Assembly Standing Committee on Labor and Employment

Welcome to the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee hearing. We're going to start this afternoon as a Subcommitee. Just a few announcements. For each Bill, we will take two main witnesses in support and two main witnesses in opposition. Each primary witness will get up to two minutes each for additional public comment.

We ask that you just state your name, affiliation, and position on the Bill. We have one item on consent today, item SB 1162. Cortese. I also would like to welcome Assemblymember Lowenthal, who is replacing Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo for today's hearing only. Okay, we have one author here. Thank you, Senator Portantino.

Portantino. We'll go ahead and get started with Item Number Four: SB 1100.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. I appreciate the opportunity to present SB 1100, which will make it unlawful for employment practices for an employer to include a statement in employment materials that an applicant must have a driver's license unless the employer reasonably expects the duties of the position to require driving, which makes sense if you're applying for a job and you don't need to drive for your job, why should you be required to have a driver's license? And that's the crux of the bill.

We want to make sure that people have an easy path to employment, and we want to make sure that those employment opportunities are sort of commensurate with what the documents you need to be fulfilled to get those jobs. So with me today, I have Kirsten Bladh, representing Streets for All, which is our sponsor of the bill, and she'll share a few good words.

Good afternoon. My name is Kirsten Bladh. I'm the Associate Director of Streets for All, the proud sponsor of SB 1100. In most cases, possessing a driver's license is not directly related to an individual's ability to perform their job duties effectively, and focusing on this aspect of a candidate's personal life is irrelevant to their qualifications and capabilities.

Discriminating against individuals without driver's licenses disproportionately affects people with disabilities, people of color, and people with low incomes. Such discrimination perpetuates existing inequalities and further disadvantages these groups in the job market. Further, it perpetuates car dependency, as people think that they have to own a vehicle in order to get employment.

So prohibiting discrimination based on possession of a driver's license will encourage employers to focus on relevant job qualifications and skills when making hiring decisions. It promotes inclusive hiring practices that consider a larger, more diverse pool of candidates and values individuals for their abilities rather than arbitrary criteria unrelated to job performance. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any additional witnesses in support? Seeing none, do we have any witnesses in opposition? Seeing none, any questions from the members? No? Senator, would you like to close?

Seems like this makes sense, and respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. We will establish a quorum and then we can take a vote. Secretary, can we please establish the quorum?

[Roll Call].

We have a motion and a second. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is: do pass to Judiciary Committee. [Roll Call]. That measure is out.

That measure is out. We will leave the row open for absent Members. Thank you. Senator Caballero. We will move to item number seven, SB 1303. Senator Caballero, would you like to open.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to present SB 1303, an important bill to help increase the accountability on public works project. I'd like to thank the Chair and the Committee for their work and explain that the.

I know that you all know that the labor code governing local government public works projects mandates that all workers receive prevailing wage. Public agencies must ensure compliance with these laws, but increasingly, this enforcement is delegated to private, for profit, third party compliance companies.

If the compliance companies find evidence of the violation, they can take punitive action against the contractors or subcontractors by withholding payment without due process. The compliance companies function with minimal and inconsistent processes despite receiving public dollars to do their work. Additionally, the lack of rules regarding conflicts of interest and prior affiliations with contractors can compromise enforcement integrity.

SB 1303 will require third party compliance companies to disclose any conflicts of interest that they might have to the division of labor standards enforcement and to the awarding agencies, which would be the local governments. And this will prohibit third party compliance companies from receiving contracts if conflicts of interest exist.

Sometimes it's just the perception of a conflict of interest that establishes the challenge. The bill will establish a structured process for third party compliance companies to follow if they believe a violation has occurred, ensuring fairness and transparency in the enforcement process.

And obviously, the reason we want a process in place is it's the workers that don't get paid when the contractors don't receive their money. Finally, the bill mandates that awarding agencies and third party compliance companies seek resolution of disputed labor law violations by conferring with the contractors before withholding funds and stalling projects.

With me today to testify and support is Elmer Lizardi from the California Labor Federation and Matthew Kremens from the California Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Chair Ortega, Members of the Committee. Elmer Lizardi here on behalf of the California Labor Federation. The California Labor Federation supports efforts to ensure that we are enforcing California's labor laws on every work site, especially on public works projects where private companies are receiving public dollars to do this work.

SB 1303 will help achieve this goal by increasing accountability of for profit labor compliance entities that oversee certain public works projects. Under existing law, as stated, public agencies that awards Fund for public works projects are tasked with ensuring that parties comply with labor standards.

But recently, we've seen an increase in these agencies contracting out this incredibly important work to for profit, third party companies. Unfortunately, as we've seen, these for profit companies operate with little to no state regulation, and this hurts contractors, the state and the construction workers who depend on the public works projects for their livelihoods.

For example, we've seen a major gap in current law that these for profit compliance groups can oversee projects even if you have these problematic conflicts of interest as the Senator stated.

SB 1303 brings much needed accountability over these private compliance groups by prohibiting them from providing enforcement work if they have a conflict of interest, and then requiring them to fully disclose potential conflicts of interest to awarding bodies.

With these simple fixes, the bill will help ensure that the companies and the public agencies that contract work to them are fully accountable to effectively enforce labor laws and protect public dollars and workers in California. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam Chairman of Members. Matt Kremen's here on behalf of the California Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers. We are the proud sponsors of SB 1303, which would provide some needed clarity in situations in which an awarding body chooses to contract out labor compliance monitoring services.

Existing law requires that awarding bodies take cognizance in ensuring that the laws are being properly followed on their public works project. An existing law additionally provides awarding agencies a tool whereby they can withhold funds from contractors in situations in which the law is not being properly followed.

However, Joint Labor-Management Committees have noted increasing instances of awarding agencies turning over this responsibility to private third parties, who then have the powerful tool of being able to take funds away from contractors on public works projects.

In many instances, it has been found that some of these for profit groups have inherent conflicts of interest and that they do work for the awarding agency, and they also do contract work or contract work for the contractors who bid on the awarding agency.

So this bill simply is seeking to establish some statutory guidelines for the use of these groups. I know we have a motion, so I will amend my testimony. Respectfully request your aye vote. Thank you.

Appreciate that. Do we have additional comments in support?

Madam Chair and Members. Mike West, on behalf of the State Building and Construction Trades Council in support.

Good afternoon. Chair and Members Martin Vindiola, on behalf of the California State Association of Electrical Workers, the California State Pipe Trades Council, and the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers, in support.

Thank you. Vince Sugrue, on behalf of Sheet Metal Workers, Local 104 in strong support.

Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. Rob Carrion with the Operating Engineers, local unit number three, and we're in support.

Good morning. Michael Mark with San Joaquin County Building Trades on behalf of our 10,000 members, we are in strong support.

Good afternoon. Richard Marcuson for the Western Electrical Contractors Association, in support.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Todd Bloomstine for the Southern California Contractors Association in support as well. Thank you.

Do we have any main witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Are there additional witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. We have a motion and a second. Secretary, would you. I'm sorry. Members, do you have any other comments or questions? Senator, would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for your aye vote today. Thank you.

Secretary, please call the roll.

Motion is do pass to Judiciary Committee. [Roll Call]

That measure is out. We will leave the roll open in for absent members.

Thank you very much.

While we are waiting for additional authors, if I can take a--get a motion and a second on our consent calendar? Secretary, please call the roll.

SB 1162: the motion is: do pass consent to Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee. [Roll Call].

Consent calendar adopted.

I guess we're talking just this year.

Welcome. We have--I see we have additional authors in the room. Senator Wahab, whenever you're ready, we can go ahead and start with Item Number One: SB 984.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Done. All right. Colleagues and members of the public, SB 984 requires the California State University and the California courts to identify three major construction projects to be governed by a PLA.

Project labor agreements provide proper compensation, benefits, and opportunity to hardworking Californians, including women, veterans, BIPOC, and justice-involved individuals in our construction workforce. Beginning in 2029, SB 984 will also require the Department of General Services to report progress of community benefit goals, apprenticeships, and project labor agreements on their projects.

SB 984 ensures that the state's investment in public infrastructure are protected from costly delays and promote high-quality jobs. I do also want to identify that these are taxpayer dollars. They deserve to go to individuals that are working, that genuinely deserve it, and have a higher skill set than most individuals.

And I really want to highlight that when we talk about California made, we are trying to also employ Californians and pay them fairly, and I really do support this bill and I've been pushing it for a while. A lot of the stakeholders have been in conversation to have a bigger impact and also just the mere fact that we're involving so many other folks that would not be able to get a middle-class income without projects like these and without labor. So with me is Keith Dunn, the State Building and Constructions Trades Council.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to thank our author for moving this bill forward. She does such a great job describing what it does. I just want to highlight a couple items that may come up in further discussion. One is that individuals that may not be yet a member of a union do have an opportunity to vest in pensions just like you do in a private sector. You have to put in the time to vest in a program in a private sector job. Union job--it's the same.

So there are opportunities for individuals that may not yet have decided to join a union or may never join a union. They do have that same opportunity. I would also point out that any contractor can participate in a project labor agreement. It's not exclusive. It does provide opportunities for a lot of the policy and I would say values of California to bring people up.

And as Senator Wahab pointed out, this is something that is done with taxpayer dollars that really is a reinvestment in our communities and provides opportunities for individuals who can then move on to other jobs and have a middle-class lifestyle and hopefully maintain that for their careers and a nice life here in California. So with that, I'll be quiet and ask for your support.

Thank you. Do we have any additional witnesses in support?

Vince Sugrue, on behalf of Sheet Metal Workers, Local 104, in strong support.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Martin Vindiola, on behalf of the California State Association of Electrical Workers, the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers, and the California State Pipe Trades Council, in support.

Franki Gracey, on behalf of the BlueGreen Alliance, in support.

Elmer Lizardi, on behalf of the California Labor Federation, in support.

Matt Cremins, Operating Engineers, in support.

Mitchell Bechtel, District Council of Ironworkers, in support.

Madam Chair and Members, Louis Costa, SMART Transportation, State Legislative Board, in support.

Madam Chair and Members, Brett Barrow, with the California Legislative Conference of Plumbing, Heating, and Piping Industry and the National Electrical Contractors Association, in support.

Hi, there. Michael Mark, San Joaquin County Building Trades. We support this.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Todd Bloomstine for the Southern California Contractors Association. I have an in-between position. We have an opposed unless amended position. Of course, a PLA covers labor conditions that an employer has to follow. Our employers--my client is 100 percent union.

So when a union contractor signs a PLA agreement, their own negotiated agreement takes second place, a back seat to the PLA. We'd simply like to make sure that the Legislature preserves the sanctity of a negotiated contract, our contracts, and that the bill has an amendment that exempts union contractors that win PLAs. We have language prepared. Would be happy to talk with the author. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any witnesses in opposition?

Cut their mics. Cut their mics.

Welcome. You have two minutes each.

Very good. Good afternoon, Members--sorry--Madam Chair and Members of the Committee and our Esteemed Senator. My name is Felipe Fuentes, and I'm here on behalf of the Associated General Contractors of California. AGC is the only statewide association in the state with almost 1,000 members representing union and non-union contractors who are building California's infrastructure.

Our contractors build heavy civil construction projects like highways and roads, vertical construction, be it commercial or residential, and utility scale projects like water treatment plants. I'm here in opposition to SB 984, which would mandate project labor agreements on specified state-specific works, public works, for one real reason.

While the measure has been slimmed down to a pilot program for a handful of construction projects, it still sets a bad precedent. And that's because, like my colleague Mr. Bloomstine mentioned a second ago, a PLA mandate would pick winners and losers. And let me explain that for a second.

Mandating PLAs undercuts the existing master labor agreements AGC has with its union labor partners. Irrespective of the project, AGC collectively bargains every three years with the laborers, operating engineers, cement masons, teamsters, ironworkers, and carpenters.

Because project labor agreements will typically supersede any already negotiated master labor agreement, legislation like this makes it such that contractors must set aside the relationships that they have already established and renegotiate with other labor unions, depending on what was negotiated with the state and the state building trades if they want to bid on those projects.

If passed, this pilot program would have general contractors wait into new jurisdictional disputes, such that this policy puts contractors in a position to have to pick over their existing relationships and new labor. We do not have any quarrel with the aspects and aims of the legislation and have tremendous respect for the author, but unfortunately, we're asking you to oppose this measure.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Michelle Rubalcava. I'm with Nielsen Merksamer, and here on behalf of my client, the Associated Builders and Contractors of California, and I do want to thank the author. She has sat down with us. We have had conversations about our opposition.

We are primarily opposed because even though project labor agreements are not exclusive and opportunities are given to all contractors, they do discourage certain contractors from bidding. And one of the reasons why the member companies for my client don't bid is because within the provisions of a project labor agreement, you will find certain qualifications or requirements.

One of those is a core worker requirement. So you have to--if one of my member companies were to bid, they're non-union. They get only a certain number of their employees that get to work on the contract, and then after that number, they have to pull from the union hiring hall. That causes some tensions between the contractors. It's if I were to ask one of you to like, let's hire somebody else's ledge director to be your ledge director, right? You have kind of a symbiotic, collaborative relationship with your internal staff.

You put contractors in a situation where they have to basically tell their employees, I can't use you on this project because I'm only limited to two or three, and after that, I have to start pulling from the hiring hall. So it does create disincentives for some members to bid on a project labor agreement.

We are not opposed to prevailing wage. We believe in safety. We have statewide apprenticeship programs which, when our apprentices graduate, they are skilled and trained in the State of California. They are not--their education is not deficient. It's not less than.

There has been situations where I've been told, like, well, it's like having Kim Kardashian be your attorney between a union and a non-union worker. The reality is it's like a USC or UCLA. They are equal. They are both qualified. So they should be able to bid. And that's why we'd ask for you to oppose the bill.

Thank you. Senator, I'm not sure if you wanted to--

I appreciate that. All their partners that they have listed actually are in broad support of this. So we have built a coalition. We have addressed a lot of concerns. I have met with opposition multiple times. My staff has met with them.

I do believe that this is, you know, to his point, a pilot that we should start, because if we are the fifth largest economy in the world, we deserve to pay people appropriately, we deserve to build a workforce that is fully trained, and building our infrastructure, government infrastructure, with tax dollars. So I respectfully ask for an aye.

Do we have any witnesses, additional witnesses in opposition?

Ashley Hoffman, the California Chamber of Commerce, in opposition for the comments made by AGC. Thank you.

Richard Markuson, for the Western Electrical Contractors Association, the Plumbing Heating Cooling Contractors of California, the California Chapters of the American Fire Sprinkler Association, and the Independent Roofing Contractors of California, all in strong opposition.

Matthew Estipona with the Associated Builders and Contractors of Northern California Chapter. We respectfully oppose.

With the Associated Builders and Contractors of California Northern Chapter in opposition.

Thank you. I will now turn it over to the Members. If there's any questions, comments? We already have a. Appreciate that. Thank you. We already have a motion in a second, if no other comments. Secretary, would you like to call the roll? Oh, I'm sorry, Senator, would you like to close?

I appreciate your leadership, Chair, and respectfully ask for an aye vote.

And this Bill does have a recommended aye vote and appreciate you bringing this forward. I must say I was not expecting a Kim Kardashian reference this afternoon, but I appreciate it. Okay, secretary.

Motion is do pass to governmental organization Committee. [Roll Call] Measure is out.

Measure is out. Thank you. Next we have Item number 2. Senator Wahab, SB 1321.

Hi. It's great to see you.

I'm just going to do this because we're East Bay. All right, we go back. Sorry. I worked with him since the East Bay times. Right. So Chair, colleagues, and members of the public, SB 1321 will ensure training opportunities funded through the employment training panel, provide high-quality training opportunities for workers.

Manufacturing, construction, clean energy and other industries need trained workers to build the economy of tomorrow. ETP funds projects that create high-wage, high-skill career pipelines for workers in these industries. This Bill promotes a healthy labor market and helps businesses increase their competitiveness to secure federal, private sector and other non-state funds.

As we face a significant budget deficit, it is essential to ensure we maximize the benefits created with our ETP funding. SB 1321 ensures ETP is investing in quality training programs and prioritizing recruitment of disadvantaged workers.

Specifically, I would also like to highlight that one of the cities in my district is home to the most manufacturers in the State of California with over 900 manufacturers. When we talk about building the workforce and ensuring that every single Californian is able to get a job, they need the skillset to do so.

And this is the way forward. I would like to introduce my witnesses, Vince Sugrue from Sheet Metal Workers Union Local 104, and Elmer Lizardi, California Labor Federation.

Thank you so much, Chair and Members. Again, Elmer Lizardi with the California Labor Federation. The Federal Government is making historic investments in infrastructure and climate projects, as the Senator mentioned, bringing billions of dollars worth of projects to the state. But to make those projects a reality, California needs a highly skilled workforce trained in appropriate crafts in every region.

SB 1321 helps accomplish these goals by updating labor standards on employment training panel funds to prioritize the highest quality training programs and increase in accountability and transparency in the ETP application and awards process. Current ETP requirements need updating to ensure that the training programs result in high-wage, high-skill jobs.

By prioritizing the highest quality training programs like DAS-approved apprenticeships, we can ensure that they will. ETP can also avoid wasting scarce public resources by funding training that does not duplicate existing projects. And like Senator Wahab mentioned, this is especially critical during tough budget cycles when we are trying to maximize every public dollar.

Finally, transparency obviously is a key element of our public agencies, and the public should be allowed the adequate time to provide meaningful input to the panel whenever funds are being awarded. So all in all, SB 1321 will increase transparency, accountability and public engagement while helping the state pave a way to the middle class for workers everywhere.

This Bill will help ATP meet its intended goals of funding training for secure high-wage, high-skill jobs and developing career paths in key industries in California. Thank you so much and I ask for your aye vote when the time comes.

Thank you so much, honorable Members of the Assembly Labor Committee. My name is Vince Sugrue and I represent 10,000 hardworking members and their families for Sheet Metal Workers Local 104 in Northern California. We are here in strong support of the Bill and want to thank Senator Wahab for bringing this forward this afternoon.

This Bill is about maximizing the taxpayer funding that we see in ETP programs and prioritizing the high-road programs that we see come through ETP and encouraging further high-road employer participation. We are seeking to correct current issues that we see currently to increase transparency, and I'll give a few different examples of what this Bill does.

So, the first, we have an issue right now where we cannot currently, when we look at an application, we don't know what employers are paying when it comes to healthcare and retirement benefits. SB 1321 will fix that and we'll show transparency in that.

The second piece, there are contractors who have received civil wage and penalty assessments and have violated the California law, who have applied for ETP funding and have received funding. This will make sure that if there's a penalty that's been unabated, that at that time, they will not be able to apply for an application.

The third piece is, in addition to veteran hiring and what employers are doing to outreach to veterans, which is incredibly important. We want to make sure to include marginalized and underrepresented communities to meet equity goals.

And then fourth, it's very important right now, there is a seven day window of when the public sees who the applicants are coming forward, which is very little turnaround time to actually assess an application. Other agencies have 30 days. This would match the other agencies at a 30 day period.

So these are just some of the examples of the guardrails that we think are incredibly important, especially in this tough fiscal year. So we ask for your support. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Do we have additional witnesses in support?

Thank you, Madam Chair, Members and staff. Mitch Steiger with CFT, a union of educators and classified professionals, urge your support.

Franki Gracey with the BlueGreen Alliance in support.

Good afternoon. Matt Kremens, Operating Engineers in support.

Fatima Iqbal-Zubair with California Environmental Voters in support. This is one of our top priority bills. Thank you.

Madam Chair and Members. Mike West, on behalf of the State Building Trades in support.

Madam Chair Members. Louie Costa with Smart Transportation State Legislative Board in support.

Mitchell Bechtel, District Council of Iron Workers in support.

Good afternoon. Michael Mark with the San Joaquin County Building Trades, 10,000 members in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Mark Macdonald with UpSkill California, a community college workforce training collaborative. We actually don't have a position. We have some concerns with how the Bill would impact community college programs. We've submitted a letter to the author and the Committee and look forward to working as we move forward.

Thank you. Do we have any main witnesses in opposition?

Madam Chair and Members, Chris Bollinger, on behalf of the Sacramento Asian Chamber of Commerce as well as the California Asian Chamber of Commerce, have tremendous respect for the author. Unfortunately, here in position today. We feel very strongly that the employment training panel is the preeminent workforce development program in the State of California.

We think that it's functioning as is. And the reason it's functioning is it brings together three important legs of the stool. Those legs are government, labor and business. Unfortunately, this Bill upends the program. It removes one of those legs of the stool.

And in removing business, you're removing the leg that actually funds the program through the Employment Training Tax. Every company in the State of California that pays W-2 wages pays into the employment training tax.

And while this Bill does not prohibit companies from applying to ETP, what it does is it gives preferential treatment, to labor, to apprenticeships, such that when you have a finite amount of resources and an oversubscribed program, there will be no funds left to administer. And the end result is companies will be left out in the cold.

So if you are a fan of aerospace or a fan of life sciences, or a fan of manufacturing, we're asking for a no vote today. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Senator Wahab, Members of the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee. My name is Philip Herrera. I am the Managing Partner at Herrera & Company. We specialize in securing ETP funding and other GO-Biz incentives for employers in California's life science and semiconductor industries.

Since my early days as an EDD tax auditor and an ETP analyst in Silicon Valley, and through the founding of my firm in the early nineties, I have been deeply involved with ETP. I'm here today express my opposition to Senate Bill 1321, which would narrow the criteria for ETP by severely limiting awards to advanced manufacturers.

Before I go on, I want to state that I admire Senator Wahab's dedication to underserved communities, her compassionate for the homeless, and her commitment to directing California monies only to training programs to create good, high-paying jobs.

But while the intent of the Senator's Bill is to fix ETP's flawed application approval process, I urge you to consider its broader consequences. Currently, ETP designates 25% of its annual budget of approximately $100 million for apprenticeships and joint apprenticeship training council training contracts, JATCs.

This allocation is proved effective as apprenticeship and JATC contracts have a successful track record with ETP. Nonetheless, SB 1321 would essentially increase their allocation from 25% to over 90% of available ETP funding, effectively shutting down applications for manufacturers, community colleges, technical schools, and small businesses.

The strength of ETP since its inception over 40 years ago lies in its model of labor business government partnership that rewards job training, results in higher skills and better pay for workers. Please do not weaken this model of cooperation.

Instead, let's work together on amendments to the Bill that preserves the mission of ETP while repairing the agency's application approval process. Thank you.

Senator Wahab.

Thank you. Just to address a couple of things. Number one, my office and I are always working with opposition, regardless of which type of Bill, regardless of where we stand on any discussion, number one. Number two is the fact that this does not exclude businesses.

As an Asian Member myself, I work with a lot of Asian business owners that definitely want to be able to recruit top talent, and that is a priority. Number two is the fact that life sciences are largely in South San Francisco and in my district in the State of California, and we work very well with them.

We also want to be able to expand them in my district, which is in the center of the Bay Area. And at the same time, the only type of exclusion that takes place is if a business has violated current efforts and so forth and has been found to violate that.

We are also working with language to address any other concerns regarding community colleges and much more.

Thank you. Do we have any additional witnesses in opposition.

Good afternoon, Michelle Rubalcava on behalf of Associate Builders and Contractors, in opposition.

Dean Grafilo with Capital Advocacy here on behalf of California Life Sciences, in opposition to 1321. Thank you.

Madam Chair. Chris Micheli on behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, respectful opposition.

Lawrence Gayden on behalf of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, opposing as a manufacturing breaker and also opposing on behalf of the Cal Chain. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no other witnesses, I will turn it over to the Members for questions. Yes.

Maybe the Senator can address it or the opposition. I do have a large life science company in my district, and, you know, as part of the award, the ETPs, I'm just concerned that if companies move into a district and have this as part of, like, a larger economic development plan, right? To continue to allow them to grow in regions like mine. Will this Bill hurt that?

No, that's not the goal of this Bill.

I understand it's not the goal. Would opposition like to address that?

Sure. The Bill would hurt it in the following ways. So the company, biotech company in your district really used all the GO-Biz incentives to make that decision to grow in Lodi rather than China or India. One of those incentives was ETP. So ETP does act as an economic development tool for the Governor. And it is.

I mean, at the end of the day, the chief beneficiary of ETP funding is the worker. But that's one element that I'm concerned about. If we narrow the scope of who can actually participate in terms of enrollees in the program, it will definitely reduce the amount of the award for life science applicants. Thank you very much.

Any other questions or comments? Seeing none. Senator, would you like to close?

Before I close, I'd like for one of my main witnesses to address some of the concerns that the Assemblymember had.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Assemblymember, for bringing that up. I think it's important because historically with ETP, what we've seen is there are priorities and some priorities around manufacturing, they're around business or programs being developed with both labor and management. These are just priorities, these exist in current law now. What we're trying to do is add additional transparency measures that increase high-road employers being the ones that are the focus of the prioritization. Life science can oftentimes fall into this category. In the opposite, we see a lot of negligent employers receiving taxpayer money right now as a result, and have had opposition even acknowledge that. So that's what this is about. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it. I just want to highlight a number of things. Number one, again, I stated California is one of the largest economies in the world. And when we compete, especially in life sciences, manufacturing, and much more, we're talking about future businesses, 21st century models, which I fully support.

I'm very supportive of technology and much more, but we also have to compete internationally. Right? We have been struggling in some ways to recruit talented and skilled workforce in these new 21st century technologies and industries, in particular, including in my district.

And this Bill prioritizes making sure that we promote the worker, train the worker, and keep the worker, and that's what this program is about. So I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is due pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call].

The measure is out. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Senator Wiener. Thank you, Senator Wiener. Appreciate that. Senator Smallwood-Cuevas. We will, whenever you're ready, we will start with the first of your three bills. Item number 8, SB 1089.

1340. Now, we're having second thoughts, but these are fairly short. 1340.

Thank you so much.

You're gonna start with 1340?

Is that fine?

Yeah. So, item number nine, SB 1340.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you, Assemblymembers, for making space for me.

I am thrilled to present SB 1340, which is really a cleanup Bill representing a lot of our work last year, where the state Legislature and the Governor signed SB 150, which guides the state's use of incoming federal funding to build our green infrastructure, while ensuring that we do this with fair living wages and equitable community benefits.

This includes the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs act, the IJA, the Inflation Reduction act, the Chips and Science Act for Workforce development, all of this ensuring that jobs created by these dollars are good and that all Californians have access to them.

According to the governor's press release, SB 150 was signed to ensure that an estimated amount of about $180 billion would be coming through the state, through these various streams of revenue, creating tens of thousands of jobs across our state.

President Biden's guidelines call for California to be competitive, and to be competitive means that we follow the President's standards for a gender and racial equity set asides. That ensures that we are attracting and bringing underrepresented populations into these future careers.

In a year where we face a tremendous budget deficit, it is critical that we ensure that these incoming dollars are multipliers, that they create good jobs with real labor standards, and that we maximize the opportunity for underrepresented populations to work on them.

And more importantly, we, as legislators, want to make sure we have some receipts right when we have these investments. We want them to be multipliers. We want to be able to measure that our dollars really did uplift the communities that we care about the most.

And SB 1340 authorizes the Civil Rights Department to partner with local agencies to investigate and enforce cases of employment discrimination.

It also ensures that the high volume of complaints that are coming into our Department, which has caused a backlog for a Department that is understaffed and overburdened, that we build partnerships with local civil rights enforcement agencies to be able to address these claims, to make sure that workers are made whole, and to prepare for what will be an increased level of load as these billions of dollars come into our state.

Coming to California, we know that these jobs are going to be a total asset for communities. But only workers access will depend on what kind of partnerships our civil rights Department has to ensure that all Californians get access to opportunity. This Bill will give policymakers a better vision of accountability transparency in the system.

It is especially important that our employment demographic data be expanded to ensure that we can consider disadvantaged populations, as well as race and gender, and to track in real time Californians access to these opportunities. This is critically important in our country now, where our economy is strong.

But when we look at the unemployment numbers, 90% of those unemployed in this nation are Black. So we have a particular focus in ensuring that all underrepresented populations get access to these dollars.

1314 specifies that our tracking and reporting will also include tracking things like groups that are at risk of homelessness, making sure single parents and formerly incarcerated Californians also are prioritized in the opportunity.

And lastly, SB 1340 would establish a public infrastructure task force made up of community, labor and workforce experts to act as intermediaries between state contractors and agencies to ensure strengthened recruitment, retention, and protection of these vulnerable workers. SB 1340 ensures that these dollars and these jobs reach our most disadvantaged communities and is a poverty ending measure.

And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote. I have with me my witness, Sarah Flocks with the California Labor Federation to speak on the need of this Bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair Member. Sara Flocks, California Labor Federation and we'd like to thank the author for her work on both SB 150 and this Bill. We were a part of the SB 150 stakeholder meetings that resulted in a report to the Legislature.

And one of the recommendations that came through loud and clear and was repeated by numerous of the stakeholders was the need for labor standards with community benefits on the billions of dollars that are flooding into the state for infrastructure and clean energy.

And those community benefits included both a commitment to racial and gender equity in access to these jobs, but also a commitment to recruit, hire and retain workers from marginalized and disadvantaged communities. And the communities hardest hit by the climate crisis.

And this is in line with the federal requirements are there also was a real need, echoed by a number of groups who are in this room for transparency, data tracking and just tracking of the project so that we would have an ability to have accountability, to know these dollars are being spent to build the projects they were committed to and to meet the labor standards, and to see the actual hiring and promotion of the communities that are in community benefits.

And so this Bill is a huge step in that direction. It establishes a centralized database. I mean, this is, we're talking about $180 billion coming in through dozens of departments, hundreds of different funding sources, tax credits, grants. It is an overwhelming amount of public dollars that are going to be spent. It's historic.

And we need to have not just the ability to say, these should create good jobs, good union jobs that benefit all Californians. We have to be able to track that and we have to be able to know who are getting these jobs and what is the quality of the jobs.

This is a Bill that sets up that structure. And so for those reasons alone and many other provisions of the Bill, we urge your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any additional witnesses and support?

Mariko Yoshihara, on behalf of the California Coalition for Worker Power in support.

Madam Chair and members. Mike West on behalf of the State Building Trades in support.

Fernando Ochoa, Sheet Metal Workers Local 105 in support.

Jassy Grewal, UFCW, Western States Council, in support.

Annie Chou with the California Teachers Association in support.

Marc Ellis, CWA Local 9413. We fully support this Bill.

Do we have any witnesses in opposition.

Madam Chair and members. Scott Governor, on behalf of the Construction Employers Association, we are the largest union signatory building contractors in the state. I just first want to talk about how our workers are hired. We request workers from hiring halls. They are dispatched to us. We are not selecting these workers.

And more often than not, all of you are setting the rules for how those workers are dispatched. Skilled and trained workforce, for example, is inherently restrictive in terms of who can be dispatched to our job site, as are PLAs.

So you know, this idea that or suggestion that employers are picking and choosing workers, it's really not the case. The unions are dispatching those workers to us based on rules you establish as it relates to our workers. This Bill will require us to ask our carpenters and laborers every single month. Right now we do it annually.

Your household income, whether you want to emancipated foster youth, whether you have a history of chronic unemployment, level of education, were you incarcerated, do you receive public assistance? Are you a custodial, single parent? We have to ask our workers this question every month.

And if we get a 2% response rate, which I assume may be high, we have to do a report to the civil rights Department every month and they're going to take that incomplete data and come up with recommendations on policies based on data that is inherently flawed. If we don't submit a report, we get zero responses.

We're still liable for $100 per day penalty. The other element to point out is this Bill then tasks DIR with coming up with the task force. There have been countless bills this year, including by the chair and Assemblymember Schiavo kind of complaining about DIR's workload. So let's give them more. Same thing with the Civil Rights Department.

I mean, the whole purpose of the local control is that they are overburdened. So let's give them more to do. So, you know, we haven't opposed unless amended. We think section four should be removed. With that, we remove our opposition. Thank you.

Do we have additional comments in opposition?

Madam Chair and Members, Bret Barrow at the California Legislative Conference of the Plumbing, Heating, Piping Industry, the National Electrical Contractors Association, United Contractors, and the Western Line Constructors, oppose unless amended. Thank you.

Do we have any comments or questions from the Members? Would do you like to close, or do you have any additional comments?

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And my office is always and has been working with opposition to address any concerns. You know, I just want to close by addressing some of the points made by the opposition. At the end of the day, it is the contractor that hires and fires work workers.

It is the superintendent who is the staff of the contractor that makes those decisions. And so certainly dispatch happens, but when it comes to who is hired, it is the contractor's responsibility. So I want to just address that. The other thing is, you know, this is a process by which, when you talk about emancipated foster youth, those at risk of being homeless, those who are formerly incarcerated, we just went through one of the most devastating deficits in our state's history.

And these are individuals who are in our safety net, where we are having to balance the budget because we have so many of these communities that are in these categories in the subsidy column, and now we want to move them into self sufficiency, into good jobs, actually helping to reduce our deficit so that we can invest more in infrastructure.

And so this is a revenue generating opportunity because we will be putting those individuals to work into good jobs. And quite honestly, so much of this reporting is happening in jurisdictions like LA County, Sacramento County, Central Valley area. So these reporting methods are well known.

They have been working, and these are proven approaches that help us do win win, which is build the infrastructure we need, but also address poverty and those most disadvantaged, those most underrepresented, and those most historically left out of infrastructure opportunities.

This is a once in a lifetime investment, as my good witness mentioned, and we can't let it slip through our fingers because we know $180 billion will skip right over black and brown and poor people. We've seen it every day. This is how we get the receipts to make sure those folks are included in the opportunity. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

With that, I would like to make a comment. I just want to thank you for bringing this bill forward. As was mentioned, I also have several bills and have made requests for data. We are a body that works based on data and results in order for us to move our policies. We cannot continue to spend millions, if not billions, of dollars on programs when we do not have results or where we don't have data that give us or provides us a guide to see whether or not those programs are even working.

And so if that is considered complaining, then sign me up, because I will continue to complain and ask questions until I get data that provides me a guideline to get those results that the State of California not only deserves, but demands of us as legislators. And with that, I will request for a motion for... Moved? Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is do pass to Judiciary Committee. [Roll Call]

That motion is out. Thank you. Which... Okay. We will now move to item number 10, SB 1446.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And again, good afternoon. I am pleased to present SB 1446, the Retail Theft Prevention and Safe Staffing Act. SB 1446 will protect workers and the public by ensuring safe staffing levels at stores which utilize self checkout and ensure workers and consumers are notified when employers adopt consequential workplace workplace technologies.

As amended, this Bill would require large retailers and grocery stores to enact safe staffing measures, including and ensuring at least one manual checkout lane is open before self checkout stands, requiring staffing ratios of two self checkout stands under the supervision of a single employee, requiring that it only be the policy of the store to adopt a 15 item or fee fewer limit, but does not require workers to police customers and finally, requiring employers to notify their workers and consumers when they adopt specified technologies.

And importantly, these amendments do not do not apply to warehouses. In recent years, automation in our retail, grocery and drugstores have dramatically cut workers, contributing to the chronic understaffing in our stores and safety for all consumers and workers alike.

Loan frontline clerks are forced to serve customers while monitoring several self checkout stands, leaving these stores easy targets for theft and workplace violence. All the while, retailers continue to express concern about rising rates of theft in our communities. Many retailers have themselves acknowledged the challenges of self checkout and have either limited or removed them altogether.

The CEO of Dollar General, which has removed all self checkout from thousands of their stores, has stated there is truly no substitute for an employee presence at the front end of the store to greet customers and to provide excellent customer service, including checkout.

In a statement regarding the closure self checkout at many of their stores, Safeway noted that the move was made in response to an increasing amount of theft. Approximately 20 million Americans have stolen from self checkout, with another 9 million saying they plan to do it again. 16 times more items are stolen from self checkout.

This is a problem upstream, not just downstream, in our communities as we see some of our retail theft bills moving forward. These kiosks alone cause four times more shrinkage than traditional cashiers and cost retailers about $10 billion annually in lost revenue.

The theft from self checkout stands can be intentional, with people swapping labels, only scanning some items, unintentional errors, forgetting items, simply walking out of frustration with the items.

Beyond theft, self checkout kiosks have also created challenges for individuals who may need special assistance, older adults, individuals with disabilities, and how difficult it is when you have to struggle to find a worker to assist them and making it really difficult for them to get through to the traditional checkout lanes, which are also being limited because of the number of self checkout.

Importantly, this Bill, I want to stress this Bill does not ban self checkout. That is misinformation. And there's been a lot of misinformation about this Bill. Instead, 1446 ensures that people who prefer or required human assistance in stores have access to workers by increasing staffing at these kiosks.

And we want to make sure that we have a quality in store shopping experience. We know so many folks are shopping online. These stores are critical to our local economies and we want workers to, and customers alike, to feel good about their experiencing.

And so by increasing staffing at these kiosks, we can ensure that when a worker does decide to help a customer through self checkout or a traditional lane, they are not leaving the remaining kiosks unattended, causing more harm and damage.

I am happy to have with me today two expert witnesses who were with me, Sara Flocks, obviously from the Labor Federation, and Jassy Grewal, who's with the UFCW. I'll turn it over to them.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Committee Members. My name is Jassy Grewal, Legislative Director with the United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council, here to testify in strong support and as a proud co sponsor of SB 1446.

UFCW represents over 120,000 workers in the grocery and drug retail industries that would be positively impacted by the protections in this Bill. Self checkout and the reduction in frontline grocery workers has created a range of problems for retailers, workers and the public as companies have alleged an increase in retail theft.

Much of the losses, they contend, can be traced to self checkout, and the reduction in workforce data shows that self checkout machines cost 16 times more shrink than checkout via a cashier. The reduction in frontline checkers has also caused a crisis with chronic understaffing and an overworked workforce.

Self checkout machines are notoriously glitchy, which creates more work for the solo worker expected to monitor anywhere from four to 10 machines while also fulfilling other tasks like processing money orders and selling lotto tickets, which at times means that they must leave the self checkout area unattended. Fewer workers in the store also increases health and safety risks.

Understaffed stores create the opportunity for theft, assault and violent incidents. Loan frontline clerks must serve customers while at the same time watching for shoplifters and dealing with disruptive individuals. Issues with self checkout machines and understaffing also increase customer irritation, and workers are at risk of verbal and physical assault by frustrated and inpatient customers.

Understaffing due to self checkout or employer attempts at cost savings has made grocery and drug retail stores more inconvenient and dangerous places. Retailers are acknowledging the theft risks associated with self checkout and have rolled back, removed or limited self checkout to provide a better shopping experience.

It's time more grocery and drug retail companies implement proven solutions to reduce retail theft and shrink and adopt the provisions outlined in SB 1446. Thank you.

Madam Chair Members. Sara Flocks, California Labor Federation, also a proud co sponsor. This is one of five bills that we are moving around putting worker centered guardrails on the use of technology in the workplace. And we are proud to have this Bill because it's not a ban.

It really is saying, all right, this technology is already in the stores. It's going to be in the stores. Let's just make sure that we have safe staffing so that the technology works for both workers and for customers.

I also want to talk about another piece of the Bill, which is around what was an impact assessment that was taken out and now is a notice that the retailer needs to give to the public and to workers advance notice if they're going to introduce a new consequential workplace technology.

That is a technology that either eliminates or truly impacts a core job function of a worker, which would be something like self checkout if you're going to eliminate all the checkers, it also could be something like digital smart carts or the Amazon go checkout that is now being tested in Whole Foods and San Mateo.

We want both workers and the public to know, what is this technology, what's its purpose? And have employers think, what could be the impact of this you know, when you have digital smart carts or Amazon Go, they use computer vision, so they model your body. They use facial recognition.

We need to stop and think about what are the racial biases that could be in facial recognition. What about people who are unbanked, don't have a smartphone? Is this going to create a two tier system where some people get a walk out and other people are stuck in line because they don't have access to this technology?

We're not banning the use of this. It's not even an impact assessment. It's saying that, that employer has to. Before they put this technology into use, they need to tell the union, they need to tell workers, and they need to tell the public so that if you're walking into a store and they're doing facial recognition, you know, so we urge your aye vote.

Thank you. Do we have additional witnesses in support?

Good afternoon. Glenn Backus for the Prosecutors Alliance Action. We support this and co sponsor this as a crime prevention measure. Thank you.

Mariko Yoshihara on behalf of the California Coalition for Worker Power and Tech Equity Collaborative in support.

Danica Rodarma on behalf of Initiate Justice, Initiate Justice Action and Vera Institute of Justice in support.

Shane Gusman on behalf of the Teamsters in support

Chris Myers with the California School Employees Association in support.

Nika Maslin with the Mesa Verde Group on behalf of the Consumer Federation of California in support.

Louie Costa with SMART transportation State's Legislative Board in support. Thanks.

Mitch Steiger with CFT, also in support.

Good afternoon. Heladio Saldivar, Political Director, CWA Local 9421, in support.

Marc Ellis with CWA local 9413. Full support.

Thank you. Seeing no other witnesses in support, do we have any witnesses in opposition?

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Daniel Conway with the California Grocers Association here in strong opposition. I actually wanted to begin by introducing one of our members, Michel LeClerc with North State grocery, a small independent grocer here in Northern California, so he can share a little bit more about the impacts that 1446 would have on our grocers. Thank you.

Thank you, Daniel, Madam Chair, members of the Committee. Senator, my name is Michel LeClerc. I'm the Chief Financial Officer for North State Grocery. We are a 21 store chain in Northern California. We're small. We're the little guy. We don't have thousands of stores. We're not the Costco. We're not the Albertson Safeway.

We're not the Kroger, but we have to compete against them. We have to compete against them every single day. And the way we do that is we're a little bit unique is we are owned by the employees. 100% of the stock of the company is held by the employees. Meaning if the company sinks, they sink.

If the company soars, they soar. So I have a motivated workforce and we compete by being customer centric. We want customers to be happy in our stores, which is why I'm opposed to this measure. Let me explain further. This measure is very antagonistic towards self checkout. And I did read the Committee's report and there's lots of data.

Although the sources are rather thin on how self checkout is harming stores and harming workers, our experience has been the exact opposite. So we do have self checkout in our stores, but we have not used self checkout as a labor reduction. That's not the purpose for us of self checkout.

The purpose for us of self checkout is to avoid a pain point that our customers have in our grocery stores.

And that is you come in for a rotisserie chicken and some veggies for dinner, and in front of you in the line is somebody who's buying $300 worth of groceries and you're going to be parked there for a while. Self checkout allows those folks to glide through, get in, get out, get what they need.

So it's really designed for us to help folks that just want to get in and get out. We don't actually have a 15 or 12 or any limit on what somebody wants to bring through self checkout because what we've discovered is that saying no to a customer, it's bad business and it's not safe for our employees.

Our employees experienced that during COVID having to stand there and tell customers what they can and can't do. And the results were horrible, frankly. They were dangerous. And they would generate what, after July 1, would be an incident on our violence prevention log.

So I'm sorry that I don't experience what you're experiencing, and I don't know where you shop, but theft at our self checkout is not an issue. And if I told an employee that you're going to monitor two self checkouts and that's all.

1 minute, if you can start wrapping it up.

Oh, wrap up. Okay. If I told an employee that your job is going to be to monitor two self checkouts and make sure that there's no more than 15 units coming through and don't let them buy any razor blades because they're behind. Yeah. That's going to be the worst job in the store.

The absolute worst job in the store. That's not going to be fun. Thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you. I just wanted to add some additional concerns that we have about this Bill. As mentioned, you know, just the way that the Bill approaches staffing these self checkout lanes, we see as being problematic.

Like Michel said, this really, this would codify one of the worst things we saw during COVID where you have store employees being put in the position of having to enforce state law. It was problematic then during a global health crisis.

But I think in the day to day operations of our stores, it's going to lead to a lot of tension and conflict. I think beyond that, we've heard a lot of comments around retail theft and public safety today.

I will point out, as you just heard, we have all kinds of footage and other things to show that people who are stealing a cart full of groceries, they're not, they're not bothering to go through self checkout. They're just pushing it right back out the door that they came in. Right.

And I think, you know, we have a number of people here who've done a lot of work on retail theft this year. I don't see this Bill as part of that package. I don't see getting pushed to the governor's desk this week. I see it sitting here in Labor Committee, not even referred to public safety.

I think lastly, you know, there's talk about the implications around self checkout and technology. I think calling this a self checkout Bill is a misnomer because, frankly, the implications of this Bill go far beyond self checkout. I think we have a number of policy goals here in the Legislature that we've identified around environmental impacts, things like that.

This is a Bill that would make it harder to implement technology that would reduce retail theft, harder to implement technology that would reduce food waste, harder to implement technology that would use refrigerant leakages, things like that. So I think for all of us, there's a lot of things, there's a lot of moving parts with this Bill.

They're pretty much all problematic. And I would ask you all to stop and consider this legislation before letting it move forward. Thank you.

Do I see any other witnesses in opposition?

Madam Chair, Chris Micheli on behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce in respectful opposition.

Madam Chair and Members, Dominic Di Mare, here on behalf of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, also in opposition.

Good afternoon. Lindsay Gullahorn with Capitol Advocacy on behalf of the California Retailers Association in opposition.

Good afternoon. Stephanie Morwell on behalf of the Consumer Technology Association in opposition.

Christopher Rodriguez on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Business Properties Association in opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Devon Anderson with Political Solutions on behalf of Target in opposition.

Thank you. Seeing no other witnesses and opposition. Members, I'll turn it over to the Members if you have any questions or comments.

So, first of all, I want to move the bill. Thank you for bringing it. I am strongly in supportive of the staffing issues related to the bills. I do have some things that I'm hoping you'll continue working on with some of the opponents. One was the 15 unit limit. I hear that. I mean, there's some stores in my district that basically have that, and people just complain about it a lot.

So I actually think I'm gonna have constituents who are not gonna like that. I think the other thing, when I was reading the bill, there's some things about applications for new technologies in the warehouse. I would encourage you, I just think there's a lot going on there, and I would feel a lot more comfortable with the bill if it was really focused on the retail establishments and what's going on there. Is that, was the warehouse stuff taken out?

Yeah. So there are recent amendments that there was a previous reference code citation. And so we have actually codified the definition of grocery establishment, and there's no mention of warehouse. And then superstore, also no mention of warehouse. So warehouse is not applicable under this bill. It's only retail establishments.

Okay. That's helpful. And then I just think the other thing is just, I think, and I know I shouldn't be talking to folks that are actually representing our workers because I think you think about those things in ways that are putting the workers first. But I think about the, I would sort of think about just drilling down a little bit more in terms of what the staffers could do that are on self checkout, to just make sure that they don't have, like, a boring job where they're just sort of standing there and policing too much.

I mean, I think there's other things that they could be doing. There could be some more flexibility there that would actually enhance the workers experience and would enhance and would be good for the grocers as well, and the stores. So I would just, I think there's a little bit of fine tuning that could happen. And I'm supportive of the bill, though. I think the staffing is a really important thing that we actually start thinking about these things as we move to self checkout. And so I want to thank you for bringing the bill, and obviously I'm strongly supportive of it.

Yeah, I just want to build off of some of the comments my colleague just wrote. I think what the core of this bill really important is about that worker experience. I have a lot of friends, peers who still work in retail to this day, and that's their life calling and that's what they do.

And I understand opposition's take on this, but it is very stressful to be the lone man on shift, right, when it's especially the end of the night when you're the person doing the actual checkout and manning itself checkout when they're working at Target. And there are a lot of these very, very big companies where they're stretching the workforce very, very thin. And I hear those horror stories where they have to be that one person there, right.

Someone wants something behind locked counter, something's wrong with the self checkout, or someone actually needs to buy something. You know, someone can only do the cashier, and they have to be the one person there at early morning or late at night. That is very difficult. While I think, you know, some of these aspects are quite literal about some of the restrictions and stuff, and I want to build on that.

You know, we want to make sure the worker experience is still enriching and make sure that they can do enough. Right. But I think at the heart of it is you don't want them to stretch too thin where crime can happen, where they can be too stressed, where it's just too much for one person to do. And so I have a lot of faith and respect in the author to continue working with the stakeholders and the opposition.

I'm sure something will reasonably come forward about this, but I still think that core about that protecting that worker experience and making sure they're not putting their life at risk or just being stressed out every day. If you work retail is, of course, very, very stressful, but not being more stressful than it has to be is important. So I hope that, you know, continue to have those conversations, and I'll be supporting the bill today, of course.

Assembly Member Alanis.

Thank you. So I did have a few concerns. I've heard crime prevention major, I heard public safety. So I'm thankful for the opposition asking about that, why it wasn't heard in public safety, where I know I sit. Because this seems like this should be a public safety matter, if that's what it's being brought up to be.

But some of the things I have questions about are higher prices. Have we talked about that? As far as, it looks like we're going to have to be bringing in more workers to be able to satisfy this bill. And I would imagine that would only increase the prices at the grocery store, which, as we already know, is already high. Is there an analysis or anything like that on what kind of impact it will have on our communities?

I will have Jassy speak to the technical piece of it. And to the point around the public safety, this is evidence driven, and it's really coming from the workers, folks who are actually working in this industry. So part of it is the data that's collected on the amount of shrinkage across the industry, but also feedback and surveys of workers who find themselves in dangerous situations and are putting forward a set of solutions.

And so, you know, it's in Labor Committee because this is coming from the workers who are in the industry who are on the front lines of this. And so that's why it's in this committee. And I think it's important that workers have an opportunity to weigh in on solutions to broader issues. Right. Because all of these things are interconnected. And so I'll turn it over to Jazzy to answer that.

Thank you, Senator. And thanks for the question, Assembly Member. So right now, there is about $10 billion annually lost due to retail theft. And that is what is leading to the higher cost of goods, is that there's already a price point consumers are paying because retailers are having to make up for those lost profits in the price of goods. So there is already increased pricing outside of inflation and other things that is happening from the loss in revenue due to retail theft.

And then I will also just add that Walmart was just faced with a class action lawsuit for illegally shifting the weight on their self checkout machines. And so they were charging consumers more for produce and other things because they're self checkout scales were illegally weighted. So we're starting to see cost on consumers in all sorts of other ways, and we don't necessarily believe this is the thing that's going to be driving costs.

Okay. Yes, please, if you could.

Can I chime in, because I appreciate the question, and I actually think our friends at the Labor Fed kind of answered this for you. Because if you look at page four of the committee analysis at the bottom, they say straight up self checkout is just one of the strategies retail employers use to reduce cost. So the flip of that is if you're going to have less self checkout, you're going to have greater costs.

Got you. And then another thing, you brought up the Smart Cart, Amazon Go. I'm not 100% familiar with it, but would this bill also apply to that? So if I'm in the store with the Smart Cart, do I have to have so many employees watching these Smart Carts? How does that work?

I will... To that, no. This is a self checkout bill. And the notice would be for any kind of new technology that is being brought in that impacts, consequently, that's a consequential workplace technology. I would like to just respond to what was said, through the Chair.

We are saying that self checkout is being used to lower labor costs. There's other ways that employers can save so they don't have to raise prices. One of them is reducing retail theft. The other is that we find that just having more workers in the store also reduces theft.

Part of the problem with theft is that everything's now locked up. So you need workers to go and unlock things. So there are many ways to reduce costs and keep prices under control that doesn't involve just putting pressure on labor and reducing workers' wages.

But I guess the concern...

Excuse me.

Sorry, Chair.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Briefly.

I guess just my concern with the legislation as it's drafted is that any item that's locked up can't go through self checkout. So once again, it gets to some of the comments made by some of the Assembly Members here, that you're ultimately going to put employees in a position where they're having to explain to customers why you can buy vitamins at one store but not another store. Because some things are locked up in some places, not others.

And I think that lack of consistency is, again, going to put our employees in the front line of enforcing this law. And I would also add with the new amendment around enforcement and the fines that are in there, ultimately it is going to be our employees who have to enforce this law because there's no one else there to do it.

Got it. Thank you, Assembly Member Lowenthal.

Okay, on my guest day, you get to hear all my labor thoughts at once. First of all, I'd like to thank the author for bringing this bill forward. I think it's a very important bill. I'm going to be supporting it today for my colleague from Stanislaus County. I'm a major Lakers fan, and I invite you to come to the Crypto.com arena sometime to a game. I'd love to spend some time with you. And while we're there, we're going to go into a few of the stores that are automated using the Amazon technology.

And beyond the issues around privacy that were so appropriately brought up earlier, one of the things that you'll notice is that there is no difference in pricing in those stores for the goods that you want versus the other places where there are checkout attendants. By the way, those are Unite Here employees.

And so the net effect of that, there is no actual elasticity of pricing based on it. So what you see in effect is actually wealth consolidation. So now we're opening the door in this conversation about economics. The problem that we have, and I feel I want to validate the concerns that you're having, certainly as it relates to competition.

The problem that we have in the State of California is we do not have a plan for automation. We don't have one. We don't have a roadmap, we don't have guidelines. And as we don't have those things, we're going to see impacts of automation on working conditions, impacts on communities, impacts on macroeconomic conditions in those communities and statewide, and privacy, among other issues.

And so I find that you're going to continue to have bills like these that are about playing defense in the absence of having a broader state plan about these things. And I encourage all of us to think about in the years ahead. Because this isn't a quick thing that we can do. Something more like, you know, some of the things like our environmental policies that have taken us years and years.

Cap and trade is what I was trying to think of. Like a cap and trade type system for automation. And until we do that, until we have a state plan, we're going to see how these changes are impacting communities. And there's going to be more and more legislation like this. And I'm going to continue to support bills like these until we have a plan that all of us can gravitate towards that are win win situation. So thank you for bringing this forward.

I'm sorry, can I just quickly...

Thank you so much, Chair.

No.

Assembly Member.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I just want a couple things, and it's more of just a statement. And my colleague Mr. Lowenthal kind of brought it up. Because this, it's a little frustrating, to be quite honest, hearing the debate on this particular bill, hearing all the conversations about theft and how this bill would prevent that. Because I completely believe in what my colleague is saying. This is all about workers.

We want more workers in stores because we don't have a plan. As a state, as a legislative body, for many, many years since I've been here, we've passed a lot of pieces of legislation that have seemingly good like intentions, but the consequences are very, very real. And we don't have a plan.

We're throwing a bunch of noodles on the wall and nothing is sticking, and we just slide to the bottom and then we're left picking up the pieces. And so I would just be honest about what this bill is, and I would not use the retail theft conversation anymore because it's honestly a little bit disingenuous.

Nothing in this bill does retail theft. And we have been putting bills together for a year now trying to address this issue. And both parties, for the record, over the last few weeks, have turned it into a political mess. All right? And I'm sort of frustrated about the whole thing.

So if we really care about retail theft, maybe we should actually, I don't know, fix some of the issues that are allowing people to continue to steal and not put it on the backs of workers. Because during COVID, you're going to have these workers stop people from stealing? Since when is that okay? Since when do a business want their workers to be in charge of enforcing this?

You want to talk about a workers safety issue? That's incredible to me that we're actually suggesting that that's okay. So I understand the intent of this bill, and there's parts of this that I actually could agree with. But I think it's so far from being baked and just not being honest about what the true intentions of this piece of legislation is.

Seeing no other Members, Senator, would you like to close?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And I appreciate the debate and the conversation. And as I said, we'll continue to work with the opposition. But I want to say one thing about noodle on the wall. Workers make our economy thrive. That is a fact.

There are hundreds of thousands of grocery store workers, and self checkout has been lifted up as a major safety concern. Because we did implement this technology without even a conversation. And here we are. 1990, first checkout, not even a conversation.

You went in one day, your clerk was there, the next day, there was a machine, and now these issues are converging. And yes, it's uncomfortable, it's frustrating. But the truth is, 16 more times shrinkage happens in self checkout. It's a fact. It's been cited by numerous studies.

And we, as the Legislature in this moment, have to address it, and we have to use all the tools in our toolboxes. It's not just sending more working class, poor communities to jail for nonviolent property crime. It's also about retailers taking the responsibility and dealing with the problem where it's happening.

And if that means putting more workers to work, if that means that we, yes, are preventing more workers from losing their jobs because they pay sales tax and income tax, which I last checked, a checkout machine does not do that, then we have to consider it. We have to have the conversation, and we have to all have skin in the game.

This is about protecting all our consumers and our workers and really making sure that our stores, our in store shopping experience, remain an experience that more and more consumers want to have. And so that's what this bill is. It simply is a common sense bill that is dealing with the conversion of many issues. And it's going to be hard for us to get there, but we must get there on this bill. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Senator. Appreciate your words and bringing this bill forward. I also sat on the Retail Theft Committee and want to use this opportunity to plug my hearing on automation. Self checkout was the beginning of automation, and now we're talking about artificial intelligence and how it's impacting the workplace and really need to take a deeper dive on these two issues coming together. And so we're going to be doing that on August 7. And hopefully many of my colleagues here today can join that hearing and others can tune in on August 7. With that, I believe we had a motion in a second, so, Secretary, please call the roll.

Motion is do pass to Privacy and Consumer Protections. [Roll Call]

That measure is out. Senator, you have one more.

One more. One more. And I want to say I owe my good colleague... He left. I still owe him a steak dinner for letting me skip the line. And this is...

Item number...

1089.

tem number eight, SB 1089.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and Assembly. Good colleagues. I wanted to say I'm proud to present SB 1089, which is a priority Bill for the black caucus's reparation package. And I want to thank your Committee for your analysis. In 2020, the state Legislature passed AB 3121 to authorize a reparations task force to study the ongoing effects of slavery on African Americans.

And after years of study, the task force offered hundreds of recommendations and actions for the Legislature to follow in order to address enduring inequalities and wealth, housing, food access, and so many other issues related to this community. Specifically, the task force reparations report called on the Legislature to require grocery stores and pharmacies to provide advance notice to their employees and communities about their store closures.

This disparity the disparities illustrated in the task force report are no coincidence, but rather the predictable outcome of decades of disinvestment of industry from minority communities, particularly black communities who have prioritized suburban white neighborhoods over low income black and brown communities, which they deem to be undesirable.

In fact, there are analyses of how grocery stores determine where they will open new stores, oftentimes based on education and income levels. And we know, due to deep institutional racism, unfortunately, black communities typically are in the lower income communities that are severely disadvantaged. One in five black people face food insecurity.

And while white neighborhoods on average have four times as many supermarkets as those in predominantly black neighborhoods. In my community of south central Los Angeles, we see the real health effects of food deserts in our most vulnerable communities, which have easier access to liquor stores and fast food restaurants than a healthy grocery store.

This has contributed to residents in south LA having some of the highest disproportionate rates of illness, many that are preventable, such as heart disease and diabetes, but are fueled by poor food items and access to healthy foods. Similar to food deserts, decreased access to pharmacies have turned many black communities into pharmacy deserts.

Recent reporting has shown that black and brown communities have also been most affected by the pharmacy closures, leaving many without access to their first point of contact for questions about their health and medical needs. And when pharmacies closed, prescriptions may be sold to another establishment, often without any notice to the consumers, again leaving them unaware of where to pick up their prescriptions. Prescriptions may even be transferred outside of a patient's network, forcing them to pay out of pocket for transfer that they never asked for.

Similarly, grocery store closures can be particularly harmful to our black communities, who are more likely to rely on food benefits programs, public transportation, and all of the necessities that for we might take for granted to get access to our food and pharmacy. They have to do tremendous planning to be able to access. So sudden closures, as we will hear, are very, very harmful when it comes to those communities and families that have to live paycheck to paycheck and rely on public services and subsidies.

This Bill addresses these harms by requiring grocery stores and pharmacies with five or more employees to provide 60 day notice of closure and a 30 day notice for stores with five or fewer. In instances of pharmacy closures, this Bill requires pharmacies to tell their patients where their prescriptions will be transferred. Common sense things.

And since this Bill has been introduced, we have made a number of amendments working with the opposition to make sure that their concerns are addressed, including decreasing the notification, the notice period, narrowing the requirements for what information stores must disclose in their notices, including removing the reason for the closure in the notice, capping enforcement penalties at $10,000.

And you know, I think that these things were done with a soul and express outcome that at the minimum, communities have noticed when their grocery stores and their pharmacies are closed because that creates a chilling effect for families. And with me today is Samantha Webster, a worker who will share her experience with a sudden store closure. And again, Jassy Grewal is with us from the UFCW.

Thank you. Just a quick reminder for our witnesses. You will have two minutes each. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Committee Members. My name is Samantha Webster and I am a former grocery worker and now I work at UFCW Local 5. On April 13, 2021 Safeway closed the grocery store I worked at for 19 years in Rodeo. Rodeo is a small unincorporated town near Port Costa and Crockett. The grocery store was the social hub for our community, who were mainly older residents and was the only grocery store serving the area. There were 56 workers at the store below the warn notice threshold of 75 employees laid off, so our store only received one week notice about the closure.

This caused significant anxiety among the workers who had no idea if they would be transferred to a new store or lose their livelihoods. The employees at the store were seasoned workers and on average had five plus years of service. But there were coworkers with 10, 15 and 19 years like myself, whose lives were disrupted. Even with the uncertainty of what the future held, not a single worker quit and all of us worked until the very end. Safeway opened a new grocery store in Hercules and some workers were offered transfers there, but others were transferred to stores in Vallejo and Albany.

But it was difficult for workers to make that commute because of the distance and the drastic change in their schedules. For my coworkers that are working parents, they had one week to figure out childcare schedules and school drop off. Additionally, there was no announcement to the community about the closure of the grocery store.

This infuriated the community who relied on the grocery store to access food. When the grocery store left, so did other businesses, and now the area is a ghost town. Safeway continued to maintain the lease far after the closure, and now three years later, the building remains vacant and the community is still deprived of a grocery store.

All of this happened off the heels of Covid-19 pandemic, all the stress of working during COVID insecurity, of working in public due to the increase in workplace violence. And the company thanked us by closing our grocery store and giving us very little notice and no security about our future. When the grocery store say they care, their actions show it is a lie.

If you can start wrapping up, please.

Yes, that is why SB 1089 is so important not only to the workers, but to the communities we serve. Thank you.

And then Jassy Grewel with UFCW Western States Council, happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Do we have additional witnesses in support?

Mariko Yoshihara, on behalf of the California Coalition for Worker Power and Tech Equity Collaborative. In support.

Hi Madam Chair and Members. Keely O'Brien with Western Center on Law and Poverty in proud support.

Nika Maslin with the Mesa Verde Group on behalf of the Consumer Federation of California in support.

Shane Gusman on behalf of Unite Here in support.

Sara Flocks, California Labor Federation in support.

Seeing no other witnesses in support, we will now take witnesses in opposition.

Good afternoon. Lindsay Gullahorn with Capital Advocacy here on behalf of the California Retailers Association's Community Pharmacy Coalition. First, want to acknowledge the conversations we've had with the author and the sponsors. Amendments were made to the Bill that we think make it more workable. Also, want to note or clarify that our letter has us as opposed, but we're actually opposed unless amended for several reasons that I'll outline today.

Speaking on behalf of our pharmacy members, pharmacies in particular are licensed and regulated by the Board of Pharmacy and must adhere to specific requirements for the storage and dispensing of drugs and notice to the board upon closures. Pharmacies are required to notice the board before closure and provide information about where their prescription inventory will be transferred.

It's very important for pharmacies to be selective in their communications and to ensure the safe handling of dangerous drugs. Our members are not at all opposed to closure notifications, nor do they disagree with the intent of the Bill. And as I mentioned, amendments were taken that changed the notice requirements to make them more consistent with the Federal Warn Act. However, we do have concerns about the number of notices required and lack of clarity around how these notices should be handled.

For example, we want temporary closures to be exempted from the Bill, and the method of the notice should be streamlined, given that some pharmacies don't have the capabilities to provide notice to consumers via digital means as required in the Bill. So, in closing, just want to ensure that the Bill mandates realistic notice requirements that are most relevant to patients and pharmacy employees, that do not impede any closure processes already in place through regulatory oversight. So due to these concerns, the retailers and the Community Pharmacy Coalition are opposed to SB 1089 unless it's amended. But we are committed to working with the author, the sponsors, should the Bill move forward today. Thanks.

Hi. Good afternoon. Daniel Conway with the California Grocers Association. I want to reiterate that, yes, we have had a lot of success working with the author and her team to address some of our concerns here. Obviously, we see some redundancies between this proposal and the State and Federal Warn Act. But I think, more importantly, we share the concerns of both the author and the sponsors, frankly, about food deserts and pharmacy deserts. And, you know, we currently have legislation, SB 1419, looking to proactively address food deserts and bring grocery stores to communities that lack them.

Our concern with this legislation fundamentally is it does nothing to bring new stores to communities that need them. And more importantly, as was kind of described by the witnesses, what it does is it creates scenarios where, in the rare instances where a grocery store does decide to close and leave a community, it raises lots of questions. And as we heard, it can have a chilling effect on a whole shopping center and a whole community. So for us, that's always been our concern about this Bill, is that I was a former Chief of Staff to Mayor.

When stuff like this happens, it's not something that you want all over the community. You want to be very thoughtful about how you describe how we got to this store closure, and you want to be even more thoughtful to talk about what we're going to do afterwards to kind of revitalize our community and give them these opportunities. So, again, that's our big concern with this Bill, is just the effects that it could have going forward on addressing food deserts. Thank you so much. We look forward to continuing to work with you all.

Thank you. Do we have any additional witnesses in opposition.

Good afternoon. Christopher Rodriguez on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Business Properties Association in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. See no other witnesses, turning it over to the Members. If there's any questions or comments, do we have them? Senator, would you like to close?

Thank you very much. And I appreciate the work, continued work from the opposition with me and the sponsors on this Bill, I want to say that this notice is about community. This is a reparations Bill. And we know grocery stores are important to our community. And most important is that our community has access to them.

And when they close, at the minimum, we should notify, particularly those that are relying on public transportation, those who are relying on subsidies, those that will have to make arrangements to just get the basic access to their food and to their pharmacy. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote on behalf of the legislative Black Caucus.

Thank you. Is there a motion and a second? Is there a second? We have a motion and a second. Secretary, please call the roll.

Motion is due passed to Judiciary. [Roll Call]. That measures on call.

That measure is on call. Thank you, Senator. Senator Wiener stepped out. Hopefully he'll head back. But we do see Senator Grove here. We will now take item number six, SB 1264. Senator Grove, whenever you're ready to open.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. SB 1264 would provide limited liability, or, excuse me, limited ability for law enforcement agencies to allow sworn employees to be tested for cannabis use.

The bill, which will sunset with the amendment from the chair on 2028, is narrowly drawn to provide a targeted exemption for just those sworn law enforcement applicants, employees who are undertaking the duties directly involved with law enforcement. This is the same, exact same exemption that the building trades and construction trades currently have in statute.

The work of both professions is very, very important, and they both have implications to public safety and responsibilities. Peace officers are expected to overcome intense physical challenges, make split second decisions, life and death situations that occur on a daily basis when they're on the job, and those responsibilities are generally incompatible with the effects of cannabis use.

And personally, and I know it's just my personal opinion, and a lot of Californians believe that police officers carrying a gun, driving a high speed chase vehicle, they should be held to a higher standard than, you know, a grocery store worker, per se, or what we just hear on the previous bill.

So SB 1264 will ensure departments retain the ability to test employees for cannabis use, to ensure the highest professional standards are met. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair Members. Cory Salzillo, on behalf of the California State Sheriff's Association, we're the co sponsors of the bill, and I think the author summed it up. So in the spirit of brevity in your Committee's time, we just say that we believe this is a very modest exemption.

Frankly, when the bill was originally being crafted, the bill that we are seeking this modest exemption from, we believed that peace officers were excluded because of a number of provisions that exist in current law and based on counsel's concerns, that it's less than clear. And so we wanted to clarify that.

We feel that certainly impaired workers can still be disciplined and there can still be issues, but we're concerned about off duty use, given the uncertainty about long term impacts of cannabis on emotional processes and decision making. We've taken amendments throughout the process. This bill was much more broad.

It applied to unsworn applicants for unsworn positions and unsworn employees. We've taken those out. We've limited the reach to just certain sworn employees. We've taken the three year sunset that the, that you suggested, Madam Chair. And so for all of those reasons, we respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Do we have additional witnesses in support?

Afternoon Chair and Members Jonathan Feldman, California Police Chiefs Association in support.

Do we have additional. Oh, I don't see any additional witnesses in support. Do we have any witnesses in opposition.

Madam Chair Members, Beth Malinowski, and I'm here today on behalf of SEIU California. 700,000 Members in opposition is proud to present a wide range of workers across private and public sector. California represents thousands of unsworn employees involved in law enforcement, as well as dozens of sworn officers in local jurisdictions that are still impacted by this bill.

The bill's exemption of sworn staff from employment protections established by Legislature under AB 2188 will set us back and only further undermine the public sector's ability to recruit, hire, and retain the next generation of public servants.

In 2022, when SEIU California stood with a broad coalition to support AB 2188, we did so understanding and appreciating the science of cannabis testing had changed. We did so with an understanding that public opinion, knowledge, and public policy on cannabis were aligning. AB 2188 did not end workplace drug policies or the right of employers to test.

From conversations with our public sector locals, AB 2188 has now been successfully implemented across rural and urban jurisdictions.

Employers, including law enforcement agencies, are free to test for recent use of cannabis by means of oral swab, blood, or breath tests, which detect recent exposure of THC to psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, or by performance tests that detect actual impairment. The only thing they may not do is urine or hair.

Tests represent non psychoactive metabolites of THC, which remain detectable for days or weeks of after an impairment is passed. We feel SB 1264 could cause further confusion in the workplace for both the employer and employees and is unnecessary. We cannot support policy that will again create an environment of fear.

Worry that off the job cannabis consumption will lead to harmful disciplinary actions, including loss of pay, of benefits, demotion, denied opportunities for promotion or transfer, and even termination. We want to acknowledge the narrowing that took place in the Senate and the work by this Committee to make the bill time bound.

That being said, we do not believe a time limited approach makes this policy any more right today, and with that respect, your no vote today. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Kristin Heidelbach UFCW Western States Council we remain opposed. For the sake of time and the Committee's time, I will just align my thoughts and echo my colleague Beth from SEIU stated, I do want to ask permission, Madam Chair, if I can read one paragraph from the San Diego Sheriff's rules of conduct.

This is section 2.14 use of alcohol.

Off duty employees while off duty shall refrain from consuming intoxicating beverages to the extent that it results in unlawful impairment, such as driving under the influence or being unable to care for their own safety or the safety of others, public intoxication or obnoxious or offensive behavior in public, which would tend to discredit them or this Department or render the employee unfit to report for their next regular tour of duty.

We represent thousands of workers in the cannabis space. We have new laws. UFCW was a proud co sponsor of AB 2188. We don't want to see this law weakened when we talk about holding law enforcement to a different conduct next year. Is it teachers after that? Is it nurses after that? Is it doctors?

The better thing to do really would be loop cannabis into existing policies that are already in place and trust that our law enforcement, if they're carrying a sidearm and we trust them to do that, we can trust them to be responsible with cannabis off the job. With that, I urge your no vote. Thank you.

Do we have any additional witnesses in

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

Ryan Mira Montez with Asthma California, in opposition and sorry for getting the letter in late.

Talia D'Amato, on behalf of California Normal also in opposition. I've also been asked to relay opposition for the Drug Policy Alliance.

Chris Myers with the California School Employees Association in opposition.

Mary Creasy, on behalf of the California Cannabis Industry Association, in opposition.

Seeing no other witnesses in opposition, I will pass it over to the members if there's any other questions or comments.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So if you could answer questions that I have from the opposition talking about it being open to teachers and everything else like that, opening a gateway to that.

So my colleague, absolutely the sponsor of the bill can comment. But the reason that doesn't affect this, this is just on law enforcement, sworn out law enforcement. And just to be frank, I don't care if your grocery store worker is high. That is not even a relevant issue. These are individuals who are.

Their budgets come from municipality, local government. Those of you that come from local government are going back to local government. Some people are. It creates a liability for local government. If there is an officer involved shooting and that officer tests positive, the liability for that lawsuit is going to fall on local government. So there's an extension here.

If your grocery store worker bags your groceries wrong and they're positive, that's not the issue that we're facing here. This is the. I said it earlier that it was the same exemption that was given to the trades. It's not. It's much narrower.

And if this body and its wisdom in passing that bill for cannabis thought that the trades operating equipment deserved an exemption because they could cause harm to other people or property, law enforcement officers, like I said, making a split second decision, carrying a firearm, making. Is it a cell phone? Is it a gun?

Is it, you know, all these things that we face every single day in the state, they should be held to a higher standard and they should be able to drug test them.

And they don't know, like on a SWAT team, when they get called out, I had a SWAT team member have to jump through a window to save a little girl at an operation. And it's. They didn't know they were going to go to work that day. They just got a call. And so it's. It's.

I'm not the teacher and the concerns and the grocery store workers and all of that. I think the slippery slope thing doesn't work. This was something that we thought was covered under federal law and the original bill. We as in the law enforcement facilities or agencies, and it's not.

And so we're just trying to make this very, very, very narrow amendment.

Thank you. I have another question for the opposition. You did mention that some unsworn personnel were not included. Could you get more detail on what unsworn.

Happy to speak to that. So. Right. An earlier version of the bill did have a far more expansive definition of inclusion, and the Senator, working, of course, with prior committees and their sponsors, did choose to narrow the Bill so non sworn employees were no longer included when there was a broad definition of the bill, that would have impacted thousands of SEIU Members.

So, beyond those impacted today, and that would have been, and some examples I can offer you of inclusion would have been actually our healthcare workers that sometimes go in and out of law enforcement environment to provide care that could have been inclusive of animal care professionals that would be engaging with the community in a foster or adopt situation through animal care at the city or county.

So it was a far broader definition and do want to appreciate that some significant narrowing has happened. And we did.

When they brought that to us, I went straight back to law enforcement. I go, look, when we decided to do this is going to be for those that carry a gun, make split second decisions that are on the issue of dealing with life and health and safety of our community. And we took those amendments.

And when we got here, we worked with the chair and the Committee and you guys wanted a sunset to see if it was effective or working or you know what, and we took them sunset amendment. So we've been working with opposition since day one.

Thank you. And I want to thank you, Senator, for bringing this forward. Obviously, as a law enforcement officer, retired just over a year ago, we took an oath. We are held to a higher standard and we should be held to a higher standard.

I'm very proud to see our law enforcement leaders also here, our chiefs, our sheriffs, also standing strong with that as well, because we do take an oath. I think that's the big difference also that we have with other workers. We do take that oath that holds us to this higher standard.

And so I'm very proud to support this and I'll be moving the Bill.

Assemblymember Ward.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator, for certainly caring for trying to do, do the right thing, make sure that we are having safe conduct out there, especially for those that are entrusted with the powers of this job. I actually was not supportive of the previous bill that was mentioned, building trades much for the same reason.

I just remain unconvinced, especially after generations of debate around recreational cannabis use, that for somebody that is off hours, on their own time, you know, in places where they're not going to do anybody harm, that there is any substantial concern.

I try, I often sort of link, you know, our approach to cannabis as it would be to alcohol consumption. I do not want an officer showing up to work high or drunk. And I try to be very consistent, I think, with, you know, the rationale there, especially post Proposition 64.

So for those reasons generally, I still feel like we are maintaining a reverence towards those that we do uphold to a higher standard.

But I think generally the higher standards is be a responsible adult and know that, you know, if you do choose to use recreation recreationally, that you're doing so at a time and a place which is safe and which is not going to put yourself or others into harm's way.

And so to be consistent with that, I can't be supportive of the bill today, but I appreciate the intent of what you're doing, given this special class of worker here.

So I also want to thank you for focusing on this area. I think I will align my comments along with much of what my colleague from San Diego has said. I come from a family of police officers. I have several uncles on my father's side. I have a cousin on my mother's side. And when I sort of look at this, I do believe we have to hold police officers and other folks to a higher standard. But I just have a problem with basically a system of testing on a sort of illegal activity that I don't sort of see as very different from alcohol use.

And I do think that there are ways in which you can without. I mean, we already are under at a time when we're having trouble recruiting people into law enforcement where we don't appreciate them as much as we often should for really putting their lives on the line and then actually having a testing regime, which basically doesn't really have much to do with whether or not what your condition is on the job.

And subjecting all these folks to that, I think, is something that I have a problem with and I think is sort of a bad precedent. Cannabis is something where we have changed the law in the State of California. It is a legal activity. And so testing where we have tests that don't differentiate when the tests is when someone may be using it on the job versus not is something that I think is not, you know, the best approach. I think there's other ways that law enforcement can assure that those that are public safety officials are not using on the job.

And I would, you know, it would be more supportive of those kinds of activities rather than this kind of, you know, sort of broad scale testing, which is just so blunt. And, you know, you test, you do a test, it says that someone has used cannabis in some amount of time under what the testing regime.

And that doesn't necessarily mean that they've used it on the job. And I think it means that you actually have folks that are under that are now suspect of using it on the job because you've got this test. They've got to explain it. It's putting them through a whole potential disciplinary activity for doing that. And I just don't think that's a good, good thing. So, again, I'm not going to be able to support this today, but want to thank you for your focus in this area.

Thank you.

Okay. Seeing no other comments, I just, you know, thank the author and the opposition for your words today. This one was hard. I have to acknowledge that I did spend some time going back and forth and really looking at it, I was concerned with the broadness of it, but was glad to see that it was narrowly defined in the Senate. So, you know, have talking to you and try to make it even more narrow by adding the sunset, which is why supporting it today.

But again, cautiously optimistic that you will continue to work with the opposition as we move. I believe this Bill is double referred, so there'll be more time for discussion. And as it heads to the next Committee, if it does. So with that, I think we had a motion in a second. Secretary, please call the roll.

Can I close.

Oh, Senator, would you like to close? I am so sorry.

That's okay, Madam Chair, you have. I waited with Senator Wiener, so you've had your hands full today. So I appreciate you working with me on this Bill to narrow it even further. Again, the building and constructions grade have a complete exemption based on the information from my colleagues from San Diego in the Bay Area.

Their exemption is far more expensive than the one I'm asking for. For law enforcement. Both, I think, are very, very significant industry trades. Again, as I said earlier, operating a piece of equipment could cause detrimental harm to an individual, especially if they're on a highway or freeway or anything like that. And then also law enforcement.

But the law enforcement, this Bill that you have before you is much more narrow than that. Much, much more narrow. And it does have a sunset where the other, the other exemption does not. I appreciate my colleagues comments. I appreciate your comments and your thoughtful discussion with this Bill as well. Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is due passed to Judiciary. [Roll Call].

The measure fails.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can I petition for reconsideration? Is that possible?

Without objection.

Thank you, ma'am. You have a wonderful day. Thank you, colleagues.

Senator Wiener left, so we will give him a call and try to get him back here. Lee. Assembly Member Lee, would you be willing to present for Senator Durazzo? Okay. Item number 11, SB 1460, presented by assemblymember Lee on behalf of Senator Durazzo. Yes. Whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair and fellow Members. SB 1460 will establish standards for access to high paid jobs and safe working conditions in our broadband build out. The Bill supports agreements between state agencies to advance the creation or retention of high quality communication jobs and equitable access through quality training.

California has the highest supplemental poverty rate of all 50 states. The Biden Administration has been clear. The federal investments are meant to impact jobs, the economy, and poverty. They expect states to include strong labor standards and equity when using federal funds. They have issued guidance on community benefits and PLAs and hosted webinars on engaging communities, advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

When California rolled out billions of taxpayer funded middle mile projects, the agencies involved did not include standards that support quality job creation access to those jobs. Instead, they referenced the basic labor laws that are generally applicable to these types of projects. Without strong labor standards, we may end up with a network that is incomplete or cannot be kept running.

And the workers who are available may come through contractors who are not providing the best health and safety training and technical training that is broadband specific. These are workers who run the fiber optic lines, who splice the lines and connect the broadband network to homes. And this too often gets overlooked. A major part of this need is for workers who can maintain and repair the fiber optic lines and network once there is connectivity.

If we do not take steps now to get people into this workforce through interagency coordination, we run the risk of the network not being built out in the front end or not having enough workers to keep it running and repaired in the long run. We need local hires and to pull from high unemployment areas to not only build out broadband, but to build out the middle class. Today, Marc Ellis from CWA Local 9413 and Ignacio Hernandez are here to support testify in support of Senator Durazo's Bill.

Thank you for having me. For the record, my name is Marc Ellis. I'm the President of Communication Workers of America Local 9413. I'm also the point person for the broadband brigade in District 9, which represents California, Nevada and Hawaii. I had a long speech written up, but I'll keep it brief because it's a long day. Real briefly, three things should have happened during the bead process. A, we should be looking to make sure that these jobs stay in California. B, we should make sure that these people are well trained and well paid and well protected. And lastly, we need to make sure that these companies are not out of state companies that come here, put it in cheaply and leave, leaving you guys holding, you know, holding the short end of the stick. So, like I said, I'll bypass my long speech and I'll call it a day. I'm proud to answer any questions.

Ignacio Hernandez, on behalf of the Communication Workers of America, District 9, California, Nevada, Hawaii. I'll also keep it brief. You know, we've done a lot of work over the last year or two trying to get more workers into the broadband workforce, bring those folks, folks back who worked in broadband, who lost their jobs back into the fold, and also trying to recruit new people into this area.

There's going to be a big need now and going forward in broadband, and so we need to take every step possible to build this workforce and get the right folks into the workforce. CWA district nine, for example, has put together a website that will connect workers and potential employers in broadband, but even that won't be enough. So we think this Bill goes a long way. It's a major step, not the only step, but a big step forward, and we ask for support.

Thank you. Do we have additional comments in support.

Madam Chair and Members. Sara Flocks, California Labor Federation, in support.

Tarina Woodson, Local 9400, CWA standing in strong support.

Heladio Saldivar, CWA Local 9421. And I'm one of those workers that does the work to implement the broadband. In strong support.

Jacob Young, CWA Local 9421 out of Sacramento. I'm also a worker that installs broadband, and I'm in support.

Do we have any Members or any comments in opposition? Seeing none. We'll move it to the Members. Oh, we have one. Okay.

Hello, Amanda with CalBroadband, we are in oppose, but we are working with Senator Durazo and hope to get our issues resolved before the next Committee. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate all the brief comments on this Bill. I need a motion in a second. Assemblymember, would you like to close.

On behalf of Senator Durazo, respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Do we have a second? Okay, we have a motion and a second. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is due passed to Communications and Conveyance Committee. [Roll Call].

That measure is out. Okay, now we just have one more. Senator Wiener and I believe he's been contacted, so we will wait.

We can lift the call on item number eight. SB 1089.

[Roll Call]

That measure is out. We'll go ahead and do add-ons.

SB 984 [Roll Call]. SB 1321 [Roll Call]. SB 1100 [Roll Call]. SB 1162, Lee? SB 1162 the consent calendar. [Roll Call]. SB 1303 ops Members? [Roll Call]. SB 1340 [Roll Call]

So we are waiting on Senator Wiener and then we'll be done with our agenda. No, apologies. Thank you for being here, Senator Wiener. Appreciate you returning so promptly. Item number three, SB 988.

Thank you, colleagues. SB 988 is the Freelance Worker Protection Act, providing basic protections for freelance workers to make sure they get paid in a timely manner and have a written contract. We have worked hard with opposition, and I believe we are at a point where we have no opposition, as far as I know, and so I will leave it there and respectfully ask for an aye vote. With me today to testify is Elizabeth Aaron, a freelance writer and editor and member of the National Writers Union, and Shane Gusman from the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council.

Thank you, Senator Wiener. Madam Chair, Committee Members, my name is Elizabeth Aaron. I am a freelance writer and editor in Oakland. I've been freelancing on and off for more than a decade, doing long term and one off projects. In February of 2020, I completed two projects for a client, one under a contract that spanned several years and one that was a short term project. According to the contract and invoice terms, I was owed nearly $3,000 within 30 days of completion. I planned to put the funds toward paying off a debt. Then the pandemic hit.

Everything shut down, and although the clients knew that these payments were going to be coming up, they said that their income had stopped and they couldn't pay me, but would as soon as they could. Although it was a hardship for me, these were unusual times and I had a long standing relationship with these clients, so I expressed my understanding. Yet for 10 months through December of that year, I was strung along despite having my having completed my work and the client having it.

The client made no effort to pay even a portion of what I was owed agreeing to a payment plan, and did not acknowledge the impact their withholding had on me. Luckily, I insisted an attorney drop a contract before the work had begun for the longer project. In that December, I emailed the client about the need for payment, this time copying the attorney. The client finally agreed to pay, albeit on a monthly basis, over the next year. This resulted in added stress, extra time and energy following up on tracking payments and missing the window to use the funds the way that I had planned.

What should have been less than 30 days for full payment became 22 months, and this was still a more, and this is still more positive outcome than many freelancers face in similar situations. Our freelance colleague in Berkeley recently shared how a client ignored her invoice, yet sent her new assignments. In groups for freelance writers that I'm in these circumstances are pervasive. It's important freelancers are protected from losing owed income and any unfair treatment, whether resulting from circumstances that are extenuating like a pandemic or any other reason. This Bill will help ensure freelance workers are able to maintain their livelihoods. It will be the difference between wondering if we'll be able to pay our bills and feeling confident our work and pay agreements will be honored. Thank you.

Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, Shane Gusman on behalf of the Teamsters, we are proud co sponsor of this Bill. In the interest of time, I will just ask for your aye vote in the exploitation of the freelance industry.

Thank you. Are there any witnesses in support or opposition? Seeing none. Bringing it back to the Committee. Any comments or questions? Seeing none. We had a motion in a second, Secretary. Oh, Senator, would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is due passed to Judiciary Committee. [Roll Call].

The measure is out. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Thank you, colleagues.

We will wait on Mr. Zbur to come back in at for add ons.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. Seeing no further business, we are adjourned.