Rights Department on potentially restoring the Office of Compliance Programs, a unit that was gutted by then Governor Pete Wilson amidst a larger assault on affirmative action and other policies that dwarts equity across the state. Strong, clear and affordable state standards are imperative to ensure that public funding creates good jobs and equitable pathways to the middle class for all Californians. Our hearing today will explore how SB 150 is being implemented.

We will hear directly from stakeholders on their recommendations for maximizing this opportunity, as well as our agency Department partners on how we are incorporating those ideas into the state's workforce plan. Now is the time to take action to position California to compete for federal funds and to create high quality jobs along the way that brings our economies together. With that, I'd like to invite some of my colleagues who are on the dais to say a few words before we open up the panels.

Senator Durazo, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to remind us SB 150 really is the result of years of working on these issues. It's a very simple thing. We have billions and billions of dollars that will be spent, are being spent by the state, by the federal, at the local level, and there are not, in many cases, any enforceable standards as far as creating job quality. The quality of the jobs, like their wages, their benefits, working conditions, and we need to do something about it.

These are taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers expect the most out of their dollars. And most means, including all communities, means the people who work in those jobs have good jobs, and job creation is not at the minimum level here. We're talking about job creation of good jobs.

And I also want to make the other point, that another very important part of SB 150, that in line with our construction jobs, where we have much more capacity and experience and familiarity with how to make sure that construction jobs are good paying jobs, union jobs, we don't have that experience at the state level with our non construction jobs. We need to do something about that. We're missing the opportunity to build and manufacture and produce, as well as the long term maintenance and servicing jobs.

So all that together, I look forward to hearing how the components of SB 150 will lead to a model policy, and we could apply it to all our state procurements. So with that, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to everybody who's participated in this over the last few years.

Carol, just say very briefly, I'm here because the importance of the topic, I think, to the state and to me personally, and I know that we can do this, and there are some good examples of it, but we need to do a lot more of it, and that's what this is all about. And excited to be here.

Thank you. Okay, if there are no other Members who wish to speak, we will go ahead and begin, and we will hear panelists as they appear in the agenda prior to taking any public comment. So let's begin by asking our panelists to please come forward. The first panel is on recommendations for reducing poverty through high quality jobs and training, and that includes Madeline Janice, co Executive Director of Jobs Move America, and elder Solomon, policy managers from the Southern California Black worker hub. Thank you both for joining us.

Can you hear me okay, now? Can you hear me now? Okay, so I have the PowerPoint. Zero, hello. My name is Madeline Janis. Should I try mine? ...

I have that quintessential Low female voice that does not necessarily carry in hearings, but that does not indicate a lack of passion on my part. So hopefully you will hear me, you will be able to hear me. And I do want to put up. ... Okay. There we go. I'm a lawyer by training.

I am the co Executive Director of Jobs Tomb of America, which is a national organization that works around industrial policy and organizing manufacturing jobs. And we have a number of unions, including UIW, on our board.

I'm going to be talking about how we can take this moment and make it one that really sets up history to show that we can have good manufacturing jobs in this country. Now, I think my voice came on how we can use this incredible opportunity that you all have as our leaders in the Senate and in the Legislature to take the money that you are spending, that we are spending and turn that into a real win, win, win.

I also serve as a representative of the speaker of the Assembly in the California Competes Tax Credit Committee, and I have served in that capacity since 2015. So I have a lot of experience on things that have worked and things that have not worked, and I will talk a little bit about that. So next slide.

Should give up on the PowerPoint thing. There we go.

All right, well, I'm not going to waste time. I will just go. Keep going. So, I just want to take us back to the goals, the central goals of SB 15050 because I think that is so important for you all as you get to this moment in time when you're going to decide what to do. And really what SB 150 did is it kind of set up the win win that we all aspire to achieve, which is.

And the core part I'm talking about is the part that deals with permanent jobs and manufacturing jobs. There's a lot more to work with when it comes to construction jobs, although there's still a lot more to do, as my colleague from the building trades will talk about. But the goals of SB 150 really are about creating equity and high road, unionized manufacturing jobs and clean technology and infrastructure, building up communities, fostering access. As Madam Chair, you talked about, and really, you have two tools.

And I want to emphasize, this is not that complicated. There are a lot of people that make it sound complicated. But as a lawyer who's been working on public procurement for decades, I can tell you you have two tools. One tool is public procurement is the massive numbers, hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles, for example, that the state will be purchasing, that cities, counties, school districts will be purchasing to meet the climate goals that the Governor and that you have set for us.

The second tool is smaller, but it is the loans, the subsidies, the tax credits that we are investing in, helping business to build the kind of industry we want to see. So what can you accomplish through these two tools, public procurement and subsidies. So that's what, in an SB 150 we have all been hoping to see. Let's engage. Let's talk about this. Let's figure out what can you do around procurement? What can you do around tools like calcompetes and others?

Unfortunately, the process that we've seen so far has not been in the inclusive, deeper dialogue that we were hoping for. And just to be direct, straightforward with you, the hearings that took place in December were around the holidays. There was not a lot of notice. There are not a lot of groups that were able to attend or participate. And the presentations were really more about what is already being done rather than what needs to be done in order to achieve the win win goal of SB 150.

And I just want to put the stakes up there for you, because it couldn't be clearer to many of us who are talking to workers and visiting these factories if we don't use the procurement power to ensure that companies that are receiving the money or getting contracts are creating good jobs and equity and opportunity wherever they're being built in the United States, we're going to have a situation like we have right now with a company, for example, like Hyundai. Now, Hyundai sells the cheapest evs around.

For those of you who have shopped, Hyundai is based. Their national headquarters is in California. Although their main manufacturing facilities are in Alabama, they're now building factories in Georgia. Hyundai has been investigated repeatedly for the use of child labor throughout its supply chain. And as we're seeing, there are governments across the south that are legalizing. They're lowering repeatedly the age at which children can work. So it's not even that Hyundai is doing something illegal, although they are.

It's that California has the opportunity to set the standard for the country based on what you buy. So right now, we have all the state agencies that are there building up. They're purchasing, they're getting ready to move, and without state action, we are going to be leaving billions and billions on the table. So I just want to give you, the last thing I want to say is the Federal Government has teed up a program for you to use that is available for states to implement.

So unlike on the construction side, where the Federal Government, where Congress put in things like prevailing wage and apprenticeship standards, on the manufacturing side, there is nothing in the legislation that will guarantee anything. Nothing. However, the Biden Administration has teed up some amazing tools for you to use.

For example, the Department of Energy has developed something called community benefits plans, which are based on the community benefits agreements that we made up, that we came up with in California, they're giving 20% credit on any grant or loan. The Department of Commerce, why? At calcompetes, we're starting to see a lot of semiconductor proposals because the Department of Commerce is requiring a state match, and they have good job standards. So companies are applying to our state agencies.

So you have those things laid out and super exciting with the help of your leadership. And I have a little handout. The week of March 11, the Office of Management and Budget of the Federal Government will be releasing an updated version of the uniform grants guidance, which are the rules that the State of California must follow if and when you're using state money. And these new rules eliminate, for example, the historic, terrible, long standing prohibition on local hire.

They allow for job scoring in the purchase of manufactured goods. They encourage plas, they encourage targeted hiring, equity, sustainability. These new rules are going to be made public and finalized the week of March 11. There you have it. You will have a whole program set out for you to use no legal issues at all with your federal dollars. It's really up to you.

We're counting on you to make these policies a reality so that we can have the kind of high road factories that we had 75 years ago. We need them again. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Ms. Aparicio, for that presentation. Now we will go to Elda Solomon. With a black worker hub.

Good afternoon. Can you hear me? Good afternoon. There I am. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. My name is Elda Solomon. I'm the policy manager of the Southern California Black Worker Hub for regional Organizing, which is anchored by the Los Angeles Black Worker center and is in a network of a dozen black led and black centered organizations serving the Southern California region.

The mission of the Southern California Black Worker Hub is to expand the field of worker organizing to unify black worker voice and power in Southern California and beyond. We stand as a regional authority on the complex and myriad issues and experiences that black workers and other vulnerable workers face in the State of California.

Because of our long standing work in community organizing and engagement with community and our engagement with federal, state and local labor and workforce development policy, the SoCAl hub continues to be deeply engaged in national and statewide coalition spaces with folks like jobs to move America the better for all coalition steered by unemployed workers United and the National Black Worker center working to ensure equity standards throughout the Biden Harrison administration's once in a generation infrastructure investment, the Southern California Black Worker hub works closely with regional black worker centers and engage with thousands of black workers in the Southern California region.

In order for the state to be effective in creating good quality jobs, we believe it must address the important issue of ensuring that local communities hardest hit by the centuries of economic exclusion and recession, particularly black workers, have equal access and equal opportunity to the hundreds and thousands of trades and construction infrastructure jobs that will be created in this coming decade and beyond.

This is especially critical given the historical and ongoing discrimination exclusion of black workers in these kinds of industries and trades that has led to their current and severe underrepresentation from the public works, construction projects and other projects in California. The upcoming investments from the Federal Government represent an opportunity to make transformative workforce advancements and, as a result, spur economic growth for black families, black communities and other represented workers.

It is essential that these upcoming economic opportunities make intentional and reasonable considerations for black communities who have shouldered a long history of racial discrimination and exclusion in the workforce. The Federal Government has already boldly taken the position that regarding racial and gender equity and its profound effect on this infrastructure investment and on the workforce and beyond.

We connect a network of black worker centers in the region, the Los Angeles Black Workers center, the Inland Empire Black Workers center, and the San Diego Black Workers center, with two new black worker centers as well in the high desert and Long beach. The Los Angeles Black Workers center, our longest standing, has been organizing the black worker community since 2009 and has created a number of pre apprenticeship and workforce development programs that address the specific barriers that keep black workers from quality, gainful employment.

Their ready to Work program is a series of workshops and job skills training and industry specific mentorship to black workers. Filling in the gaps of traditional we owe programs at a time when the state is divesting from workforce development funds. For black workers, exclusion from the trades and construction industries is centuries long, and we know there haven't been good jobs or opportunities in these communities for decades and generations and centuries.

For example, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that while black people comprise 12% of the workforce, they make up only 6% of the workforce in construction, numbers that have been relatively unchanged for three decades. Because of this understanding of the impact of centuries of discrimination and exclusion, the state must recognize that investments must be strategic and intentional.

The needs of communities who have been systemically excluded from the workforce are unique and include longer training times, mentorship, trauma informed curriculum, and wraparound services for folks who are know care providers and things like that. As you all know, the State of California stands as one of the largest economies in the world.

And similar to many other American cities, where industry has historically represented a bulk of economic production and opportunity, many regions in California have relied on industry in the past century and include areas like south central Los Angeles, where we're seeing disproportionately high levels of unemployment and poverty. We have reached a critical fork in the road. The economy is shifting from service to green economy, and with this once in a generation investment, we must be intentional about the ways we show up.

For those who have not been well represented in the workforce and in the lucrative, gainful employment sectors that have traditionally paved a way for middle class life. For many of Americans and Californians, an example of this type of shift is in south Central, a neighborhood that was once thriving, where the number one employer was heavy manufacturing, shifting from regulated work, unionized work to deunionized work.

And across the state, this region and others like it have experienced a similar shift where we're seeing increasingly being destabilized by a service economy that is Low wage, nonunion, unregulated, and dangerous. Frankly, for workers and the important efforts to try and rectify these changes by raising the minimum wage and raising standards for workers in this industry are not enough.

And that is not to mention just how the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated these already existing and converging issues and crises and the havoc that it's wrecked on the economy, particularly for those workers who do not have the privilege to shelter in place. The firsthand experiences of black workers and construction workers also demonstrate the racial discrimination that persists in the construction sector and that also persists in other industries that hinder their participation in the workforce.

This is just one account from one worker, James, a 40 year old black journeyman in the sheet metal industry. He says. On the job at the W Hotel in Hollywood, there were more than 100 workers on the project and only four of them were black. I've been on jobs where the project manager, Superintendent and four men were all related or the crews are made up of family friends, many of whom who speak the same language.

In other words, too often there are cultural preferences that exist in the construction industry, and when I get sent to the job, it's only a matter of time before I'm laid off without cause. This is just one story and one experience, but it illuminates a larger pattern and trend that black workers are experiencing in again these industries that are meant to and designed to provide gainful employment for workers and communities. And we've already been there.

The Los Angeles Black Workers center played a crucial role in ensuring that black workers in the Crenshaw district had access to jobs on the building of the Crenshaw metro line. In working with the Los Angeles Black Workers Center, LA County Metropolitan Transportation adopted the CCP Construction Couriers Policy and Project labor agreement PLA to encourage construction employment and training opportunities to those who reside in economically disadvantaged areas on the metro construction projects.

The agreement applies to certain local funded and federally funded construction programs with a construction value greater than 2.5 million in this historic campaign, resulting in stronger federal civil rights language and disadvantaged worker criteria, as well as other strategies for a diversity implementation agreement. We saw an increase of the number of black workers on the Crenshaw lax line from zero to 20% in 2015.

We encourage you to consider also the model set by the federal OFCCP, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance programs and their mega construction project, and how we can utilize similar agencies to be impactful in ensuring equity on these projects in the pre bid, pre job process. We recognize the civil rights division Department and how it can not only play a part in enforcing discrimination policy, but also contracting procurement equitably to maximize benefits to all communities.

This work and position for the agency would expand CRD's role in that regard. Where we see the greatest compliance from federal contractors and other people who are working on these federal contracts.

Where the government sees the greatest outcomes of contract compliance and robust equity standards is in this mega construction project, where OFCCp provides substantial intervention to ensure that contract procurement occurs equitably and benefits all workers, with particular consideration for those communities who have been historically and systematically excluded from construction as compared to construction projects that are not part of the MCP, where compliance is undermonitored and uniassured.

And so, again, this is just one model where we see the Federal Government doing well, similar to what Madeline had mentioned, doing well to show us what we can do to ensure compliance and equity.

Ms. Solomon, you have 30 seconds left.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. If we want to ensure equity, we must first ensure compliance and compliance tools are drastically needed and should seek to establish, collect and disseminate data sets, forms, reporting and tracking processes of workforce contracting and procurement analytics. The state must be diligent in building a real plan towards equity, one that uses models of success that communities have already demonstrated will work to address barriers. We need mechanisms of enforcement that are rigorous, equity focused and productive. We urge the Governor, Legislature, and state agencies to recognize that there is no comprehensive infrastructure investment without a consideration for equity, access and accountability. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Solomon, for that testimony, and I will now turn to my colleagues. Do you have any comments or questions for the panel list?

Thank you. I want to thank Senator Smallwood Quavas and fellow colleagues and panelists and staff for all the coordination and preparation for today's Joint Hearing. This is my first hearing as chair of Senate budget Subcommitee five on public safety, the judiciary, labor, and transportation. So I want to share my expectations of today's hearings.

In particular, I know we're here to get information from you all and where we are in the implementation process and ongoing challenges and most critically, recommendations for achievable, as you said, policies that can move forward. After today's discussion, I will say that the Subcommitee is in receipt of a $50 million Governor's Budget proposal for SB 150 implementation. I expect to hear more about that proposal in our third panel, but I do look forward to this conversation as a whole.

The couple of questions I did have for you all. I understand you covered equity for black workers in construction, and you potentially provided a little bit of recommendations. The questions I have in regards to construction is one piece. But when we are seeing more and more splintering of jobs and kind of contracting out, number one. Number two is, I'm going to say, technology kind of taking over some jobs.

And we see, even when we're talking about modular construction, when we're talking about importing from neighboring countries some of these potential construction sites, and what we're trying to do to advance, let's say, housing at all income levels and reducing cost. Would either of you guys be able to talk a little bit about kind of the debate in regards to the future of construction technology? And what we're talking about is making sure that people have jobs.

I'm happy to talk about the practical tools that you have at your disposal based on what the Federal Government is allowing and permitting and encouraging, because obviously, most of this money, not all of it, but a significant amount of this money is coming from the Federal Government. And some of us refer to it as the $1 rule. But basically $1 of federal funding touches the pot. The federal rules apply.

So the question is, what can you do to ensure the best outcomes in what you're planning on either purchasing or investing in? So, in construction, and I know there's other people here who have a lot of really great experiences, including my copanelists. But in construction, there are several gold standards. The gold standard is project labor agreement, also known as a community workforce agreement that builds in targeted hire.

So you have a project labor agreement, which basically says that this project, whatever the big infrastructure project, is going to pull from apprenticeship programs where people are gaining the skills and they're becoming journey people. And it's transitioning from a temporary job to a permanent job, basically to ongoing job. And you have targeted hire built in, which means that 20%, for example, of all the apprentices come from historically marginalized communities.

Now, in California, we have Prop 209, so we can't say black workers, but we can say formerly incarcerated or returning citizens. We can say single parent families. We've done a lot of good work to come up with euphemisms or basically descriptions of marginalization that have passed muster. So on the construction side and the La Metropolitan Transportation Authority's construction careers policy, which is the CCP, it's a model. It's an amazing model. It's had tremendous success. I mean, 20% women.

I mean, women are even scarcer than people of color on construction sites, on the permanent jobs. And we are having to deal with things like AI, and we're having to deal with new technologies. But there are also a ton of new types of equipment. There's everything from all the supply chain around electric vehicles, mining, lithium Valley now to batteries, to all the component parts. There's commitment that you can only purchase with by America connection.

So in other words, there's already a push for everything to be made in the US. Now it's made in Alabama or it's made in Arkansas, but you can include standards to make sure that there are good jobs wherever they are. And increasingly now with these new rules, you can actually say by California because they're taking off the restriction on geographic preference.

It used to be that you couldn't say, and it is now you can't say in this purchase, we want the equipment to be made in California, but now with these new rules, you're going to be able to do that. So there's a menu of options that you have to choose from. And it's not perfect, but it's going to go a long way in construction.

Right now there is a trend where there's a lot of General contractors that recruit from other states, specifically paying them lower wages by California standards, but paying them, let's say, higher wages by other states standard. Right. How do we circumvent that? Because these are loopholes that we consistently see where, let's be honest, people are trying to prioritize their profits and stretch every dollar. And yet even with this in place, by the statewide standard, we do not have a PLA in place, a standard.

We do not have city over city over city with standards. When we talk about equity, to your point, there's a lot of women in construction in my district that their concern is not necessarily the job, but after, let's say, a pregnancy, they can't necessarily lift 50 pounds for a certain period of time. Or these are the concerns that they've shared with me directly. What are we doing to really protect them there? And then also ensure that we're holding the General contractors responsible for some of these maneuvering through our laws?

Well, I would obviously also like my copanelists to talk about it, but I think it's any program where we want to use policy and set the rules, get the rules right, it's going to require an inside and an outside strategy.

So the inside strategy is you get the rules right, you set up the requirements every time there's a request for proposals or every time there's an invitation for bids that goes out, that it has certain requirements that are the minimum requirements that you have to sign on to the PLA, you have to do targeted hiring you have to agree to certain monitoring and enforcement, and then you have outside groups because you're never going to have enough staff working for the State of California that's going to be able to do all the enforcement.

So you need us to be able to do our jobs. But if you set it up, I guarantee you all these people in here, we're going to be there and we're going to be holding them accountable. And not only that, workers are going to hold them accountable because workers are going to use these policies and they're going to organize up a storm and they're going to make this state and this country something that we all aspire to.

So I would say you got the tools and we can make this convoluted, we can make it confusing, but it really is pretty straightforward. Get the rules right and let us do our job.

Thank you. Would you like to respond to that?

Yes, I would.

Yeah.

And just to add, I think through all of the conditions you had mentioned, I think there is a direct regulatory solution. And really the solution is to strengthen enforcement within the state.

If women who are working in construction are in fear of being discriminated against or being retaliated against, we need to have mechanisms within the state that bolster enforcement, bolster regulation, create enforcement mechanisms that workers know that are accessible, that exist for them in their own regions, and that they understand will actually have real redress and accountability for themselves.

On the other side, too many workers that we hear from will say, I've filed a claim or I've submitted a request or a complaint to this agency or that, but they don't hear anything on the backside or they don't hear anything that is substantial or reasonable or accessible enough for them as workers who are living in poverty.

So I think to contracting, to misclassification, to the globalization and outsourcing, all of it comes back to just needing greater protections for workers and protecting the workers who are at the very bottom, migrant workers and the future of work. Again, it comes down to protecting safeguarding workers and the role of the state and the Legislature as a safeguard and a watchdog to ensure that employers are not only in compliance, but that they are being proactive in ensuring that they are safeguarding, protecting workers rights.

So I think that's the answer for sure.

Thank you for that. And I want to say that's exactly what this effort of SB 150 is, is to ensure that we have the recommendations that give guidance on the ground to the kind of workforce we want to see and the kind of jobs we want to see in the new economy. Is there anyone else, any other Members who have questions or comments for this panel? Well, thank you so much, Ms. Aparicio and Solomon, for your testimony. Janice, you know me for so long. I know.

Why am I calling you by your middle 2nd, 1st last name? Thank you so much, Janice, for that.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Over here?

Would it show on the screen? Yes, they're going to show. Okay, cool. Display it.

Okay. So now we'll have our second panel, which is successful practices for implementation. In this panel, we will hear from Michael Flores with the LA Metro and Tom Hints with the international representatives of the United Auto Workers UAW. Welcome, Mr. Flores. We will begin with you and then we will move to you, Tom. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Senators. My name is Michael Flores, and I'm Metro's Project Labor Administrator and also workforce development person. I do have a PowerPoint that I wanted to show the Committee, and I'm not certain if it's currently showing on the screen. Okay, so first and foremost, wanted to start it off. Thank you for having us here in representation of Metro as a public transportation system. Metro is an integral part of Los Angeles community, not only as a public transportation provider, but as a key employer to people from all walks of lives.

That's why we made it as an agency goal to enhance community and lives through both mobility and access to opportunity to ensure the benefit of our projects, affect the local economy, and provide opportunities to socially disadvantaged individuals. We've done it this through the establishment of many workforce program, but I am going to highlight two of them for you today. Our project labor agreement and construction careers policy and our manufacturing careers policy.

Our project labor agreement construction policy was adopted and in place for more than 10 years thanks to our agency's partnership with the building trades. It is applicable on Metro's construction project that has a contract value of 2.5 million and above. The PLA sets terms and condition of employment on projects to ensure no work stoppages occur. There's expedited resolution of labor disputes and that Metros project are completed on time.

Paired with the PLA is the construction Careers policy, which is designed to provide economically and socially disadvantaged workers and apprentices with career opportunities. We have set labor force participation goal for certain groups under the CCP. 40% participation of workers from economically disadvantaged area, 20% apprentices, 10% participation of disadvantaged workers. Since inception, a total of 57 construction projects are subject to the PLA CCPN growing. That's a total of $8.5 billion in contract values. As I had mentioned, the PLA workforce requirement,

As mentioned, we have attained 58.10% of workers from economically disadvantaged area and the target was 40% 21.23 apprentices and our goal was 20%. 10.89 disadvantaged workers and our current goal is at 10%. And as you can see on the slide here, that's 28 million construction work hours. That is significant in terms of the number of our full time employees that had participated and work on our projects.

To kind of put it in a dollar perspective, we have paid 542,000,000 to targeted workers, 101,000,000 paid to disadvantaged workers, and 147,000,000 had been paid to apprentice workers. That is a significant economic development in the LA region. Now, going to the PLACP local hire component, out of the 17 or 16 projects that I had mentioned that we have active so far, 10 of those construction projects were subject to local hire. Six of those projects were federally funded.

We were able to conform with the bipartisan infrastructure law, local hiring practices through the utilization of project labor agreement local hire workforce program. We were able to develop that in collaboration with Federal Transit Authority and FHWA. FDA was able to give us a blanket approval to utilize Metro's project labor agreement local hire throughout on all of its federally funded or construction projects funded by FDA. FHWA is somewhat different. The fact that they do request a project specific approval for any funded projects that's funded by FHWA.

The good news about that was we were able to work firsthand for FHWA to review our project labor agreement local high provision and obtain an approval for each specific projects that had been funded by FHWA. We were able to set up a streamlined process to submit a justification statement and obtain an approval with a commitment from FHWA to have a quick turnaround of 30 days or less.

So far, we were able to obtain or we were able to conform our project labor agreement on four federally highway construction projects. Now, one other initiatives that we're working for LA Metro is gender equity. We would want it to increase female participation in the trade. So we have currently working with our CBOs, with our building partners and trades to be able to increase female participation. We had recently conducted a disparity study in the LA region that the female makeup of construction workers is less than 3%.

So that's something that we really wanted to be able to be at the forefront metro as the change agent. But we would like to see the whole community to be able to help and assist to increase that female participation into the trades. I would be remiss if I didn't recognize Senator Smallwood-Cuevas and Senator Durazo for your continued advocacy or for what you have done in the past for the adoption of Metro's project labor agreement. They have been working.

One thing that I wanted to share personally is I was a first hand witness for countless of lives that have changed their lives. One particular we were able to outreach to a particular veteran was living off the street outside West Los Angeles Hospital. We were able to get that individual into a training. And six months ago he reached out to me and said, I just finally bought his home. Another particular female that was actually incarcerated for 12-15 years.

The time that she was incarcerated, her daughter was in grade school. She came out of prison. Her daughter was in high school. She was able to make money to send her daughter into college. Now that daughter is on her master's degree. So literally, project labor agreement do work. So one thing that I wanted to emphasize to this Committee, that per se we are here at Metro as a resource of all of these things and good, positive things that we were able to do in the community.

So another item that I wanted to highlight is our manufacturing careers policy. Our CEO believed that this is the sister policy for our construction careers. Knowing the fact that our construction projects are being built out by disadvantaged individuals, why can't we have the manufacturers that's performing Assembly and then creating our rolling stocks be able to be the same component? So in coordination with jobs to move America, I just wanted to give them the recognition.

We were able to adopt the manufacturing currency policy that is applicable now on our rolling stock contract that has a $50 million and above so far. We were able to have a commitment from the projects that we are contracts that we had let out over 20 million of wages and benefit for base contract, additional 25 million of wages and benefits if we exercise option years. Over 14 million investment for local facility investment and a 10% minimum disadvantage hiring commitment.

So I wanted to end this, that Metro's commitment to certain that these workforce requirements are adhered to, that in the event of any of the contractors fail to meet any of these requirements, there are financial penalties at the back end, up to not a maximum amount, but $500 per day that they don't meet their commitment. It is noteworthy to mention that these programs had contributed back to the local economy, but had provided employment opportunities to hundreds of disadvantaged individuals. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Flores. And next we will have Mr. Tom Hinsey with the UAW. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And as my colleagues said, PLA change lives. Good manufacturing jobs change lives. Union jobs change lives. So good afternoon, my name is Tom Hinsey. I'm an international rep with UAW region six. UAW represents over 100,000 active and retired workers in Region Six. Our Members have been fighting for a just transition to ensure that changes in the US automotive industry result in quality jobs that benefit workers in their communities.

UAW Members know that the transition to zero emission vehicles presents a key opportunity to preserve and grow high quality jobs in the EV supply chain, including battery manufacturing. In 2023, auto workers at the Detroit Three went on strike across the country to win record contracts and to ensure that every EV job is a good union job, including jobs in the EV and battery supply chains. But the fight isn't over.

After the historic standup strike, UAW launched Standup 2.0 to organize the majority of auto workers throughout the industry. Now, workers at companies that aren't unionized yet are fighting for living wages, safe work sites and workplace democracy. This fight will have to continue for every part of the supply chain. And as I keep saying, from battery materials, battery components, battery cells, semiconductor chips, and of course, to the assembly line, the topic of this panel is successful practices for implementation.

And I want to start by saying California is faced with a choice in the transition to a green economy. Will the state continue to allow taxpayer dollars to line the pockets of wealthy corporations and ultra rich CEOs? Or will we demand that our taxpayer dollars translate into good union jobs that help workers and improve communities? Workers want to fight climate change, but they cannot afford to sacrifice good union jobs for low road jobs in the green economy.

This has been a problem for years in our state, and it's an impossible choice for workers to make. That's why the fastest way to transition to a green economy is by creating a worker led industrial policy. California and the Federal Government must involve workers in the process of making a just transition, and the best way to do that is through collective bargaining.

By engaging workers, unions and the broader community in a meaningful way, California can ensure that as we make a clean energy transition, we can make it as soon as possible, and that workers, and not the ultra wealthy, are the ones who will benefit. One example is a company that is helping California make this transition the right way, and that's Sparks. And unfortunately, their CEO, Sanjeev couldn't be here today. Sparks is a lithium battery company and battery materials company based in Rancho Cordova.

UAW recently announced a national neutrality agreement with Sparks to develop high quality jobs in battery manufacturing. This means that Sparks has committed to remain neutral in the event that their future workforce chooses to form a union. When it comes to guaranteeing job quality, there is no substitute for a collective bargaining agreement. This landmark neutrality agreement shows how battery manufacturers can lead the transition to a just and sustainable future and support the growth of California's middle class.

Sparks is establishing a workforce training and development center at its facility in Rancho Cordova. In addition to signing a neutrality agreement with UAW, Sparks is also developing a joint labor management training program with the UAW Center for manufacturing a Green Economy UAW CMGE, which is a nonprofit training organization.

This program will ensure that workers are trained on various aspects of battery manufacturing from making battery cells, materials and packs, and that Sparks is able to hire workers who are highly trained and that future jobs go to the community members who need them the most. Sparks will eventually employ over a thousand workers at its facility. The UAW Sparks Training Partnership is committed to building a community hiring and training pipeline so that Members of disadvantaged communities can gain employment at Sparks.

This pipeline will involve extensive outreach and relationship building with community organizations, and the program will develop work readiness training so that individuals with barriers to employment can start new careers in battery manufacturing. All investments in climate and infrastructure projects should include or support the negotiation of agreements like the one UAW has with sparks that allow workers to organize and negotiate higher standards without the interference or intimidation from employers.

Neutrality agreements community benefits agreements as my colleague from jobs to move America discussed and project labor agreements are key tools that give workers the free and fair decision to join and form a union. That's really what workers are asking for. According to a recent study by the Berkeley Labor Center, California has budgeted over 32 and a half billion, over the next four years to invest in technologies to fight climate change.

However, 40% of that money, or $13 billion, has no standards to ensure that workers have good jobs. And 83% of taxpayer dollars going to manufacturing or $7 billion, lacks any labor standards. From construction of facilities to operation, maintenance, service and manufacturing workers whom my union represents, all jobs funded by our taxpayer dollars must be good jobs for Californians.

UAW urges the Committee to create standards for all taxpayer dollars that will invest in evs and the EV supply chain to ensure that manufacturing workers, who often have the same jobs for decades, who remain in the same jobs for decades, will have good jobs that allow them and their families to thrive. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Hinsey, for sharing that partnership with us and information. I will now turn it over to my colleagues on the dais.

Senator Durazo, thank you both very much. Your hands on real life experience matters a lot. I want to ask Mr. Flores, as you described, all of the projects, all of the money that we have entrusted you to spend wisely and to build out our public transportation system, can you tell me what were the barriers? What were the restrictions that you felt? zero my God, this is really going to hurt us.

As far as the policies that you described, construction, career in the manufacturing, what would have stopped you? Because there are going to be folks who say, I can't do this, I can't do it, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yes, and thank you for that question, Senator. First and foremost, there's two components that I truly wanted to address. The fact that the local hire component that the Federal Government had instituted really was a game changer, but yet it's still a pilot program.

The fact that we are looking into that to somewhat being able to have a component or a legislation that will be able to turn that into a permanent law because as we consider it based on who's at the current Administration, somewhat do change that component. It started during the Obama Administration where we had a pilot local hire initiative.

And then the change in Administration that had been redacted and was actually brought back again through this Administration that changes the whole dynamic in terms of applicability and local benefit of workers in the region.

Because now the geographic hiring preference do come into play because you could have workers out of the state be able to come into California, more particularly in the LA region, to be able to do that work which our local union folks or local Members could benefit from the training that could be adopted and created for them to stabilize that workflow opportunity.

That's first component that we had able to see because we do have projects that are subject to the prohibited because of the geographic hiring preference and then projects that are subject to the local hire, it's actually creating a confusion for the local workers and our building partners. And another component that we have also is the female participation in the trades. I would really pointed out that there should be additional legislation to be able to have more supportive services to the female.

As Senator Wahab had mentioned earlier, these are key factors. The fact that there should be an adoption of gender equity restrooms into the construction location, the fact that these are somewhat equity issues and then also childcare. The fact that female into the trades. Most of the issue is being able to have a reliable supportive services that can help them and assist them to be able to be successful. There is a massive construction workers shortage in the La region.

One of the issues that had been pointed out by our construction or based on the construction study that there's going to be a massive construction workers shortage in the La region to build out all of the infrastructure projects. So that is another issue.

But thanks to our building partners that they were able to address that matter and then continually outreaching to our local community that are interested, being able to have more pre apprenticeship program to really be able to hone in to the pipeline of workers that will be available for these good paying jobs. These are prevailing wages. California has one of the highest prevailing wage scale in comparison to the other states in the United States.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Stern.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and appreciate the invitation to join the hearing today. I know I'm not on the Standing Committee, but as joint climate Committee chair, I think this is exactly the kind of testimony we're looking to gather here. I wanted to drill down a little further on. Is it, Mr. Hinsey, on your remarks about our climate spending, I think you said 40% was the number you had cited as lacking certain standards.

Just a reference on that and maybe a couple of examples to articulate for us. Is it a categorical thing? Is it certain categories don't have those standards, or is it particular projects?

Yeah. So this is study that was published by the Berkeley Labor center last fall, and I'd be happy to follow up with you with a reference to that. But I think for us, what that study really underscored was something that the other panelists have been discussing already, that there's really not enough but some labor standards in place for construction, for new green energy projects. And I'll let my colleague from the building trades talk about that later.

But for manufacturing, there's really a lack of standards across the board. And so that's something that we're really focused on. And we want to make sure that our taxpayer dollars that our Members pay to the State of California and they work really hard to earn are going to go to creating good jobs.

I noticed that some of the other examples in other states where they've had some success and more than us, on Ira, they've built sort of this public private model, the hub model, if you will, on manufacturing for attracting dollars. So not just letting private sector take the lead, we've followed that on our hydrogen application. The Governor and the governor's office sort of organized a publicly led solicitation.

Do you think that kind of model, a public private model, where you're not just letting the company set the terms, but the government sort of laying out parameters and building something bigger, could that work more broadly in manufacturing? Do you think there's merit to those kinds of models? I mean, you look at sparks, you mentioned that example. That's one little company sort of trying to compete out in the world.

But if statewide we had a battery manufacturing mean, are we going to be more competitive if we're together, or is that not how you see the marketplace.

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting idea. I would defer to my colleagues from the labor centers who research those kinds of agreements, but I certainly think the more opportunities there are to work between government and business to create good quality jobs, the better. And procurement is one really important opportunity that the state has as a purchaser, which I think is similar in a lot of ways to what you're describing.

I would also say if the state were to create its own battery enterprise and create some kind of stockpile, the way that the state has begun to put energy into stockpiling critical medicines for Californians, that would be another way to, I think, create good job requirements.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Wahab.

Thank you.

So in my district, we have Tesla. Tesla obviously has evs, lithium batteries, and no union. I wanted to understand from you in particular, where have the failures been in trying to unionize a relatively new manufacturer like Tesla and real recommendations to make this successful. If we were to go across.

You know, I think it's no Surprise that workers have been essentially continuously organizing at Tesla since it was first opened and UAW represented the workforce at the previous plant that Tesla took over in 2010. I think in terms of, we want to make sure that workers have an opportunity to organize themselves and that they're the ones who are leading the charge on that. But I think the state can do quite a lot to help in terms of calling for accountability on funding.

Tesla is one of the state's biggest recipients of public funding since its inception. In one form or another, Tesla has been the recipient of billions of dollars from the state and the Federal Government through loans, through direct subsidies, through tax breaks. And so that's really important power that workers can have to call for accountability for themselves as they're organizing to win contracts for themselves and their coworkers.

So considering that it is not unionized and there's been multiple attempts, and yet we know there have been practices that have limited the efforts, if you will. Right. We also know that people are being bused from, let's say, the Central Valley all the way down to the Bay Area at 04:00 a.m. On buses. Right. And the number of different concerns that people have.

One of the things, and I wish that we had some other folks to speak from a business perspective, especially those that are in opposition to some of the efforts of what we're talking about today, to understand if we do not see a unionized workforce in some manufacturing organization. Right. Like we just referenced, what do you think is the lowest common denominator to ensure that we are supporting and uplifting workers across the board.

I think it's a good question for us. Community benefits agreement is a great route to go because it's something that can package neutrality agreements or labor peace agreements, which put requirements on companies, of course, to not disrupt their workers ability to organize, and can also include something that my colleague was talking about, targeted hire, as well as things that the community wants to see.

So I think community benefits agreements are a real key to bringing lots of different, like I was saying, neutrality project, labor agreements, targeted hire, training requirements.

Development.

And have you seen the private sector support this, know, unionizing? Have you seen the leaders of these organizations and companies support this?

Well, Spark signed a neutrality agreement with us, so I wish their CEO was here. Hopefully he mentions some of this in his testimony. But I think companies see working with unions, working with other stakeholders as a competitive advantage right now, especially with the kinds of subsidies that are available to them through the DOE, which is incorporated community benefits into their scoring. So the state can create a scoring system that helps to create an advantage for companies that reach agreements like that.

So I know we've largely talked about construction and let's say the auto industry and so forth. In my district in particular, there's a lot of pharmaceutical companies and research, and we often have difficulty getting, let's say, vulnerable communities into those industries in particular. Also with a lack of unions there, to be completely Frank, how can we broaden the scope of labor in industries that are 21st century, that are different than what we've seen in the last 50 years?

Because at the end of the day, technology is what leads business and new industries. And we've talked about lithium, we've talked about a number of different things here, but we also have seen hold ups in these industries. Right. There's plenty of organizations I can point to that have stated that they're going to pause on manufacturing of these types of vehicles. Or for example, Hertz sold off their 22,000 EV vehicles because we do not have the infrastructure in place throughout the State of California.

So what can we do to have a forward looking effort rather than what we have dominated?

Yeah, if you don't mind. What I believe that truly what needs to. It's educational or information that's at the forefront. The fact that the community benefit agreement does not really just dictate the hiring information, but also the fact that what the community needs. For example, I'm going back to the construction side of stuff for La Metro. We do understand that we do have the purple line alignment that's adjacent to Beverly Hills. The difficulty of having workers from a very affluent area is somewhat not available.

So we look into the aspect of being able to benefit small businesses. So there is really component of benefiting small businesses that the community need, or what workers that do need assistance from that certain community. So being able to really identify or have an analysis, if you will, that can really be used as a literature or information ahead to be able to disseminate those information to the existing manufacturers, per se, pharmaceutical EV manufacturers and things of that type. It's really no one approach, if you will.

It's really what the community needs for that present moment or present time moving forward.

So one last question in regards to we heard from a previous speaker, know, we can hire from California, or we can state this and so forth. And we've heard different targeted hire and community benefits being more localized. And I know that most of the conversation has been more focused in Southern California. In my district, for example, the average worker at these different industries cannot afford a home. It's one of the most expensive, 1.31.4 million or more, let alone rents and so forth.

So hence an organization, as I referenced earlier, will bus people out from the Central Valley, which is a couple of hours, and they bust them at 04:00 a.m.. Right. Working 12 hour shifts. Right. 2 hours per each, let's say, if they're installing a steering wheel or a chair or something like that. Those individuals, especially in the Bay Area, we see people have, since the Great Recession, move further and further away, 2 hours, 3 hours, still commuting because the jobs are in the Bay Area. Right.

So what are we doing about that? And protecting those people who are no longer part of the community, except for the workforce piece of it, who are also commuting. We talk about climate, we talk about vehicle miles traveled, we talk about pollution, we talk about a lot of things. How are we operating, making sure that those communities are protected, have their rights, are able to absorb the jobs, right. And still be part of this community and benefiting.

Such a good question. The fact that there's really many approaches. One thing that I have seen in San Diego region, that certain areas that they were able to establish a low housing that will be affordable for the current workers that are participating, manufacturing work or anything else within that type, that somewhat eliminates any barriers for these workers to be transported long distance.

So those are also something that can be looked into in terms of being able to use as a caveat, that businesses could participate or even contribute to the cost of those Low housing, if you will, to be able to help out those populations.

Thank you, Senator Wahhab. Senator Becker.

Thank you for Mr. Hintze. And we did get testimony from Dr. Malhotra, so I'll refer to it for a moment, what you seem to be saying as part of your testimony. And I think his letter as well, is sort of a race to the top rather than a race to the bottom. And in his testimony, he talks about the possibility of the CEC funding some pilot projects.

He points out, basically r and d for 75% to 80% of these companies is here, but then they manufacture elsewhere. Have you talked to the CEC? Have you gotten any sense from them about any appetite on this? And then kind of relevant to Senator Wahob's question. You know, when you think about building out in a region, right.

You think about maybe what New York state did with western New York, where they really made a substantial financial commitment and now have really successful a lot of battery companies, semiconductor companies. You could think about that, say, in the Central Valley.

We could really pick a few regions and sent factories there, right. Where I know that these companies, I talked to some of them, but they'd much rather do that than go out of state, if it was even close, kind of competitive wise. So, anyway, any of your thoughts on that?

Thank you for the question, Senator. Absolutely. I think what we're all talking about is how to create that race to the top. I think that's how we feel that taxpayer dollars should be spent, by creating good jobs and by incentivizing companies to do better for their workforce, for the community, for underserved communities. And so. Yeah, absolutely. I think the model of investing in certain regions could be very useful there.

I know there have been conversations about lithium Valley and how to make sure that the lithium that's going to be extracted there will stay in California and not just get shipped to another country and drive down the standards both for the workers in those countries and for workers in the US, but that it can actually benefit people in the. Yeah, I think that would be a very fruitful avenue to pursue.

Thank you, Senator Becker. I just have a couple of questions, and I really appreciated Senator Becker talking about the race to the top. And I'll start with you, Mr. Flores. You gave some anec.al success stories. How does Metro actually monitor and track these community benefits agreements in terms of the PLA requirements, the construction careers requirements? How do you track that? And can you share a little bit?

I saw in my packet there was an analysis, targeted worker summary report that is sort of all the receipts on one page. I would love for you to share a little bit about how you actually can measure the impact on disadvantaged communities using this type of model, but say more about the race to the top, the sort of value based contracting, how do you track it and then share a little bit of what some of the actual broader, deeper success has been, of course.

Thank you, Senator. First and foremost, Metro have a very stringent monitoring and enforcement process when it comes to our programs. We do utilize what we call through a certified payroll record that is by law has to be submitted under the Davis Bacon act. Through the certified payroll record information in terms of local hire, disadvantaged hires are being monitored and then calculated. We are into a sense of being proactive than being reactive at the very first hand through the monitoring process that had been established.

From our contractor standpoint, when they submit their certified payroll record, all of those, the dynamic in terms of the workers locality, their pay rate and disadvantaged factors that they had attest and then provided those information. Because one of the caveat or our project labor agreement is being able to collaborate with community based organization that do provide referrals of disadvantaged workers. Disadvantaged workers are being referred through a job scored in that's a condition of award on our construction contracts.

And from that point on, they get trained, attend a pre apprenticeship program. Upon completion of that pre apprenticeship program, then they would be able to refer for employment to our prime contractors to work on Metro's project sites. So technically, the PLA itself create that missing link from the training provider through our workforce centers and the hiring entity.

So the way that I personally would say this, in a sense that the project labor agreement create that linkage to all of the providers and resources out into the community. Metro as an agency, had to develop a very stringent monitoring process in order for us to assess any liquidated damages at the end, because we don't want it to be challenged. The fact that their own reporting themselves from the contractor standpoint is where we base the data that we publish and being transparent to the community.

Thank you for that. And I want to just say one of the cells in this analysis shows economically disadvantaged area hours subtotal 60% of the project went to those disadvantaged areas. I'm just reading the summary and I am so appreciative of the analysis that helps us get that granular. I have another question for you, Mr. Flores, and this has to do the comment you made about the FTA and the FHWA.

We hear a lot about slowing down that to ensure that we have community benefits, to ensure that we have labor standards, ensuring that we have a tracking and monitoring that that will somehow slow down projects, make them be somewhat of a detrimental impact on those projects. I know you mentioned briefly that you have gone through the process and worked with federal agencies to sort of work out the timeline, but can you share in terms of.

It seems that Metro made a decision that having benefits did not stop you all from moving forward with this. Can you share a little bit about how you deal with the timeline and that is that in fact true that these kinds of standards somehow make it impossible to get work done?

Delays first and foremost, for LA Metro, it really boils down to the top leadership that we have, the fact that it is our priority to really be able to make an economic impact to the region that we serve. Therefore, we try to find ways to be able to address any mitigating matters and then look at it at the very forefront.

For example, the fact that FHWA in the past, we have to really sit down and then come into the table and create a process to really be able to expedite their approval process. Those were actually developed firsthand and then communicated with them. So it's really a collaboration from these funding agencies.

One benefit that we were able to come through was, or success stories that we have was FDA gave Metro a blanket approval to be able to utilize its project labor agreement, local hire on federally funded FDA construction. Project FHWA in the past had somewhat not prohibit, but we have to really be able to get a justification of project specific for them to approve our project labor agreement.

We provided a suggestion, in a sense that look into our project labor agreement and approve its language, and then we would be able, moving forward to still obtain project specific through a different process. It's a more streamlined process by just providing a justification so those items we were able to address and then come into a certain understanding in terms of it's not delaying any procurement of La Metro, because one of the issues also is procurement cycle takes time.

If there's something else that you're missing, but if we are proactive, if you will, that we have a General understanding with that funding source of a quick turnaround, that's really changed the dynamic. And we have not seen any hindrance in terms of any FHWA funded project that we have. The fact that they were able to give us an approval in less than 30 days for that.

Mr. Flores and Mr. Hintze, would you like to add?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. In terms of what slows projects down, the lack of a community benefits agreement or neutrality project labor agreements mean that you run into situations where there aren't enough skilled workers to work on a project that's a major obstacle to speeding things up. You run into labor stoppages because workers don't have the rights and benefits that they need. And ultimately, all of this drives a lack of consensus in being able to create new policies to help the state hit its climate goals.

And so by having these things in place on the front end, we can really make sure that we're not slowing things down, but in fact, we're speeding up the process of fighting climate change.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, Senator Cortese, please.

Yes, thank you. I wasn't sure for a moment if you were done. Thank you. I just want to say that it was one of my questions, and I appreciate the answer. And it's been my experience in Santa Clara County at a number of levels, precisely what you just indicated. And I wouldn't honestly know that, or I might not necessarily believe that myself unless I had seen it. I've been around long enough to see it happen and to see it work.

And those of us who were around when redevelopment agencies were in their heyday, whatever problems they had, and I could list those labor standards wasn't one of them, and community benefits wasn't one of them. We were basically able to do both those things with that model, which is just basically another development and procurement model. I mean, it's just funding coming from a different place than where we're getting it right now.

Right now we're getting it from ourselves through our own infrastructure package, through our climate package, and through the Federal Government. Which leads me to my question. The UC labor center presented to the Senate labor Committee some time ago after we commissioned them to do some work and presented a whole volume, a whole body of work. But one of the things they emphasized over and over again was that predominantly the two acts at the federal level required labor standards, and where they didn't allowed.

Where they did, they allowed augmentation of those labor standards at the state level, meaning a more stringent standard if need be. And where they didn't exist, there may have been a question mark, but it looked like that was in very, very few areas, small grant programs around evs and such. What is your take on that? You must be, both of you at some point, well studied on matching those dollars.

And I'm really interested from hearing from you, because if you're working with plas, if you're doing everything you just described, and I understand you are, I got to believe that you're not foregoing federal money while you're doing it, but I want to hear it from you. Look, I think the Administration here justifiably and rightfully has concerns about that, but I think it's partly our job on the legislative level to do this kind of work and dispel those kinds of concerns. I'm trying to dispel those concerns, but if they're real, let me know. If that's a problem, let me know.

Senator, just to make sure I understand your question, you're asking if the fact that there aren't certain labor standards at the federal level is an obstacle for California.

Let me clarify this because it's perfect for you, given where you're coming from. UC Labor center gave us a number of almost $37 billion in impact, positive impact to manufacturing in California coming from the bIL and the Ira. All right. Total combined, almost 37 billion. I think there's a concern in this building at certain levels that we need to take advantage of those dollars. That's a shared concern.

But there's an additional concern that I'm trying to sort out with you right now, which is that that money that we may be preempted somehow from taking down some of that money, if we as a Legislature, in the spirit of SB 150, move forward with labor standards and an equity overlay, like community benefits on those manufacturing dollars, if we take down 36 billion, $37 billion of federal dollars, match it up, however we do it with our own programs, are we precluded from overlaying labor standards like you've just been describing? That's all I'm asking. And it's a manufacturing question.

Thank you, Senator. So my colleague Madeline Janis, I think, answered part of this in her testimony as well, which is there are models from the federal funding disbursements that California can look to. So, for example, in the Department of Energy funding that battery manufacturers are applying for, there's a community benefits portion of the application where a company will get 20 points, up to 20 points for different elements of having a community benefits plan. And so that's certainly something that California could adopt.

I think in terms of other funds, it'd be a case by case basis, but hopefully some of my colleagues who are going to speak on later panels can also address that concern.

Yeah, I think what we're hearing, if I can just follow up through the chair, is somewhere between, and let me make sure I'm not mistating. Let me rephrase what I said earlier, that there may be some doubt or gray area in terms of what we can do in terms of a California labor standards overlay, like plas, for example, on those federal dollars.

And it would be great for us, if not today, in your testimony in this hearing, it would be tremendously helpful if either of your shops has background on that, that you can forward to us after this hearing, which we could share not only with this Committee and this Committee, the two Committee staffs, but also with our colleagues at large in the Senate, because that question is pivotal. And on the one hand, give the Administration here, the Executive branch, credit for being careful about that.

We don't want to forego dollars, but it's pivotal, obviously, because if we can move forward or if we can get very clear on where and how we can move forward, it moves us where you've already been into a vision, a shared vision with the Administration on moving forward into this, into manufacturing, to the tune of billions of dollars of investment with labor standards and an equity lens in place.

And as long as we're worried about disqualifying ourselves for those dollars, that in of itself, I think is slowing us down right now. So again, not to be redundant, but anything that you can help provide us, as somebody said earlier, you're on the ground, you've done it. You have a certain pretty significant scale, billions of dollars yourselves. We'd like to see where you were able to maximize labor standards on those federal dollars.

If there were places where you aren't able to do it, I think we really need to know the difference. Thank you.

Yeah. And just to kind of provide what we have done for La Metro when we do receive federal funds in the past, the Committee do knows the geographic prohibition that the Federal Government has. But through the bipartisan infrastructure law, recipient of any public dollars in terms of agency, whether it's being used for rolling stocks or construction, gave us the ability to implement a local hire component in it. So by them eliminating geographic hiring preference, we would able to conform with the Federal Governments, if you will.

But again, that provision is still on a pilot phase, which is supposed to expire on 2025, if I'm not mistaken. But yet again, to your point, Senator, once that rule had been rescinded, then we go back to the original platform of geographic prohibition, if you will, because of the gas tax, that they have to really consider the whole United States rather than having geographic hiring preference. So that's one thing that I pointed out earlier.

If there could be some assistance in terms of a legislation per se that can be sent to the Federal Government from a pilot component to making this permanent, that truly would be a great help for the region itself that are recipient of the federal dollars to be able to benefit workforce component in that particular region.

Thank you. I'll close my order book there. I appreciate your help with all of that and your testimony today. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Senator Cortese. And thank you, Mr. Flores and Mr. Hintze, for your amazing testimony today.

Last thing, I do have a handout because of some success stories that I wanted to share to the community. Thank you. Yes.

Thank you. So we're getting close, folks. We're on our third panel. Our third panel is the update on SB 150 implementation from our state agencies and departments. Please come forward and have a seat at the front table. Thank you.

In this panel, we will hear from our partners at various state agencies and departments, and I know they are coming up and taking seats, and hopefully we have enough chairs for everybody. With us today is Undersecretary Jacque Roberts with the labor and Workforce Development Agency, along with. We got double duty here, Derek Kirk, assistant deputy secretary of climate, labor and workforce.

At the development agency, we have Angela Shell, procurement division of the Department of General Services, Kevin Kish, Director of the California Civil Rights Department, and Curtis. Curtis, I don't want to miss. Thank you, Curtis Notsinneh, Chief Deputy Director of the California Workforce Development Board, and the undersecretary, Mark Tollefson with our California Transportation Agency. Thank you all for being here. We'll start with you, Ms. Roberts, and then you all can just go in the order that you feel is best. Good to see you. I'm glad you could make it.

Thank you. Good afternoon or evening, madam chairs and Members. My name is Jackie Roberts, and I am the undersecretary of the labor and Workforce Development Agency. Thank you for this opportunity to talk about SB 150 as well as current state partnerships to advance training opportunities.

The SB 150 process has been a great opportunity for the Administration to showcase California's leadership in existing high workforce standards, as well as to highlight the whole of government approach the Governor Newsom has directed his Administration to take in advancing and maximizing state and federal dollars.

Last May, when he issued an Executive order and created the infrastructure strike team, it resulted in a whole of government, all of our executives that are involved in this funding, coming together and really looking at all of the various funding mechanisms and where we can have the most impact and engage. We meet regularly as well as working across not just our Administration, but also our partners of the Public Utilities Commission.

So in addition to subject matter working groups with the strike team, we also created an equity bridge working group that has established project priorities to ensure benefits flow to underserved communities, essentially in alignment with the Justice 40 initiative that the Biden Administration has put forward, as well as focusing on prioritizing government engagement with tribal governments as well as community organizations.

For our agency, Secretary Knox serves as an Executive sponsor, and we participate at every level to make sure that we are promoting the priority to train and identify places to retain workers and good jobs. Labor agency has led the effort to identify opportunities to address workforce needs and to accelerate training and upskilling of workers. There are four workforce entities under the labor and Workforce Development Agency. Some are represented here today. Thank you, Curtis.

The California Workforce Development Board, the Department of Industrial Relations Division of Apprenticeship Standards, our Employment Development Department workforce Services branch, as well as our employment training panel. Part of our work at the agency level is to identify which entity is best positioned to take on any given project when we have so many different funding sources, both from the federal and state level.

A few successful examples, just to give you a taste of what we're working on, includes a $20 million high road training partnership for oil well capping. That's a partnership between the workforce Development Board and Calgem.

When we saw an increase in both state and federal funding going to the work of capping oil and gas wells, we also identified that we needed to invest in worker training, and to date, approximately 11 million has been allocated and grant recipients have partnered with both the operating engineers and laborers to design an apprenticeship curriculum for new and transitioning workers.

The Workforce Development Board also supports other high road training partnerships and applicants in engaging with worker representatives, nonprofit and community based organizations, and local workforce development boards to ensure engagement with and support for workers from disadvantaged and underrepresented communities. Another great example of the work that's happening is we have established four new semiconductor related apprenticeship programs that were certified by the Division of Apprenticeship Standards.

Each of those four companies that have partnered with us are also partnered with the Foothills Community College, who is their educational partner. This college is also a recipient of the California Apprenticeship Initiative grant and has applied for the USDOL Strengthened Community colleges training grant.

Both of these grants are intended to help build capacity of community colleges to address identified equity gaps and meet the skill development needs of employers in in demand industries, while also developing career pathways that lead to quality jobs, particularly for individuals from historically underserved communities. These companies that we've partnered with on the apprenticeships can also use these as a critical component of potential federal chips and science grant applications if they choose to apply for those.

We also recently had an HRTP planning grant of $500,000 that went to UAW in partnership with Sparks, who you heard from before, so I won't go into that one. And we have also partnered with the Energy Commission as well as the Public Utilities Commission to ensure that the state application for the US EPA solar for all grant included $15 million set aside for worker training.

If approved by the EPA, these funds would be administered by EDD in collaboration with our employment training panel and the foundation for California Community Colleges. This funding would also provide technical assistance to applicants and awardees in developing accessible training programs, equitable recruitment strategies, and pathways to high quality jobs and careers aligned with evolution of the solar and storage sector next month, the employment training panel will consider an interagency agreement with the Energy Commission Fund 3 million in an electrical vehicle infrastructure training program.

If approved, this will focus on training state certified electricians and employers and trainees located in urban, disadvantaged and Low income communities. In each of these examples, labor agency worked with state or other partner state agencies to ensure investments included a focus on reaching disadvantaged workers in compliance with both federal and state priorities. This work is aligned with the priorities set forth in SB 150, and I'm going to turn to my colleague Derek Kirk to give an overview of our SB 150 stakeholder engagement process.

Good evening, chairs and Senators. My name is Derek Kirk and I serve as the assistant deputy secretary of climate economy at the labor and Workforce Development Agency. I lead the agency's efforts to align workforce investments and policies with economic development, primarily through the governor's California Jobs first initiative. I also serve as a co lead of multiple working groups on the governor's infrastructure strike team that Undersecretary Roberts mentioned collaborating with state agencies on the inclusion of workforce into infrastructure investments.

I want to provide an update for you all on the SB 150 stakeholder process that the labor agency co led alongside our partners at the state transportation agency, the government Operations agency, and the Department of General Services, as well as the Natural Resources Agency who we saw fit to bring in before we kicked off the process, knowing their incredible role in the infrastructure investments.

In December 2023 and January 2024, the interagency team led five stakeholder sessions with three sectorspecific sessions on construction, transportation, manufacturing and clean energy. The fourth session was focused on educating stakeholders on existing California laws and the work our state already does, as well as some of the limitations that we have. The last session was an open dialogue with stakeholders regarding their recommendations.

Each of these sessions had approximately 60 to 90 participants, virtually for the first three and virtually and in person for the final two participants represented local public agencies, labor organizations, business organizations, nonprofit organizations, organizations representing the formerly incarcerated, and organizations that represent populations historically marginalized in California's economy.

We also received substantive written feedback and are reviewing that for recommendations that are aligned with state and federal requirements and guidance, as well as for feasibility to implement some of the high level information on the feedback that we received from our stakeholders.

Includes recommendations to develop a local hire requirement require project labor agreements require contractors to employ apprentices in the execution of their contracts requiring the inclusion of Non Union apprentices in the work requiring contractors to commit to hiring disadvantaged workers at a minimum ratio requiring contractors to provide support for transportation, childcare, and safety, as well as establishing new and enforcement mechanisms. Again, a list of some of the high level points and the recommendations that we received.

One of the key messages I want to end on before handing it to Deputy Director Shell is really in this process, we understood and heard from stakeholders in our collaborative work with each other that there is really no one size fits all approach to the various funding streams. However, with the structure that the Administration has set up, with consistent communication between agencies, we will continue to prioritize equity and opportunities for disadvantaged communities. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Is this working? Can you hear me?

We can swap out.

This one's working.

There we go. Normally, I'm pretty so. All right. Good afternoon, madam chairs and Members, and thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Angela Shell, and I am the state's chief procurement officer as well as the Deputy Director for the procurement division at the Department of General Services. My role is to oversee the state's procurement of goods and services, including issuing procurement policy and managing the state's standard contract terms and conditions.

Okay.

This does not include public works contracts or grants, and those contracting programs are administered by the specific departments with that authority to award public works projects and grants. So today I'd like to just provide you with a brief overview of the state's existing contract terms and conditions that are either directly related to California labor standards or are in support of or complement those standards, as well as any enforcement mechanisms that the state currently has in place.

So for all state contracts, all types of state contracts, there are base contract terms and conditions, and departments can then add in additional requirements and ensure compliance with all of those requirements. So, generally, there is a requirement for the vendor to broadly adhere to all State of California laws, regulations, rules and orders, and that includes minimum wage requirements that are found in industrial welfare Commission orders. That includes the eight hour workday, the 40 hours work week meals, and rest periods and the paid sick leave program.

For the State of California, there's also a requirement for vendors to adhere to safety and accident prevention requirements that are set forth again in the contract in state regulations and state laws. Any violation of these rules and requirements unless promptly corrected is grounds for termination of contract for default. There's also a requirement for examination and audit of contract records, both for prime vendors and sub vendors.

It's a three year requirement and the state has the ability to go in and interview employees directly and they can inspect any contract related records, including those records that are related to wages and working conditions. There's also a requirement for discrimination and harassment free workplaces. So no unlawful discrimination or harassment against employees or applicants during the employment or evaluations of applicants workers.

Businesses are required to notify the signatory labor organizations of this requirement on state contracts and it does require this clause to be in any subcontracts on state contracts. There is a requirement for a sweat free code of conduct for workplaces. This means that no work, in whole or in part by or with the benefit of sweatshop labor, forced labor, convict labor, indentured labor under the penal sanctions, abusive forms of child labor, or exploitation of children in sweatshop labor. So that's a requirement for in state contracts.

There's also special types of contract requirements that are in addition to these above contracts. So we do have personal services contracts that have a set requirement for wages at a certain percentage of what the state workforce pay is. There's healthcare benefits also associated with those personal service contracts. And then there's monthly compliance reporting to the State of California for state departments using those personal services contracts.

For public works contracts, there is a requirement for applicable prevailing wages that can include benefit packages or cash in lieu of those packages. There are apprenticeship minimums and there are monthly payroll reporting as well as Department of Industrial Relations compliance checks. We also have a high roads jobs language that is required for zero emission transit vehicles as well as our electric vehicle supply equipment. That's over 10 million. This applies to dgs and the Department of Transportation only.

These high roads jobs requirements are for no misclassification of workers as independent contractors. Compliance by the prime and any subs with all applicable state, federal, state and local laws pertaining to paid sick leave, including any antiretaliation provisions that are contained in these laws. Compliance by the prime and any subs with all applicable safety and health laws and regulations, as well as employee protections that are set forth in the labor code. This is again non discrimination for complaints for safety violations compliance with the federal Ada laws.

These contracts also require that the vendors enter into labor peace agreements with existing organizations, and then there's annual reporting demonstrating compliance with these requirements and a $10,000 withhold from vendor payments for failure to comply for federally funded contracts. So in addition to our standard state requirements, contracts with federal funds also include nondiscrimination and equal employment opportunity requirements, training and promotion, apprenticeship requirements, anti retaliation for reporting of labor standard violations, and then if they're construction contracts, there are also federal prevailing rates requirements.

And then lastly, for enforcement and compliance, there are referrals to the Department of Industrial Relations for investigations. There's contract sanctions and or termination of the contract. The state does have the ability to hold responsibility hearings for vendors who do not comply or have a history of not complying with the state's contract requirements. And then there's also termination for default for vendors who fail to adhere to any of the contract requirements. That concludes my remarks on the standard requirements that exist today. I'm happy to answer any questions or I can defer to the next on the panel. Thank you. Thank.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair Smallwood-Cuevas, Chair Wahab, Members of the Committee. My name is Kevin Kish. I'm the Director of the Civil Rights Department, or CRD. We enforce California's anti-discrimination laws, civil rights laws, in a number of contexts. The relevant ones for our discussion today, of course, are laws that apply to workplaces, laws that apply to all state funded activities and programs, and civil rights laws that apply to state contracting. Each year, our Department investigates thousands of complaints that are filed with us.

We mediate and secure settlements for as many of those as possible, and we prosecute civil actions in court intended to broadly benefit Californians. We conduct extensive education and outreach so that Californians have critical information about their rights and responsibilities. We collect and analyze nearly 30,000 pay data reports each year from large California employers with the goal of identifying and reducing sex and race-based pay disparities.

And just in the past year, we launched the CA vs. Hate resource line and network, connecting people targeted for hate with services in their communities. And we began offering conflict resolution services directly to communities experiencing tensions related to hate and discrimination. The anti-discrimination laws we enforce are among the strongest in the nation. Almost all California employers are legally required to do a number of things that, across the country are considered recommended or promising practices for promoting equity and reducing harassment and discrimination in workplaces.

I have a long list of them. I think many of you are familiar with them. I want to highlight one, which is California law requires all employers of five or more employees to have a written anti-discrimination policy that is against discrimination, harassment, and also retaliation. And this policy must be disseminated to employees, be handed out to them in a language they understand.

It must describe how employees can file complaints, it must guarantee a fair internal complaint investigation process, it must describe remedies, and it must provide information about contacting our Department, among other requirements. As we deploy federal funding for infrastructure, we have participated in the planning with our colleagues at the labor and Workforce Development Agency. We've consulted with them to provide recommendations, and the goal, of course, is to maximize benefits to historically underserved, marginalized, disadvantaged individuals and communities.

We do have a number of enforcement tools that we can use to protect workers in employment contexts and employers that are receiving these funds, including industries of particular interests under SB 150, including construction and manufacturing. So we accept complaints, first of all, not just in the employment context, but also complaints involving state contractor non-compliance with certain legal requirements around anti-discrimination that I mentioned, as well as complaints alleging discrimination in any state funded activity or program.

This is government code 1135, which is the state equivalent of the federal Title VI. I want to highlight for you that in the employment context--which is where we receive the vast majority of the complaints that come in the door--when we receive a complaint from a worker, one of the things we find out affirmatively is whether that employer is a state contractor. And if they are, as part of the investigation, we can confirm whether the employer has the required policies and records and training records.

And depending on the facts of the case, we can analyze disparities in hiring and promotions and compensation and benefits. In looking at these disparities, we can use the pay data that I mentioned, which is an incredibly important tool for understanding the importance of embedding equity in these investments. And so, just looking at employers in the construction industry, large employers who submit pay data to us, we see that relative to their overall representation in the California workforce, there are fewer Black workers in the construction sector.

You heard this from Ms. Solomon on the first panel as well. We know that relative to their overall representation in the California workforce, there are more Hispanic workers in the construction sector, and that both black and Hispanic workers are overrepresented in low-wage positions in this industry and in the lowest pay bands.

And when it comes to pay disparities, we know that Black and Hispanic workers are earning less per dollar than white workers in every job category in the construction sector, and that the pay gap is widest in the lowest paid positions for service workers. So this data allows us at CRD to identify wage patterns for enforcement of equal pay, and it also encourages employers to self assess. We often say at the Department that you can't fix something that you don't see.

And so just the act of collecting the data and reporting it promotes voluntary compliance with equal pay and anti-discrimination laws. Finally, government contractors and subcontractors have affirmative anti-discrimination obligations that go beyond those applicable to all employers in the state. And as you've heard today, anyone who is a federal contractor above a certain monetary threshold is subject to affirmative audit by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, an arm of the US Department of Labor.

CRD has long had statutory authority to proactively audit the anti-discrimination programs of public contractors. Funding for this compliance program, as you know, was eliminated in the mid 90s. We continue to enforce anti-discrimination requirements through the investigation of complaints that I previously described. That concludes my remarks, and I will be happy to answer questions now or at the end.

Thank you. Good evening. Good evening, Madam Chairs and Members. Curtis Notsinneh, Chief Deputy Director at the California Workforce Development Board, thank you for inviting our participation in today's hearing on SB 150 in the opportunity to discuss our High Road Construction Careers Program. I have a slide deck here also that I'll be working from. Don't see it up on the screen yet. There we go. All right.

My comments this evening will focus on how the state is collaborating with the Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, and other relevant stakeholders in the allocation of federal IIJA funding, specifically, how we are working to ensure that these investments are allocated to our communities equitably and our plans to develop a high road workforce that uplifts historically underserved communities. I'll set the table for this discussion with answering the question, what is High Road?

High Road is defined in the California Unemployment Insurance Code 14005 as a set of economic and workforce development strategies to achieve economic growth, economic equity, shared prosperity, and a clean environment. The strategies include, but are not limited to, interventions that: one, improve job quality and job access, including for women and people from underrepresented populations; two, meet the skill and profitability needs of employers; and three, meet the economic, social, and environmental needs of the community.

What this set of strategies looks like in a field of practice is also defined in Sub S of the same code section which defines High Road Training Partnerships, or HRTPs. HRTP is defined as an initiative or project that models strategies for developing industry-based, worker-focused training partnerships, including labor management partnerships. HRTPs operate via regional, industry or sector-based training partnerships comprised of employers, workers and their representatives, including organized labor, community based organizations, education, training and social services providers, and labor market intermediaries.

HRTPs demonstrate job quality standards and employment practices in a variety of ways, as defined in the code. High road construction careers, or HRCCs, are HRTPs that are exclusive to construction.

These are defined in Sub T of 14005 as High Road Training Partnerships that invest in regional training partnerships comprised of local building trades councils, workforce, community and education interests that connect to state-approved apprenticeship programs that utilize the standard Multi-Craft Core Curriculum, or MC3, pre-apprenticeship or apprenticeship readiness training curriculum and provide a range of supportive services and career placement assistance to women and people from underserved and underrepresented communities. The intent of HRCC in the context of SB 150 is threefold: one, to meet the demand for qualified construction workers required to complete federal IIJA-funded transportation projects; two, promote equity and access to state approved joint apprenticeship programs with a focus on women, workers from disadvantaged communities, veterans and formerly incarcerated; and three, put more people to work, more money in the pockets of Californians, and more economic activity in regions and communities that need it most.

The CWDB works closely with state building and construction trades council and currently oversees and funds 13 regional HRCC partnerships covering all 58 counties with local building trades councils, joint apprenticeship programs, local workforce boards, colleges and other education providers, and community based organizations, all at one regional table to coordinate and deliver high quality programming that meets the needs of employers, workers, and communities.

HRCC trainees are provided with various opportunities to further their career goals within the construction sector, including, but not limited to, MC3 training, access to state-approved joint apprenticeship programs in the trades and placements, and in this case, specifically on Caltrans projects. To ensure the success of trainees, HRCCs provide wraparound services that will include the issuance of critical support services that are necessary to enable individuals to successfully participate in training.

Supported services include, but are not limited to: childcare, stipends, tooling, work clothes, transportation, and even union dues to get them started. Access to these supportive services is crucial for individuals with significant barriers to employment, such as formerly incarcerated individuals and women, both priority populations under HRCC. These services can also continue in a limited fashion after program completion to support placement into apprenticeships to ensure retention.

HRCC also ensures that the entities with verified experience serving historically underserved communities are able to properly administer their programs within their communities and unique individual needs. These include coordinating partners, providing case management, mentoring, trauma-informed counseling, math and language remediation, and other assistance to participants to ensure successful participation and placement. SB 150 required Caltrans to set aside a total of 50 million of federal funds from the IIJA to be allocated over four years to support HRCC.

We are partnering with Caltrans to develop an interagency agreement where Caltrans seeks the assistance of the CWDB to administer the HRCC program on their behalf and spells out the roles of each entity. The CWDB will utilize the existing HRCC solicitation and award process through our Cal-E-Grants system for eligible entities to apply for and access funding.

The CWDB will also do outreach to ensure that providers and relevant stakeholders are aware of the funding opportunity, convene communities of practice, solicit and score applications, recommend awards to the Secretary for final approval, and develop and execute grant agreements for HRCCs across the state. The CWDB will also provide grant management after grant agreements are executed.

This includes supporting grantees to ensure that grant goals and deliverables are documented and on track, mentoring and tracking budgets and fiscal spending, managing invoice submission, quantitative and qualitative data collection, and managing closeout processes. CWDB will receive 50 million over four fiscal years, starting in fiscal year 24/25 and continuing through fiscal year 27/28. Per the federal requirements, the 50 million will also cover technical assistance and evaluation, as well as covering CWDB staffing costs.

We continue to work closely with Caltrans on the draft scope of work and related forms to the Federal Government, and the CWDB will report to Caltrans in alignment with federal guidance, addressing expenditure amounts, project development, participants in training outcomes and other benefits identified by the project, Caltrans and/or the CWDB.

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss how High Road strategies and High Road Construction Careers have and will continue to help meet the demand for skilled labor through the lens of equity, job quality and climate resilience.

All right, good evening Chairs and Members. I'm Mark Tollefson. I'm the Undersecretary at the California State Transportation Agency. I'll be the last of our panel here. Really appreciate you inviting me to participate today and giving me the opportunity to really share how CalSTA, as well as our departments are working to create jobs and providing workforce training opportunities.

As you've heard from some of our other panelists here, there's a lot of work that's been done on the workforce side, but obviously there's always room to do more with the opportunities before us. One of those opportunities is the bipartisan infrastructure law, or the IIJA. We anticipate over $41.9 billion over five years for Caltrans. We so far have invested about $7 billion. That's generated about 90+ thousand jobs, for that, about 13,000 jobs for every $1.0 billion issued.

Caltrans has three programs that we primarily focus on with respect to our contracting to assist small businesses. Those are Federal Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program, the State Small Business Enterprise program, and our Disabled Veterans Business Enterprise Programs. So a couple of things to highlight for you is that nearly 30% of all of our contracts last year went out to small businesses and we awarded over $1 billion this past year, which was a record for us.

The other piece with respect to the IIJA-funded contracts, we are able to have disadvantaged business enterprise goals, and through fiscal year 2023, 22.3% of all of our contract dollars were committed to disadvantaged business enterprises, which surpasses the triennial goal of 22.2%. IIAJ alone includes over $800 million in dedicated investments for workforce development and USDOT currently has 40 programs across five modes of IIJA as part of the Justice40 Initiatives. A couple of the highlights that I wanted to touch on.

We've been very successful in a variety of grant opportunities, one of which is $400 million for the NEVI program, the National Electric Vehicle Initiative, as well as $150,000,000 in funding for the Otay Mesa East Port of Entry project through the INFRA program.

Both of those include workforce and Justice40 requirements, including community benefits agreements, pre-apprenticeship and investments for Justice40 targeted communities, specifically for Otay Mesa East that will include a project labor agreement, workforce opportunities for rising career programs, as well as a pre-apprenticeship program aimed at disadvantaged communities. So I'll talk a little bit more about our pre-apprenticeship efforts across our agency. So Caltrans annually provides pre-apprenticeship training and supportive services targeted to at-risk and underserved communities.

A couple examples of that are Heavy Equipment and Construction Trades Academy, which provides state-of-the-art accelerated training and heavy equipment operation. To date, there have been 40 graduates actually with 100% graduation rate, and those are providing job placement services and support for graduates as well. We're also excited with the progress in partnership with our Workforce Development Board, the Workforce Development and Training Diversity Fund Partnership, which Mr. Notsinneh previously spoke about.

On high speed rail, the authority has partnered with the City of Selma, the Fresno Economic Development Corporation, a number of our local trades councils to establish our Central Valley Training Center. It's a 12 week pre-apprenticeship program, no cost pre-apprenticeship training programs aimed at serving veterans, at-risk youth, minorities, and low-income populations in Central Valley, providing them with hands-on construction industry training. And since the start of that program, the training center has graduated 151 students, with more than 1000 inquiring about the program.

So a lot of interest, about 10 cohorts have gone through so far. Nearly 60% of those participants are from disadvantaged communities in the Central Valley. Just on the broader job front for high-speed rail, the authority has created more than 12,900 jobs building high-speed rail in the Central Valley. And in addition, that equates to about 1300 construction workers dispatched daily along the construction project.

Wanted to touch as well on some of the compliance and enforcement efforts, which are really important to the work that we've talked about today. So beyond the funding and jobs generated, Caltrans is also responsible for ensuring its contractors and subcontractors comply with state and federal labor standards. So it accomplishes this through its Department of Industrial Relations approved Labor Compliance Program. So all Caltrans public works projects include contract language addressing state labor standards and non-discrimination.

All projects funded through federal highways also require federal labor standards. Both require payment of wage and benefits for work performed, apprenticeship, workers compensation, insurance, non-discrimination and submission of certified payroll records. So the Caltrans Labor Compliance monitors enforces this. They do contractor and project registration, pre-job meetings with the contractor, on-site documentation of activities performed. They review, confirm, audit, and investigate contractors and their payroll records. They identify violations for non-compliance. They will submit cases to the Labor Commissioner for unresolved violations.

And just overall, from the 2022 to 2023 fiscal year, Caltrans reported that it collected $807,000 in restitution and wages recovered for workers. They also submitted a total of 16 wage cases to the Department of Industrial Relations, totaling over 1.1 million in wages and penalties that are awaiting hearing. So a few of the strategies that we're looking at beyond the work that I just discussed, so Caltrans is developing an additional strategy with respect to local hire.

Caltrans, they're drafting a local hire and targeted workforce concept, which includes a local hire percentage within qualifying ZIP codes and a targeted worker goal to hire those with barriers to employment. So the draft proposal is in the comment phase, still being worked through. We want to do that to make sure that we are engaging with stakeholders, and then we will pilot the implementation. Another piece to this is developing a workforce demographic tracking and reporting tool.

So Caltrans labor compliance office utilizes software to collect submitted payrolls that come in weekly for contractors and subcontractors. So this is something where we're going to expand that to other types of contracts beyond just construction. So that'd be repair, installation, architectural and engineering contracts. So we're currently expanding that capability for demographic reporting and configuring the software for additional tracking and reporter and reporting of workers ethnicity, as well as by ZIP code to identify local workers on projects.

Lastly, a project-specific federal on the job training goal is being set. So that's something that Caltrans is evaluating and wants to build upon their existing policy to expand more on the job training opportunities. Wanted to speak just briefly to the United States Employment Plan. So high-speed rail is also looking at alternative strategies, one being the US Employment Plan.

While it is voluntary at this point, Caltrans, sorry, high-speed rail, is using that as one of its multiple strategies in supporting job retention and creation, workforce development, training and outreach, and local business development goals. And I'll wrap up with just some of the challenges that we see in coming up with a statewide approach. So as we work to address the goals of IIJA, several challenges have been identified.

One is just the coordination, looking at a statewide policy and how that interacts with local hire policies with local jurisdictions. Just making sure that there's no conflict between those requirements with respect to wage rates as well as working conditions. Additional monitoring and enforcement requires significant resources, as well as those data collection tools that I referenced, industry alignment and how to effectively create those pathways to employment, including goals and training.

Lack of alignment creates barriers to efficient and effective allocation of those limited resources for training and apprenticeship. And then, as Mr. Kirk referenced earlier, just a one-size-fits-all approach always becomes challenging. Given the diverse nature of project size and type, as well as by geographic region, certain labor standards may be easier to implement, enforce on long-lead megaprojects versus smaller projects throughout the state. So with that, I will conclude my remarks. Really appreciate the time and we're happy to answer any questions you have.

Well, I want to thank all of the panelists for your testimony. I'm going to come over to the dais and ask my colleagues if they have questions or comments.

Thank you. Thank you for also waiting with us. I know this is a long meeting. I wanted to ask specifically the Senators here in the past year, as well as obviously some Senators who have led the effort for a number of years, their entire career, to be honest, have been working to kind of uplift the working community, right? And we, as the State of California, are the most progressive state in the nation.

And yet we have significant holes when we are trying to continue moving workers forward. Regardless of SB 150, which you guys have provided background, and some of your own specific efforts in your departments and so forth. What do you believe is the lowest common denominator between labor, businesses and the workers that everyone agrees on, that we can move forward? Besides the Administration, which is high level.

I'm just not sure I understand the question. I'm sorry. The lowest common denominator being?

Everything that everyone agrees on. The business community, labor, the Administration and so forth.

I don't know that there's, I would say, at least based on the feedback we've seen and the 60 to 90 participants we had, there isn't a common everyone agrees on one approach or one standard. I would say from the Administration's perspective, our priorities obviously were aligned with where the Governor has been and the priorities he has set. And equity and impacts, positive impacts to disadvantaged communities and underserved communities is a priority.

And that's how we're looking at the funding opportunities as a whole and how we are. That's the lens through which we are looking at the feedback we received from all of the stakeholders throughout this process. Hit my pen.

Okay. Well, I appreciate that, but the concern here is we've had years of conversation. We know that we've heard from other stakeholders, even today from different agencies, different union efforts, different efforts across the board. And I kind of want to just drill down as to what are the most basic things that an average employee not even know protected by labor, an established labor. Because, for example, as I said earlier, Tesla is in my district, not unionized. Right. So those workers, they matter. Right.

I think we can all agree upon that. Right. So what can we do to ensure that the everyday worker, regardless of unionized or not, in these industries that are getting millions, if not billions of dollars, how can we protect them? How can we uplift them? How can we ensure that also these industries grow with the potential of being unionized? That is the question across the board. We can have millions of these meetings, but that is what people want to know.

And I'll just chime in briefly, and please, other panelists can speak to it as well. I do think that kind of, at just the base level, a lot of the work that we do with respect to just ensuring workplace conditions are appropriate, people are getting paid the appropriate wages.

So that's just kind of the base of what we need to do with respect to not only Caltrans doing their labor enforcement and compliance, Department of Industrial Relations, but even getting to, I think, like your question on Tesla, I think it kind of comes down to, for those particular workers, what are their needs? It is hard to come up with just a blanket. I know you're kind of looking for just what is that base thing that everyone needs?

But I think in that example that you brought up, you had mentioned earlier that a lot of people are getting up at four in the morning, having to travel 2 hours to work. Is it something where in that case, really that transport is kind of key for them, or the opportunity where maybe they're not working five days, they're able to work four tens to minimize that impact on them.

So I think from kind of project to project, community to community, it is going to vary a little bit. Not to say that we can't come up with, I think, the answer you're looking for, but I think it is going to take some deliberation and hopefully in the report that we're going to be able to put forward for you all, we'll be able to drill into that a little more. But I'd love for my colleagues to chime in if they have additional thoughts.

So it looks like we're kind of moving with, this is my concern here, right? So the example that you raised, and I raised earlier of potential employees being several hours away in the Central Valley being bussed, right? So when we talk about a quality of life, waking up at 04:00 a.m. I don't know who likes to do that, but good for them, right?

But we are now trying to say that what those workers need is transportation, potentially, to these job hubs, right? When in reality there's plenty of people in the exact Bay Area that need jobs, right? So we're working with the moving target rather than the problem at hand. Right? So for me, Tesla needs to pay a decent salary for employees to recruit locally from the Bay Area.

And of course, if they need more workers in the Central Valley and they can't do anything more with the Bay Area, that is met. But we as policymakers cannot keep moving with the ball all the way to the band-aid solutions because the workarounds, the fixes end up being, again, abused. We are not doing the standard of what do we need to hold these employers responsible of?

Which to me, and I'm just saying from a local level on council, the concern was always ensuring that full time employees have health care, have the amount of hours that they have to work, decent pay and potential retirement benefits and much more. Those are the basics of literally every single employee, regardless of whether they're going to bus or not, right? So instead of moving and giving these nice little kind of benefits of like, okay, we can bus you for 3 hours of your day.

We can do this. We can provide these little tiny services. We are actually empowering employers to kind of control the situation. So, for example, in the tech industry, they will do your laundry, they will provide childcare, they will do everything. So you stay longer in the building, right, to work, more hours, tracking you, which doors you open, the whole nine.

So I kind of want to nip all of that in the bud and say, what are we doing as the lowest common denominator to protect all workers, regardless of their industry, regardless of anything like that? Do we have anything with all the hours that we've talked about this topic?

I would say the baseline for, I would say probably from the Labor and Workforce Development Agency perspective and CRD kind of also, as an enforcement entity, obviously our priority is that there are healthy, safe work environments where individuals are paid the wage they're owed, and we have enforcement mechanisms to protect against wage theft and to have anti-retaliation.

So at a baseline, that healthy and safe work environment where a worker is paid the wages they are owed and in a workplace that is safe is a priority that we have. Just if you're asking for a baseline, right. I think what we're looking at is how do you add additional layers and additional requirements to take that a step above. And we do that through for training purposes.

You've heard us talk about our High Road Training Partnerships, our High Road Construction Careers, where we are looking at additional ways to bring in a workforce that is at a local level for the construction side. We have High Road Training Construction Careers throughout the state. So as we're looking at construction projects that are taking place throughout the state, that is a pipeline to try to get workers into that field that has a prevailing wage and is family-sustaining in many ways and provides the benefits, as you discussed.

We're looking at opportunities where that can be applied elsewhere. But I think what you'll hear us say, and what we have said, is that there isn't a kind of a one-size-fits for every type of funding mechanism that has come in or program requirements that have come from the feds. So that we're also adjusting to what they're asking us to do as well and the requirements they've put in place.

So as we do that, that gives us an opportunity to see where are the places that we can apply additional requirements from a California perspective for our priorities as well, which might be a little bit higher than some of our state partners across the country. But from that perspective, those are the levers we can pull. Right?

Because we are talking so broadly of all the industries possible in California, being the fourth largest economy, let's narrow it down. If we narrow down to the top 10 industries that we're looking for for the 21st century: number one, growing industries, which there's plenty of data there; number two is the fact that we don't have an established baseline in what we see today.

So not to hit up Tesla all the time, but because that is an industry or a business that is very large, they are selling vehicles left and right, they get the perks of the feedback from the rebates as well as even at the State of California level, we have a lot of incentives for these particular businesses and industries. Plus it is a multi-million dollar business, that one particular business.

So whether we're identifying from how many employees you have or the dollar in profits that a business makes, right? Which are more easily able to be tracked and not necessarily a one-size-fits-all, but a bucket. Right? I'm just going to push back because I get frustrated when we use the fancy words of, "we're focused on equity, or "we're focused on this."

And "we're focused on this," when we don't even have the basics in industries that have been around for more than a decade, that have employees that are suffering from dealing with lawsuits, discrimination, and much more. And we are not hitting our targets there.

And yet we can't even, in all the discussions with stakeholders, have a common theme of what we're hearing from everybody, which, again, health care, basic pay, to your point, healthy and safe standards, locally, quality of life, I can name them off top of my head. So I'm hoping that when we're having these conversations, we focus on where do we see agreements moving forward, and of course, the certain industries we can add to it as we move along.

So that's my intention, and I look forward to working with all of you guys. Thank you.

Senator Durazo, you have a comment?

I don't mean to answer your question to my colleague, but the UC Berkeley Labor center did a report that was just released in September and has on there the sectors that do not have labor standards as far as our requirements, and it's $40 billion worth of contracts or some financial benefit that they get from the state. From the state. $40 billion. And the thought that all of that would be done without labor standards, done without labor standards is the most troubling of all.

We know what the larger sectors are right here, and that's what SB 150 was trying to address, is the fact that we are financially giving contracts, giving subsidies, getting tax credits, but most importantly, contracts. I mean, the construction industry, thank God, because they have PLAs. We're used to doing it. We've won them through the years. There's less of the construction industry that doesn't have a workforce standards. So just 2 billion of that. But manufacturing without workforce standards, 13 billion.

In other words, the zero emissions vehicles and infrastructure, building, appliances and technology, $13 billion worth that do not have labor standards. Operations without workforce standards: Water agency, energy plant operations, transportation operations, $13 billion worth of contracts that do not have labor standards. Now, I appreciate all of what you, our guests here, and leaders and experts raised as far as labor laws. Those labor laws are minimum, with very rare exception. That's the minimum.

And we know that the minimum does not meet the needs of a High Road, what a family needs. It just doesn't. To your point, Madam Chair. We need to go beyond what is the minimum wage, what is the minimum 8 hours after overtime. That just is not cutting it. So the purpose of SB 150 was to look at the billions of dollars of taxpayer investments, and look at how do we create, from that, job quality? How do we create, from that, equity and quality training?

And there are some examples of that. But we want the system, the system to look at all those billions of dollars and say, how can we do better for California? So I don't have a particular question, Madam Co-chair, but I just. Chair or Co-chair, but I just wanted to make that just as a general remark. Thank you very much. And thank you to everyone who is here.

Thank you very much, Senator Durazo. And I want to agree with my colleagues and thank you for your testimony and giving us what I would say is a status report on your deep look at how we create recommendations for labor and equity standards for our new green economy. I have many questions and many concerns, but I just don't know if you all know how important you are to communities like mine.

When I think about the east side of my district, when I think about south central Los Angeles and some of the poorest census tracts in the nation, how important you are to not talking to me in this body about what you're already doing, because we feel it every day on the ground in our communities. And it's not your intention that these policies, because of how they've been developed, because of institutional barriers, of gender and racial discrimination, because of enforcement tools that have been completely disappeared.

It's not your fault that we have the situation in our district where we have the highest unhoused population, many of them working full time, but can't earn enough to afford their rent. You're important to this. You have the power to change that by not doing what has already been done, which is primarily what I've heard.

And it is not working, not just in Los Angeles County, but from LA County to Turlock, because our colleagues and I talk about it every day, and we are struggling every day in a deficit because the personal income and the sales tax revenue is not coming in, because our communities are in fiscal crisis. South Central has been dying on the vines since deindustrialization. We have the most beautiful commercial corridors. They've been turned into post offices.

Some of them are sweatshops, where workers are struggling to have some level of standard. And here we are looking at $41 billion in investment, and we are still hearing what we're already doing, which is not working. I appreciated, Mr. Kirk, you listing out all of the things that were shared, all the different possibilities, all the different possibilities that we can build a new--to my good colleague's point--a new minimum standard that puts California on a pathway to what we know we can be, which is a golden state where the California dream and opportunity is real and realize what we're already doing is not producing that. And I want that to be understood. I respect HRTPs. I respect HRTPs. But HRTPs alone will not address the crisis that my colleagues and I are dealing with every day.

And so I just want to say we have to continue this conversation as we work together. You are a big part of the solution and we have to continue. I don't think this is going to be our last hearing because I think we have to get closer to the fix. And the fix is real labor standards that we have fought for.

And my colleagues and I see our next panel speakers to raise the standard and to build in new tools which the LA County Metro gave that can be scaled. And it's not this program and that program and this program and that program that do not in any way relate to each other in which way we cannot fully measure. It is a way of thinking about policy tracking and monitoring and collaborations that make a difference. And I just did not hear it today.

I did not hear it after five or six conversations. And I think we heard from the first panel that there were issues with those hearings in terms of how they were scheduled, in terms of how folks were invited, that they were held in the middle of the holiday, and again, that what was shared in terms of new steps were not included. I wanted to thank Caltrans and Undersecretary Tollefson for sharing some of the ways in which that list is being integrated in those steps.

And I was also hearing some of the enforcement tools that you're using to actually bring these wage theft cases. And it's not just putting signage up. It is not just putting up signage. You laid out some tools and partnerships and enforcement partnerships that are working to get us to a point where we are continuing to have compliance and standards, and we have to do that in our Civil Rights Department.

We have too many workers, too many schemes, and this is too big of an opportunity for us to rely on signage alone. We have to be proactive, proactive in how we are creating the value based contracting that's going to make a difference for our communities. And I really want to hear how you will synthesize today's hearing, the future hearings, the future discussions. How will you synthesize this?

And also the work that you said that is being done into a template of standard that the California people can understand and see in this new economy. If not, we'll be here 40 years from now like we've done with Fight for the $15, trying to build a standard into service that people can live and sustain and thrive. We cannot afford to do that at this moment. This moment. We can do it right now. So I want to hear how you're going to synthesize this information.

How are we going to get to a standard that we can recognize and produce report that says 60% of our funds on this project went directly to disadvantaged workers? That we had 60% of the workers be Black and of color, women, that we increase the number of women because we can see that women participated at a higher level and we can measure, track, evaluate and course correct in real time so that workers can participate in the opportunity.

I just have to ask, how are we going to get there to raise that minimum standard, to have a labor and equity rubric that will apply across the board no matter what the project is, whether it's in metro, they're building rail cars and they're building tracks, very different industries, but they are figuring out one template to track, monitor and implement.

So if you could please share, what will be the next steps for us to understand the process for synthesizing and delivering what the Governor has asked for, which is a recommendation on how we embed directly labor and equity standards into all of our federal, climate-resilient, funded projects.

At a high level, I think one thing that we said repeatedly in our stakeholder interaction was we look at this as ongoing conversations. We have deliverables and we have feedback and substantive feedback that we receive that we're taking into consideration collectively. But this is not, to your point, the only place this conversation, it's not going to end here, right?

We know, even during this process, the feds came out with additional requirements or guidance specific to funding that's being rolled out that might change how we look at that pot of funds again. So what we are doing is we are reviewing what we've received.

We are also taking into consideration the comments that were made in the hearings, in our meetings as we held them, and then coming up with recommendations at this point that, again, I think we also don't think this is the end of the conversation. I don't think we're going to have something that addresses every question on every proposal.

But we do want to have a substantive kind of path forward that we want to put forward some that, Mark outlined that Caltrans is looking at in high speed rail. And also, I think just collectively across the board, that's our intent, at least at this point.

I'll just add, I think so much of this is learning for all of the agencies that are engaged in this process as well. And we have seen an immense commitment from all of the agency staff that are navigating through the vast amount of money that's coming from the Federal Government into trying to understand how to do what you're asking, what the Governor is asking, and what our communities are asking. And not to reiterate some of the examples that Undersecretary Roberts noted.

But there's some really exciting examples, particularly in the energy and energy infrastructure space, to not touch on transportation again. Around as the example our application, our $400 million application to the US Environmental Protection Agency around residential, solar and battery storage.

Those agencies worked collaboratively with our own to identify a mechanism to pull funding out of that or to allocate funding in that proposal to support workforce training, which we know is a barrier to access to the quality jobs that are supported in there, and to commit to engaging with all of us through technical assistance and regular conversations about what needs to be included in all of these next steps. Another great example that the undersecretary noted is around electric vehicle infrastructure training program.

The Energy Commission has raised their hand and said, we don't know how to do this. And so they've engaged with the employment training panel, which has a really rich history of working with labor and with industry business partners to build and design curriculum and training programs that benefit communities.

And so there is a really strong commitment from all of the departments and agencies that are engaged in the infrastructure strike team that are receiving or supporting the Administration of these federal infrastructure dollars to continuing the conversation and learning together what that looks like.

So I'd like to comment. One of the things that I often see here, and I've initiated a lot of bills and then find a sponsor later, right. And the reason why is because I'm trying to find that middle ground. I listen to everybody and very reasonable on the approach, right. Clearly, we want to support our businesses. We don't want to stifle their growth. We don't want to harm their potential. We want to remain one of the most powerful economies in the world. We know that.

We all agree upon that. We also want to make sure that we have dignity for workers. Right? And so one of the talking points I've heard a lot and I get frustrated with is because we often say we are the fourth largest economy in the world, right? But what good is it if we are the fourth largest economy in the world and don't have the best quality of life we can have for every single Californian? And the reason why I get frustrated on people standing on their soapboxes, regardless of what their background is, right. I don't agree with everybody.

Everybody doesn't have to agree with each other, but there are areas that we can potentially work together on. And my frustration is I feel like we're having this long conversation and kicking the can to just constantly talk about it when we have all the tools in front of us. We have the infrastructure.

We have community colleges, plenty of community colleges that we can partner with that serve low income individuals, that serve black and brown communities, that literally are folks that want to eventually get a job, need the training, have the tools there. I met with our CSU President in the East Bay who, you know, the CSU East Bay in Hayward, in particular, I think about 86% of the students are first generation/people of color.

And they have a career empowerment center that they're trying to utilize and they are desperate to ensure that there are partnerships out there, right. And we don't see any requirement for businesses to partner with their local schools and be that pipeline, part of that pipeline, right. Communities of colors also struggle to get jobs after graduating. Or let's be honest, not everybody is going to afford a degree, especially with the system we have in place. So, apprenticeships, how does that work? That should also potentially be through our school system, let alone partnerships through labor and so forth. We also know that we are focusing on a couple of these industries.

And again, these industries receive millions, if not billions, after a certain number of years of funding, both from the state as well as the feds. And there are no real requirements to see what they can do. So the example that I give is that if we do have a focus on quality of life, what does that mean? What is the basic standard for quality of life? Let's just talk about that. What type of society are we trying to create?

Housing community members, letting them be able to afford rents that are skyrocketing. And that is an industry that needs to be curbed as well, right. And I often state this because nobody is talking about some of the things that are the most basic. It's right in front of us. We don't need another 20 panels or stakeholder meetings to have that discussion. We all agree on these things. And yet the concern and the fear is we don't want to introduce something that puts somebody at a disadvantage.

But if there are record profits in these industries, when does the government and policymakers actually step in to protect all people? We believe, and my Republican colleagues will agree, in Adam Smith's invisible hand theory, right.

We get that. But as policymakers, our job is to implement policy that provides safeguards from excessive greed as well as ensuring that our most vulnerable communities aren't left behind. And I don't see that at all. And literally, there were several panels that just happened today and they were repetitive. They didn't have a clear, this is where we need to move forward, none of them.

And that's disappointing for me to spend several hours listening to this and still have not something like tangible that we can all work on. And yes, the policies that we are pushing forward and maybe want, all of us have different opinions as well, may be scary. But again, fourth largest economy and we're not piloting. What can we do? How can we reduce our homelessness? How can we ensure that people are housed? How can we ensure that we have better education system for everybody?

And that education system is cradle to grave, even mid career professionals. Single moms, how can we get them on board? So the dignity of workers, it's still not understood as to what are we really going to do. And maybe year by year we focus on one industry, maybe we focus on one arena. It's just housing. And we curb as much as we can in regards to what's going on in degree there, right? So I'm a little frustrated.

I do plan, and I'm not married to any policies that were introduced. I'm not specifically beholden to one particular group or anything like that. I want to have an honest conversation of what can we do together with all the stakeholders that were discussed, with all the stakeholders that have shared their opinion. Okay, not everybody's going to get 100% of what they wanted, but what can we do to work together and move forward?

So that is the part that I want to have that genuine, honest conversation and not just talking points or lip service or keeping the status quo, which I will say year over year, it just seems like that. So that's my two cent.

Okay, it looks like that is the end of our discussion. Thank you, panelists, for your information, and we look forward to our next conversations together. We are going to call up, colleagues, our final panel of the evening, the getting it done. The getting it done panel. Where do we go from here? Please step forward and have a seat at the table.

We are happy to invite Sara Flocks, the Legislative and Strategic Campaigns Director for the California Labor Federation, Chris Hannan, President of the California Building and Construction Trades, Tamina Chowdhury, with the BlueGreen alliance. And I wanted to just make note that Evan Montiel could not join us today from the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Contract Administration. But thank you, everyone, for being here and closing us out on a positive note. We can get this done.

So we will start with Ms. Chowdhury, and then you all can maybe go to the left.

Sounds good, Chair. Can you all hear me clearly through my mask?

Yes. Can you bring that mic a little closer?

Okay. Is this better?

Oh, yeah, it's good.

Okay. Good evening, Madam Chair, Senators. My name is Tamina Chowdhury. I'm the California State Policy Manager for Blue Green Alliance. Blue Green Alliance is a coalition of labor unions and environmental organizations working together to advocate for clean transition, transition to clean economy, without leaving workers and communities behind. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today regarding the critical issue of labor standards in the context of SB 150.

SB 150 represents a significant step forward in ensuring that our state's investments in infrastructure and manufacturing not only create jobs, but high quality, family sustaining jobs through the monumental investment stemming from IRA and Chips Act. To that end, state agencies play a crucial role in uplifting workers and communities by developing programmatic requirements and guidelines to implement these laws in California. Agencies can establish application criteria which require project labor agreement, which- Is it still? Is that better?

Project labor agreement, which speakers in previous panelists have talked about. Agencies can establish application criteria, which also require project labor agreement to ensure that community interests are taken into account in large development or construction projects. By requiring or incentivizing PLAs, agencies can ensure that developers are held accountable for providing the benefits they promise and the community groups have a say in developing these processes. Application criteria requirement can also ensure there's utilization of union affiliated training, registered apprenticeship, and preapprintership programs.

They can also ensure there are safeguards against worker misclassification. In my comments today, I will focus on how state agencies can develop mechanisms to ensure standards are adhered to. Because we all know that it's one thing to apply criteria in application, it's another thing to enforce them. One of the ways this can be done is through monitoring and reporting. Agencies can develop a robust framework for ongoing monitoring and reporting of workforce standards compliance for their funded projects.

This framework could ensure accountability and continuous improvement in labor practices. Some of these mechanisms may include regular compliance audits. They can conduct periodic audits of projects to assess adherence to labor standards. They can set up stakeholder feedback loops, for example, create channels for workers and stakeholders to report concerns and provide feedback on labor practices. They can establish corrective action plans by requiring projects with deficiencies to develop and implement corrective action plans.

They can also establish performance benchmark and set clear labor compliance benchmarks for projects and track progress over time. An example of this is Go/ No Go decision points, which are also included in the Jobs Initiative Quality checklist published by the Department of Labor and Good Jobs and Federal Investment toolkit published by the Department of Energy and Labor. I'll give an example of what I mean by Go and No Go decision points.

For instance, if an agency is to deploy three phase project Go/No Go decision point. In phase one, it would require, for instance, if we take PLA as an example, it would require PLA to ensure that PLA established that covers all aspects of labor management, wages, working condition, dispute resolution, and safety standards for the project. In phase two, implementation of PLA as intended will be ensured so the agency will collect evidence that all contractors and subcontractors are complying with the terms of the PLA.

It could also require the employer to set up monitoring and reporting system, establish a transparent monitoring system to track labor compliance, safety incidents, et cetera. This is a "No Go" if by this time a clear monitoring and evaluation system has not been developed by the employer. If it graduates into phase three, agency can require employer to provide compliance evaluation that is a proof of ongoing adherence to labor agreement and safety standards.

A comparable model in California but not apple to apple is the California Competes Tax Credits which also known as CCTC program, which is administered by the Franchise Tax Board. The CCTC is designed to encourage businesses to either come to California or stay and grow within the state. The program ensures that businesses adhere to their commitment to yearly milestones through a structured process in stages. In stage one is agreement and commitment. Businesses enter into a five year agreement with the CCTC.

As part of this agreement, they commit to meeting specific yearly milestones related to full time employment, that is creating jobs salary levels, that is ensuring competitive compensation project investment, investing in growth. In stage two is claiming the credit. To earn the allocated credit for a given year, businesses must meet the milestones during the taxable year. In stage three is review process by FTB, the Franchise Tax Board reviews taxpayer records to verify compliance with credit agreement. The review focuses on verifying the yearly milestones mentioned earlier.

It is not a tax audit, but accurate records are essential. In stage four is the review outcome. After the review, FTB informs the business whether it is in compliance with the credit agreement. If there is a possible breach, FTB provides information explaining the basis of their determination

Ms. Chowdhury, I'm going to ask you to wrap up. You're at seven minutes.

Yes, I'm on the last point. And stage five is verification areas. The FTB verifies employment and compensation levels, that is, payroll records, higher dates, wages, etc. For and project investment. In conclusion, as many speakers have said this before me, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity for a state to design an inclusive system that is intentional about advancing the welfare of its worker. And I think it has a lot of potential, SB 150, it's really up to us to actually apply those. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Hannan.

Thank you honorable Chair, co-Chair, Committee Members. On behalf of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, I'm excited and honored to be here. To keep my comments brief and also respectful and give time for comments, I'm going to try to keep it pretty simple. The policy that we need from government for construction, we need Project Labor Agreements. Anytime that we have public funds or we're doing the construction by the public agency.

If we're giving things like tax breaks, tax incentives, and there's not a direct public fund, we need to come up with benchmarks and deliverables for training and apprenticeship completion, such as a skilled and trained workforce. And for jobs beyond construction, and we should be concerned about every one of these jobs, whether they be in manufacturing, service, public sector or even out our local grocery store, we need labor peace.

To ensure that communities have an equitable stake, we have to have local, and not just local, but targeted hiring goals. On the building trades agreements, like the LA Metro agreement, for example. That Project Labor Agreement started out as a five year Project Labor Agreement that took a ton of input from the community, from the agency, negotiated with the building trades, back and forth, a ton of engagement. It was a five year agreement.

That agreement has since been renewed for another 10 years because it's working, because we're exceeding all of our local and all of our targeted higher goals. That's an example how we ensure that communities, we have to have goals and we have to be able to meet and exceed those goals. Equity or equality, this has to be through union membership.

One of the stats I heard a previous speaker talking about were individuals of color not receiving the same wages. Latino and black community members having overrepresentation in low wage jobs or in the lower wage jobs. Through union membership, workers have to have a say in that. Workers need union membership. And in our trades, a union journeyperson gets paid the same, regardless of gender, regardless of race, regardless of ethnicity. They get paid the same. A first level apprentice gets paid what a first level of apprentice gets paid.

A second level gets paid what a second level gets paid, regardless of what gender, regardless of who you knew, who you didn't know. But they have to have a union card and it has to be for a career. You can't do it for one job. We can't have a prevailing wage job, and prevailing wage be the prevailing wage and you get it for two weeks, two months or nine months. You have to have that for a career.

And the only way that we're going to ensure that everybody has access to that career is for us to get the word out. It should be in schools. Every local school should talk about it. Community colleges. I heard community colleges mentioned before. It should be in community colleges. It should also be with community-based organizations everywhere where people gather. We have to talk about good jobs. We have to talk about all the options, not just college, not just options for a select few.

It has to be real options for everybody. And it has to be clear. We can't be unclear when we talk about, it has to be from the workers. It has to be through a union. You have to have a union card. You can't talk up. I heard some nonunion employers, all of those workers are important, but when they speak up and they're terminated, they need a union to be able to protect themselves.

And I know that in the State of California, we're fortunate for a lot of things, but there's far too many people that don't have access to far too many things. It's not just a good career and a good wage. It's not just housing. It's not just health care. It's not just any one thing. People in California are lacking access to far too many things, and far too many of those things can be fixed through a union job.

We can't have union jobs if people aren't empowered, if they don't know about them, if they don't know how to get in them. So I'm going to pause my comments. We can talk about different ways to empower people to go after a career in the trades. We can talk about how to unionize in the workplace. But I'm going to stop right here and have time for questions.

Thank you. Madam Chair. Madam coach, can you hear me? Okay, Madam Chair Members, Sarah Flocks, California Labor Federation. And I just want to start by thanking you all for starting this process, for moving SB 150, for having this important conversation, and for all the work you've done the years and decades before this to ensure that public dollars create good union jobs with equitable access. And I'm actually very lucky because I'm the last speaker, so I don't have to break any new ground.

I get to really summarize a lot of the models that are already out there and a lot of the incredible work of groups and unions and the trades that have already happened and are already happening. And these are lessons that we can take and really move forward with so that we are taking advantage of this moment. So, one, we do have models. We have the Arches community benefit agreement. We have the US employment plan, which jobs to move America innovated.

We have the Department of Energy, which has an incredible community benefit plan requirement, 20% of scores for companies that are applying for those funding. And we have power in California. We have billions of dollars.

And we have our role as a market participant in procurement, in federal dollars that are for procurement, but for state dollars, too, for all the electric vehicles we're going to buy, for all the battery charging infrastructure, there should be labor standards on all of the public funding that is going out for creation of jobs. And the other thing is in terms of flexibility. And Senator Cortese had this question about what can we do in the state to put these standards on federal dollars or state dollars.

And Madeline Janice mentioned that this, the Office of Management and Budget is coming out with new rules around the uniform guidance, and this is what is going to open up the ability of the states to put more standards on federal dollars. The legacy has been that the old guidance, this was under the Reagan Administration, it was very restrictive. It didn't allow us to do a lot of things that we would like to do that is going to change as these new rules come out.

So I'm going to go into some of our recommendations for what we would like to see in terms of labor standards. But my first recommendation would be, is that we take some of these tools that have some of these standards, we define them, and we codify them. One of the amazing things that the building trades have done is that they have these tools, prevailing wage project, labor agreements, skilled and trained workforce. These are things that we know and we can see and put on projects.

We need that equivalent for manufacturing operations and service. And I think there's a lot of opportunity to develop that put into statute so we can pick it up and put it to the different funding, the funding that exists and the funding that we're going to see in the future. So I'm just going to go into one tool and kind of walk through how you could use this tool to put standards in it from the Department of Energy. They require community benefit plans. 20% is the score.

And what a company has to do, number one, they have to have specific, measurable, and achievable goals in their objectives so that you can see them and you can score on them and have compliance. The other thing that they do is they require labor and community engagement. Companies have to plan how they're going to engage with labor and community. This has actually, anec.ally, we know, resulted in companies reaching out to labor and community stakeholders because there's that requirement. We've seen this with the ChiPS act.

Funding through California competes. Then you start to have conversations. You start to have community engagement as a project is developing from the beginning. The other thing that you can see in these plans is the workforce standard side of community benefit plans. How are you going to get union jobs? Because there is no replacement for a collective bargaining agreement and legislation is not going to organize workers. But we can create the environment for this to happen.

There could be requirements for project labor agreements, requirements for labor peace, for neutrality, for collective bargaining agreements, or for the commitment for workers to be able to freely and fairly form a union. Quality job standards. What are the metrics that we want to set for? What are the wages? What are the benefit levels? What are the other standards that we want to put in there to ensure that we have retention and advancement and good, secure jobs? And then also workforce equity standards?

What are the specific, measurable, and achievable goals companies are going to set to hire, recruit, and advance workers from marginalized and disadvantaged communities or underrepresented workers, or however we want to define them in the code. And the company has to one show they're going to meet those metrics and maybe they develop a plan that they show that they're going to be partnering with labor and community to achieve those goals and that can be scored on. We can make this so it actually matters.

And then the other thing is Justice 40, the Justice 40 initiative. The Federal Government has said 40% of the benefits of these federally funded projects have to flow to the communities that are most impacted by climate change. How is California going to define that? How are we going to say, yes, Justice 40 should be part of it. And how are you company going to show that that happens? And then also transparency and accountability. And Senator, you've said this over and over.

How are we going to see that these companies are meeting these standards and make sure that there is some kind of enforcement and compliance that needs to be built in? One of the really good ways to do this is to make all of this public, make these community benefit plans available to the public, have pre award disclosure. So if they don't have partnerships with the community, they can find a community partner, hopefully a union, and also make this part of the contract.

So it's not just a plan, it's a plan that is part of the contract for you to get this funding. And then also we need to have support for agencies. Not every agency knows how to do these things. We have to have state support and technical assistance.

And then we also need to show good companies that meet these standards, like the Akash semiconductors that has project labor agreements with both labor in the trades and CWA sparks that has a neutrality agreement with UAW BYD that has had incredible partnerships. How do we make sure that the state is supporting them and directing resources in kind of wraparound services to them so that we can grow good companies and grow industries? During the recession, a lot of people were like, we need to cut red tape.

We need to make it easier for companies to come here. There's too many regulations. No, the regulations are the baseline that make California the fourth largest economy with good environmental standards. Rather than cutting red tape. Let's roll out the red carpet. Let's figure out what are the ways that we can encourage the good companies that meet the highest standards are able to grow and expand, or our incumbent companies? I know Gillig testified at a recent hearing about wanting to expand.

How do we make sure that we're incubating a high road economy, a new and emerging economy that benefits the communities that have been the most left behind and impacted by climate change. So I'll just end there. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'll bring it to our Senators. Do we have any questions or comments? Senator Allen.

Thank you for that information and for the thoughtful recommendations for the state to consider. And it is our benefit to have partnerships to help us think these very complex steps through. I wondered if you could, and maybe this is something all of the panelists, but I'll start with you, Ms. Flocks.

How would you advise we direct Senators, direct agencies to ensure labor and equity standards are in place and enforced? You heard the previous conversation and we still are focusing on, in some ways, on the things we're already doing. How would you advise that we move forward to make sure that we're meeting the moment? And since we've already let out $7 billion without anything, how would you advise us to direct these agencies to meet the moment?

Well, I think you're doing it. The SB 150 process is great. I know a number of Senators have incredible bills that have standards in them. I do think there is something to be said about defining and codifying some of these standards so that they're very clear and apply to specific pots of money. There's something to be said for not having a one size fits all approach, but you have to have standards and you have to have criteria. And I think putting in.

Here's what we need to have on these pots of money. These are the standards that we agree on. This is what is in the statute. We can get you some support to be able and technical assistance to be able to do this, because I do think that that level of expertise and support, whether it's coming from labor agency or wherever, is really important. And then it has to be valued. It has to be scored at a level where labor is equivalent to.

I don't know any other technical part, that it's not just the lowest responsible bidder, but we have things like best value procurement, where the labor standards and equity standards are weighted and taken into account. They are part of contracts. They are something that are enforced on that if there's any kind of clawback or recapture that, it can be on the basis of non compliance with that. And then I think you figure out how you do that. Data submission and transparency.

But transparent processes are the most important, especially if you want to also have some pre award, so that there aren't bad actors or companies where there's problems that haven't been identified, so that there's that opportunity for community input to make sure that the deal is not inked.

Yes. Thank you. I agree with Sara. I think we do need to codify some of these things. We know what best practices are. For example, arches. There was a question by one of the Committee Members earlier. We want to capture as many of these funds coming to us, and we don't want to be uncompetitive. On arches. It tied for the largest award for a hydrogen hub in the country. It tied with Texas for $1.2 billion. Intent to award.

It has a project labor agreement on every single project, regardless of size. Every single project has a PLA with local hire. Also, they also have labor peace. And when we're talking about labor peace, just to be clear, we want neutrality, we want voluntary recognition, and we want a pathway to a contract. We don't want nine years of going back and forth not getting to a contract.

And when we get a contract, we want family sustaining wages, we want health care, quality health care, and we want people to be able to retire in California. And on top of that, 1% of the total budget is going into community benefits. And it's not set what those community benefits are because there's drastically different needs across the state. If you're in a rural area of the state, maybe to the most northern parts, the needs of the tribal communities there are great.

The needs of displaced industries like logging and fishing. There's still fishing, but those are our pressure points. If you go into our metropolitan areas and our urban areas, they have dramatically different needs than our suburban areas. So those community benefits that are part of every project. And remember, as a $1.2 billion award, there's 10 times that amount of money in private funding.

One of the reasons for that is a best practice in the Inflation Reduction act, where if companies take advantage of that tax credit, they get a five times bump to pay Davis bacon or prevailing wages and higher apprenticeship utilizations. You can use project labor agreements to accomplish the payment of those wages and the utilization of apprentices at that level. That's something that we should be codifying.

There was an Executive order for projects that the Federal Government was going to construct of $35 million or more to have a project labor agreement. We should be doing that in California. The UC system knows that works. We partnered together on it. The State of California is a partner in arches. They know that it works. We know that it works. We should codify it, know multiple different areas. We should partner together. We should go after things like manufacturing together.

We should go after things like research and innovation together more often. We should do these things more often. I think it makes us more competitive. So we have the best practices on housing. We have one of the largest housing measures for affordable housing now in the City of Los Angeles that has a project labor agreement for some projects and then has no project labor agreement for smaller projects.

The PLA projects came back cheaper per unit, and we exceeded our local hire goals, our apprenticeship utilization goals, our local apprenticeship goals, and our targeted worker goals. And you can look at the dashboard today. It's updated real time. What those millions upon millions of hours worked in those communities. That's a best practice. Let's look at that across more aspects and we know that a union card and worker involvement and workers having a voice, they're going to tell us what we need.

You can see our sisters and brothers in the UAW and their stand up campaign. They're not shy. When they have a union card, they can stand up. Well, let's make sure that we have union representation in more areas. And I think the best way to do that in manufacturing, when we're trying to make sure that we have businesses here, we need labor peace and allow us to come up with what labor peace is.

And when the workers aren't satisfied that there's labor peace, there's not labor peace. Workers have to have satisfaction in that, and they'll tell us when that comes. So I 100% agree with so many things that have been said, but we have to codify them. This Committee is great.

Maybe the toolkit that comes out of this Committee, maybe a portion of one of our agencies, like where we do those great high road training partnerships, maybe that's an implementation plan for those high road training partnerships that lead to union jobs. So maybe that should be in the toolkit coming out of this Committee for General Services to figure out that, hey, we don't need a phase in on this stuff.

We need to get it going now, because the longer that we wait, the longer those needs and those unmet needs are going to continue to grow. So whether it be General services, whether it be on the high speed rail for procurement, we should have companies that are competing and embracing labor peace, embracing worker voice, and they should be competing. That high speed rail line is going to spur multiple high speed rail lines all throughout California.

And we are already seeing that happen with the brightline, with the coming high desert corridor, and they're getting federal investment and it's making us more competitive. People should embrace that. And maybe a toolkit and a Department on implementation would be helpful.

Thank you.

I'll just add that we should not look at federal requirements. We should not wait on federal requirements to set our standards here in California. Those rules were set for the whole country. So California is already, they are the floor, not the ceiling. And California is already doing better than some of those floor that are spent by the federal standards.

So I think I'll just add to what Sarah and Chris said, that it's very important that we codify some of the items that we talked about, labor peace agreement, community benefit agreement, and also build capacity of the agencies to implement some of these ideas and mechanisms that we talked about today. I think that's a big piece of it.

Thank you very much for your answers. Senator Allen, you had a question.

Yeah, just a quick question. It may be unfair to ask this because it's referring to the comments from Dr. Malhotra, who was the one person who wasn't able to be here. But you referenced sparks as a union shop. And I've talked to some of the folks at UAW about their work. His comments talk about how battery company, we're losing jobs to Michigan, Indiana, Tennessee, Nevada, Washington.

And there's a reference to these states providing resources for setting up pilot manufacturing and infrastructure to establish manufacturing for the battery companies. And the challenge that he refers to are these valleys of death, which seem to be about trying to get past various stages of investment from the private equity stage to then growth equity. Can any of you comment a little bit about these challenges as companies are trying to get off the ground?

And here's someone who's trying to set up shop here and do high road union manufacturing and yet finding real challenge here in California, we have a lot of challenges as it is for a lot of different reasons, higher cost. And you reference sparks. Can you speak to some of the challenges of a company growing, and what is it about these other states that we're missing out on when it comes to the growth of a company like this?

Thank you. I have never run a company, so I can't speak exactly to the challenges. But this goes back to identifying when there is a high road company, a company that's willing to meet certain standards, that is willing to partner with a union like the UAW and have a national neutrality agreement, that would be a company where the state could target resources, because there are resources in every Department.

How do we figure out having one door, one place where we can target some of the resources and figure out where do they need funding? I think with sparks, part of it is that they got some funding for net new job creation, but they can't start hiring people until they're able to purchase the machinery that they need to actually produce batteries.

And so it is a question about can we support these companies that are willing to partner, that have unions, that have community partners and make sure we're addressing the needs that they have? We have billions of dollars. I'm sure a lot of that is already, like the Senator said, going out with labor standards to probably some Low road companies. Can we make sure we pull that back and direct it to companies that are willing to create good union jobs and make sure it's focused?

So partly it's about the state also having an industrial policy that's a little bit bigger than just labor standards. But how are we going to support the growth of a high road union industry in manufacturing? How are we going to rebuild manufacturing and rebuild our middle class?

What do you mean by when you say an industrial policy that goes beyond labor standards, what does that mean to you?

I would say that it would be, how is the state going to support the growth of manufacturing, rebuilding manufacturing in the state, in some of these emerging and clean industries, evs, lithiumion batteries. But how are we going to make sure that we are taking the high road? Because it could go either way, right? Like, just because it's clean energy or climate jobs doesn't mean they're good jobs.

The only reason that they become good jobs is because the guardrails and labor standards are put in and because workers organize and have unions. I mean, that's the history of the auto industry. And so how do we make sure that those guardrails are in place, but also that there is targeted financial support and subsidies and loans and all the other things we're already offering to the companies that we want to see grow and develop?

I would just expand on that a little bit. As we get back to the economy and the scale that, you know, utilizing that a little bit more, business is going to tailor to what the end user needs. And if there's a marketplace here, and I think you've seen some examples of that, Sarah mentioned, ByD, there was a marketplace here, and we can use some of those things we mentioned before, the scoring of community benefits, using those sorts of things.

In procurement, we have, I believe, the largest University system in the world. Here in California, we have one of the largest economies in the world. We have so many advantages. And if we start using our procurement, and I think an example of that was the bus manufacturing in Lancaster, California. Those are union jobs, and they're looking to expand that facility. Now, they've had a little bit of negative from, I think, just people throwing out narratives.

As far as being tied to a Chinese company, it's not a state owned company. Those are local jobs. And if we start doing more of that, whether it be with train manufacturing, whether that be with procurement of a whole host of things, construction materials, making sure that those construction materials are done here in California, we're doing more construction than anywhere else, let's look to do more of those things.

So I think that know, in addition to some of those things, to create a marketplace, the marketplace for those federal tax credits for the production of hydrogen when they're done this way you can get these benefits. So using procurement or to drive the marketplace, I think that would help also.

Yeah, I'll just second, Chris, there. There's already incentives built within the state funding streams for companies to hire diverse workers for training. Community benefit agreements, plas, it's really up to the state to codify it or to include them as they're dispersing this money. To put it in the most simplest term, there's already provisions within federal Fund Bill, ire and chips for that to happen.

So if sparks included a community score, if they were allowed to compete on a contract with a community score, with their collective bargaining agreement with the UAW, they should be able advantage to compete on good principles. Principles in providing things like healthcare, wages, training and things like that. Whatever they have within their collective barrier agreement.

When that can be considered in a score, and the Federal Government's doing that right now on many of the grant programs through the Infrastructure act, where you're allowed to score that community, it doesn't have to mean labor, but when things like labor can be taken into consideration, it's a whole lot easier for workers to get a voice, and it's a whole lot easier when the workers have that input into their contract that we have workers getting what they need and equity there.

I'm sorry, when you say score a community, you're not referring to scoring the bid, right? Or am I not understanding the.

Yeah, we're purchasing a huge amount and many of them are private purchases. But going into the greater, whether it be the grid, a whole host of different things in California, in the Infrastructure Act, a portion of the grant. So some of it goes out through a formula. So population, counties or states of this size get x amount for roads and bridges. Others go out through a grant program, and within the grant programs, they actually have.

Scoring on your community engagement doesn't have to be labor, but things like labor and apprenticeships and local hire, community programs, education programs, those things can be taken into consideration. Okay, so when we're procuring power for our grid and we're battery storage or we're solar panels, and we're ultimately going to be procuring the power, and much of that is through investor owned utilities, regulations.

To be able to set guidelines and scores of that nature and allow people to compete on those things would allow us for good players like sparks to do good in this area.

Thank you very much for that response. I don't see any additional comments.

Just for me to understand this community scoring mechanism, just for me to know, because I'm not up to speed. That's under the Ira or the IIJA or both or chips. Okay.

Infrastructure Investment act. In other acts, there are bonuses for doing things like paying a prevailing wage or utilizing apprentices above a certain threshold. I don't have every single guideline in front of me, but within the grant programs. Grant programs from the Federal Government are considering community engagement.

Got you.

And it's not an insignificant amount of the score either.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you for clarifying and for that really important information and detail. And I really appreciated the point about investing in companies. We need strong companies, but that are reflecting the values of California and not perpetuating some of our economic crises that we are trying to dig our way out of homelessness and underemployment. So I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, panelists, for that. We are going to turn my mic back on. We're going to move now into public comment. And we thank you.

Thank you for your patience, for the extra coffee you must have had earlier today to get you to a 740 in this hearing.

Madam Chair, can I just. I don't know if it's where it's appropriate and who it would be appropriate to do this from, but we hear examples, anecdotally, of, this is the way it was done here, this is the way we did there. I was involved with the BYD and Kinky Sharu. I mean, there's lots, and I don't know if through our Committee or through others we can get stories like that. So it's not just a one off, because I think what Senator Allen was asking are the kinds of questions everybody will be asking, like, how does this work? And anyway, just something they needed that Committee.

Absolutely. And maybe we can talk a little bit more, and particularly with our departments that are collecting this information to ensure that we actually are documenting all of the examples. But certainly from today's hearing, we'll be sure to get that information collected. Thank you for that. Senator Durazo, please step to the mic. We'd love to hear, we'd love for you to share your information. We want to keep it to 1 minute just to respect the rest of our time. And please state your name and your comment.

Thank you. Okay, 1 minute. Not a whole lot. So, Michelle Rubalcava. I'm at Nielsen Merksamer Parrinello Gross and Leone. And I represent the Associated builders and contractors of California. And I think what we would like to see is we'd like to have a seat at the table. We have been systemically excluded from a lot of these conversations, I think it's mostly because we're merit shops, and some people think that that is not equivalent to California standards.

The reality is that our employers pay prevailing wage. They participate in all of the other things besides being non union. That is the only, if you want to call it a negative of our employers. But other than that, they are great employers. We have great workers. We have state approved apprenticeships, and those apprentices are systemically excluded from these programs. You can just look at the CBA for the high speed rail. It defines an apprentice as only a union apprentice.

You're excluding hundreds, well, tens of thousands of apprentices. So if we could have seated at the table, as a Latina, as a woman, I know it's hard to get, but I'd like my client to have it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. I am Kadarius. I'm also representing ABC Norcal. I am a in a part of the communities that are kind of excluded from the work that you guys are talking about. And if there's any type of language that is kind of, how would I say, excluding Non Union apprentices, it would greatly impact my quality of life and just kind of like my working relationship with the companies I work with in the apprenticeship. So it's kind of limiting what I can and cannot do by being non union. So thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Matthew Estipona. I'm with the associated Builders and contractors, Northern California chapter. We represent 460 Members who are small business owners, and we upskill more than 300 apprentices annually in the trades. Our main concern, as echoed by our apprentice who's currently in our program, is that the funding the projects coming out of SB 150 would unfairly exclude our apprentices who come from the unilateral apprenticeship Committee programs. We've seen this at the local level.

We've seen it when implementation with the high speed rail. All we're simply asking is one change. Is that all state and federally approved apprenticeship programs be allowed to work on public projects? We'd love to reach out and to explain our position further, but thank you for the time.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Lisa Countryman Kiros. I'm the CEO of Jewish Vocational Service in San Francisco. We serve the whole Bay Area as well as the Inland Empire. I want to thank you all so much for your work on this Bill. I think it comes at a really. Of course, everyone's mentioned. It comes at an incredibly critical time, something that we haven't mentioned. In addition to a just transition, we also have massive technological change coming.

And so it really can't be overstated how important this moment is to seize and ensure that we create great jobs for all Californians. That is the work that JVS does. And I just want to kind of zoom in on the folks that we work with and help get to over $100,000 a year. It is a deep investment in their education, training, progress and support. And, sorry.

Throughout this whole process, as you're thinking about, we've talked about sort of bureaucratic language and really making a change and doing something really different. It's so important to remember all the people that we are serving, all the folks that we are helping to get into great middle class jobs and the kinds of supports and partnerships that are needed to get there. So I want to thank you for your work and center the folks that we're serving.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Chairs and Members of the Committee, Roman Vogelsang with the praying company on behalf of the California Workforce Association. The California Workforce Association is the Association that works with the 45 local workforce development boards in California. Unfortunately, we had a Member of CWA as well as a Member of the Contra Costa Workforce Development Board and Member of the South Bay Workforce Investment Board here to testify, but they had to catch their flights back down to Southern California, so they were unable to do so.

But regardless, we thank you for the opportunity to have this robust discussion, and I'll make sure that you all have their comments submitted in writing to your offices. So thank you so much for the time.

Thank you so much. It looks like that was our last public comment. So having heard all of the public testimony, Members, are there any additional questions or comments that you would like to bring forward before we conclude? Senator Wahab, thank you.

I really appreciate the public comments. I am in agreement very specifically that we need to take a look at all workers, whether they are represented by a labor group or not. The effort, for me, my genuine opinion, is to make sure that we are listening to our business community, our unions, labor as a whole, the workforce, and trying to make sure that everybody has dignity, justice and fairness in the things that we are trying to move forward.

I will say that I am very much committed to this effort. I know that the Senators here and in the caucus have been working really hard on this for a very long time. As a new chair, we will definitely get acclimated to some of the discussions that have been taking place and working with the Administration very directly and very specifically on making sure that we kind of move California forward.

So I really appreciate my co chair and the Senators that have stayed for some time, as well as both Committee staff. I know you guys have to put a lot together for us. So again, appreciate and appreciate the panelists. Thank you.

And thank you, co chair, for those comments. And I echoed the same. And I'm so glad that we have been able to co chair this first important hearing together. I just want to say I want to appreciate everyone for hanging in with us and for our panelists for sharing your knowledge and expertise with us. Our goal is to look beyond SB 150 and to develop labor standards that can be applied to all of our future projects.

We want to ensure that this investment is also a multiplier, that calls in our communities that are most impacted and need community opportunity and resilient jobs and careers the most. I look forward to collaborating with all of the stakeholders who shared information and those who spoke and certainly my great Senate colleagues. We can do this. We can do this together, and we can do this now.

Today's hearing is not the end, but it really is a doubling down on our commitment to see this work through this year. And as long as there's some money coming in to build this climate resiliency, we will make sure that California is leading the way. So thank you all for your participation and have a good evening.