Assembly Standing Committee on Labor and Employment

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Assembly labor and employment Committee hearing. 3-19-25. In order to facilitate the goal of this hearing as much from the public, within the limits of our time, we will not permit conduct that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of legislative proceedings.

Commenters who impede the orderly conduct of this meeting may be ruled out of order and may be removed. Announcements. A reminder of our witness policy. For each Bill, we will take two. 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 will ask that you state your name, affiliation and position on the Bill. Now we will establish quorum or. Secretary, please call the roll to establish the quorum.

[Roll Call]

May I get a motion and a second for the adoption of the Committee rules? Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The rules are adopted. May I get a motion and a second on the consent calendar?

[Roll Call]

The motion passes. We will now move on to Bill presentations. I see Assembly Member Berman ready and eager to go. AB538.

Yeah. Thank you, Chair Ortega and colleagues, I'm proud to present AB 538, a bill to continue the Legislature's commitment to prevailing wage and ensuring that workers are paid what they are rightfully owed. Certified payroll records are essential to ensure compliance with prevailing wage requirements on public works projects.

Existing law allows the public to request payroll record records from the awarding body or the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement. While the process for requests made to the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement is clear, statute does not provide guidance on requests made to the awarding agency.

There have been an increasing number of instances where the awarding body has not provided payroll records simply because they do not have the records in their possession at the time of the request. In response to this, AB 538 would establish a process and timeline for awarding bodies to receive certified payroll records from the contractor.

Importantly, this bill would not place additional liability on the awarding body if the contractor fails to provide these records. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote. And with me today is Matt Cremins, Director of the California Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman and members. Matt Cremins here on behalf of the California Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers. We are the proud sponsors of AB 538, which seeks to provide some statutory clarity related to the existing process that the public goes through to receive copies of certified payroll records.

I think it's important to start with existing law around this topic, which clearly outlines an awarding agency's obligation to, at a minimum, know what's going on with their public works project, but also outlines how they're to respond to public inquiries into their projects. Under existing law, awarding bodies of public works projects are required to take cognizance in ensuring that all laws are properly followed and they're expected to report any violations of laws to the Labor Commissioner.

Additionally, under existing law, there are only three entities who can go directly to a contractor to receive a copy of a certified payroll, with one, being an employee on the project, two, being the awarding agency of the project, and three, being the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

Further, existing law establishes a process for the public to receive copies of certified payroll records. However, the public is prohibited from going to the contractor directly to receive these records. Instead, existing law mandates that the public must either ask for the record through the awarding agency or through the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

As noted by Mr. Berman, recently, labor compliance entities have noted increasing instances of awarding agencies rejecting these requests simply because they don't have the record on hand at the time the request is made. In many of these situations, awarding agencies have been directing the public to either go to the DLSE or to go to the contractor directly, which, as the committee analysis stated, is a violation of existing law.

So with that being said, this bill simply seeks to clarify that when the public makes a lawful record request through an awarding body for a public works payroll record, the awarding body must, at a minimum, make an attempt to get the record. And again, it's important to note that this bill would not hold the warning bodies liable should they be unable to get the record from the contractor. It would simply make it so they have to notify DLSE of the contractor's failure to comply. Happy to answer any questions or concerns and when the time is appropriate, would respectfully request your aye vote.

Do you have, now it's time for support witnesses. You may come up to the mic.

Good afternoon, Madam 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.

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

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

Seeing no other witnesses in support. Do we have any opposition? Please come up.

Good afternoon, Eric Lawyer, speaking on behalf of the California State Association of Counties. We're in respectful opposition to the bill. We certainly understand and can sympathize with the purpose behind the bill. Our concerns mostly relate to this bill placing an unnecessary burden on counties, cities, and special districts to seek out these records.

And frankly, we feel that the goals of this bill could be better achieved by placing that requirement to seek out records on the Department of Labor Standards and Enforcement because they have the authority to impose penalties. And this bdlill requires counties, cities and special districts to notify DLSE if a contractor is unresponsive in the first place.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members. Graciela Castillo-Krings here on behalf of the California Housing Consortium in regrettable opposition to this bill. We agree with the author that payroll records are important to ensure that workers are not underpaid. CHC has two main concerns with the bill. The first one is privacy.

Certified payroll records are furnished and on forms provided by the Division of Labor Standards and Enforcement. When these are made public, the records are fully redacted to ensure that all identifiable employee information, such as the name, phone number, address, Social Security number, or the contractor's federal ID are removed.

Under this bill, it's unclear how those protections would continue to move forward, and we worry about what could happen if inadvertently some of this information is made public. Secondly, under the bill, the way that it's structured, the person that actually is held accountable would be the person who is receiving the funds and in this case would be an affordable housing developer for CHC.

And we are concerned that right now, given everything we're trying to do to ensure that additional affordable units are created, if somehow the contractor does something wrong, even though the affordable housing provider does nothing that is wrong, that their actual funds would be placed in jeopardy.

So we are concerned and we agree with CSAC about making sure that the law continues to be as is. And I wish the website was up and running. It's unfortunate that it's not. And with that, I thank you for listening to my concerns.

Thank you. Do we have additional witnesses in opposition?

Steven Stenzler with Brownstein on behalf of Housing California, in respectful opposition.

Waleed Hojeij with the League of California Cities, in respectful opposition.

Sarah Dukett on behalf of the Rural County Representatives of California, the Urban Counties of California, and the California Special District Association, in respectful opposition.

Mark Stivers with the California Housing Partnership, in opposition for the reasons expressed by Ms. Castillo-Krings. Thank you.

Seeing no other witnesses in opposition, I will now turn it over to the members. Yes, Mr. Kalra.

Thank you. First, I'd like to move the bill, and secondly, I think this bill makes a lot of sense, having come from local government, like many of our colleagues on these public works projects. Look, at the end of the day, this is taxpayer money and you're providing or requiring pavilion wage as well as other requirements that oftentimes come as part of the public works project. I think there is an obligation for the, for the jurisdiction to ensure that these rules are being complied with.

And so I think it makes a lot more sense rather than adding something else to DLSE onto their desk to do, especially at the local jurisdiction, the contractors there working locally. I think it's much more easily from a pragmatic point of view, as well as accessibility to the general public in that jurisdiction, to get it from the local jurisdiction that is awarding the public works project. So I think this makes a lot of sense. I can understand some of the concerns.

I think that I don't think it will be as challenging to comply with given the fact that in these projects there are volumes and volumes of records that are required, not just in the application process, but during the performance of the project.

And so I think that, you know, that communication between the, the public entity and the contractor is pretty regular during the course of the construction of these, what are generally pretty large projects or large endeavors for those jurisdictions. So I think that I understand some of the concerns. I think the bill will handle it, I don't think it's going to be an undue burden. And so for those reasons, I definitely support this.

Assemblymember Ward.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for bringing the bill forward. Because I understand the intent that you're trying to solve here that is based on the experience that you're having that has been through fault of others, you know, unacceptable.

And you're creating a new pathway to be able to achieve what we want ultimately for the workers and forgetting the pay. And I wonder if you would take the opportunity then, I guess, to sort of respond from your point of view or your observations about the feasibility and the implementation of this proposal here.

You know, listening and understanding certainly of local government's interest to be able to have the capacity, capacity to handle this and, you know, otherwise looking at some of the workload issues that would be imposed on them through this and how you see that as solvable.

But I'm particularly concerned with those in the affordable housing industry that I have got deep reverence for and the mission that they're trying to accomplish here. And if what opposition is saying here is true, I wouldn't want, there does seem to be maybe an element of unfairness there.

If the solution here is somehow targeting the recipient of that funding but not the actual contractor doing the work, which is somebody that is the source of the problem here. And how to reconcile this without again putting the burden on, you know, that might come at the compromise of the ability to fully pencil out the units that we want produced?

No, it's a great question and definitely appreciate the concerns that have been raised and want to state up front that very open to conversations for improving the language in the bill to make sure that there aren't unintended burdens placed on good actors. You know, and like you, Assemblymember Ward, I consider affordable housing developers to be the best actors, but we also need to make sure that they and their contractors are paying prevailing wage to their workers.

And so, you know, I consider the bill to be a pretty narrow fix to a pretty narrow problem, which is that not changing existing law. Existing law allows the public and others to request payroll records either from the awarding body or the Division of Labor Standards and enforcement.

That's kind of useless if the awarding body doesn't have the payroll records. And so and it shouldn't be too much to say, you know, hey, awarding body, you know, here's a timeline and a process by which you need to request those payroll records from your contractors, from, you know, the people that you public agency have contracted with to build this project.

So that's really, you know, all the bill is trying to accomplish is making sure that it's not okay for the public agent, for the awarding body to just say, oh, sorry, we don't have them, like there's nothing we can do about that. You as an awarding body have a responsibility to get those payroll records, want to have those payroll records and, and to request them. If, if you don't have them, I'll, you know, let Mr. Cremins talk a little bit about some of the specific concerns that have been raised. And you know, if there's opportunities to tighten the language to avoid those unintended.

Before you do that, without losing my train of thought on this point here, I wonder for the opposition for Castillo-Krings, you know, if as an awarding body then there are contractors out there that are actually employing those employees who are doing the work. And you were stating that a lot of these records might have information that's been redacted.

Like, what do you see from your client's perspective as the ability to, well, hopefully on the front end maybe actually know should this actually become law in this form, you know, that maybe we were upping our standards to be able to require that of contractors in the first place to ease the burden of getting information so that you'd be able to quickly comply. Again, if you're the subject of somebody that's being requested this information.

No. Thank you for that question. I think the concern for us is that the way that the current structure exists under the bill, if the awarding body is not able to get that information from the contractor, it would actually be then the state can come in and actually any amount that is due basically garner it from the next payment. Right, and so from our perspective, if an affordable houser is waiting for that payment and again, nothing that they're doing wrong, the contractor is the one that is not in compliance.

But for that funding, then to be held hostage, that would be a problem, especially when we're trying to move forward with the contract with the timeline and whatnot. And so that is a concern. Would be very open. I know your office has been great in meeting with us, and so we'd love to continue those conversations.

I love hearing that. Of course, we hear that partnership all the time with this author. So those would be some of my concerns. From a labor perspective, this makes absolute sense because something is not working here today. And we've got to make sure that we're tightening things up to get them what's due, and we'll find that pathway. And I just want to see how this evolves as well as it moves forward. I'm happy to support the bill today. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from the committee? So we had a motion and a second with an aye recommendation from myself. So, Secretary, could you please. Oh, would you like to close?

Appreciate the conversation. Looking forward to more with stakeholders. Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you.

[Roll Call]

That measure is out. Thank you.

Thank you.

I do not see Assembly Member McKinnor. So as a chair, I will call myself up to present my own bill and ask Mr. Kalra to chair the committee.

All right, so we have AB 485 by Chair Ortega. We have a motion on the floor already. Wow. Whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, members. I am pleased to present AB485, which will help workers collect on their wage theft judgments. Even when workers prevail in their wage theft claims, they are often unsuccessful in recovering the stolen money.

According to the California State Auditor, between 2018 and 2023, the Labor Commissioner's Judgment Enforcement Unit recovered the entire amount owed in just 12% of the cases that were referred to them. A 2022 CalMatters investigation found that overall, employers pay only one in seven court issued judgments.

This bill simply says that if you are an employer who steals from workers, the state will not continue to license your business. If you are an employer who has an outstanding wage theft judgment or judgments, state agencies will deny your application for new business license or for renewal of a current license.

The law already prohibits employers with outstanding wage theft judgments from operating in the state unless they obtain a surety bond or reach an accord with the affected employee to satisfy the judgment. This bill simply provides an effective enforcement mechanism since we cannot rely on these bad actors to enforce the law against themselves.

I want to be clear that the goal of this bill is not to close businesses, but to encourage compliance with labor and wage laws and to make sure that employees can recover stolen wages when they do not.

Similar policies are in place in many cities across the Bay Area, including in Santa Clara County, where the county suspends food health permits for employers with outstanding wage theft judgments. The Santa Clara program has been highly successful at encouraging compliance with the county, only having to briefly suspend one employer's permit.

All others quickly paid their judgments once failed, faced with losing their permits. Similar policies exist in San Diego County as well in the State of New Jersey.

I would like to turn it over now to my witness, Tess Prillante of the Santa Clara County Wage Theft Coalition to share her experience with wage theft when she worked at a residential care facility.

Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Teresa Brilliante. I am speaking on behalf of Santa Clara County Wage Staff Coalition in support of AB485. I have been a caregiver for almost nine years. I have worked in residential care facilities as a caregiver and I now work in a hospital as CNA.

Four years ago, a co worker and I got up the courage to file wage theft claims against one of our previous employers at the Office of Labor Commission. I had been working for an agency for two years taking care of a client with advanced dementia. 12 hours every night.

We were paid only the minimum wage for the 12 hours we worked, but received no pay for overtime and no meals or rest breaks. It took us eight months to get paid what was owed to us by the agency. I was one of the fortunate caregivers because my claims were paid out.

There are so many caregivers I know who filed wage theft claims at the Labor Commission that have won their cases and that are still waiting to collect from the employers. Care homeowners know that they don't have to pay claims because there will be no consequences if they don't pay.

An LA Times article entitled California Regulators Are Taking Action Against Care Homes that Cheated Workers cites data from the Center for Investigative Reporting that shows that no action is taken by the regulators if care homeowners don't pay judgments. The article ends with the following quote.

Making the denial or revocation of licenses a requirement when there are unpaid judgments would go a long way in combating rampant wage theft in California. And it would also address the widespread challenge in collecting wage theft judgment. AB485 does just that.

We need AB485 so care homeowners that if they don't pay wage theft claims, they won't be able to get a license from the state to open a business and won't be able to renew their license.

We need AB485 to ensure that caregivers and all other workers in industries that require state licenses and permits are paid the wages they are owed. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here in support of AB485?

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Marty Lopez with the California Nurses Association in support, thank you.

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.

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

Sandra Barreiro on behalf of SEIU California in support.

Meyer Khan Malimban on behalf of Filipino Association for Workers and Immigrants in support.

Is there anyone here in opposition to AB485?

Kaylyn Dean, on behalf of the California Hospital Association in regrettable opposition to AB485. California. Thank you. California hospitals are committed to delivering high-quality access to care for our patients, for the communities that we serve, as well as competitive wages for the workers that we employ. We do not condone wage theft.

However, we are concerned with the bill's ability to put a hospital's license at risk, thereby threatening patients access to care. So we look forward to working with the author's office through the Committee and continuing conversations. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else here in opposition to AB485? Any comments from Committee? Well, I'll go ahead and make the motion we already have on the floor. Right. Yeah. Okay. And just thank you for bringing this forward. And I'm very grateful to have representative of the Santa Clara County Wage Theft Coalition here.

I remember when that policy went into effect. It has been incredibly successful and in part because we know that and this comes up a lot that you know, going through the labor Commissioner and filing a claim can take months or even years if any result happens at all for the worker.

And workers for the most part don't have the resources to hire a private lawyer. Private lawyer to go through that process. So one of the few areas of leverage that exists is the licensing or permit to operate. And at the end of the day, if you have an outside signing judgment, you pay it.

And so there's no one else to blame if a permit gets a hold, gets upheld, other than the entity that owes an outside outstanding judgment for non payment for wages. And so that should be a non starter when it comes to the kind of conduct that employers have.

And so for that reason I certainly support it and would love to be added as a co author. Absolutely. Any other Madam Chair, would you like to close?

Yes. Thank you, assemblymember Kalra. And absolutely would love to have you and any others as co-authors in regards to the opposition. I mean, again, this bill's very simple. If you pay the workers, then you won't lose your license. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

The motion is do pass to appropriations. [aye vote]

Thank you. Thank you. It we will do add ons for the consent calendar. Secretary.

Consent calendar is AB 345. [Roll Call]

We are waiting on Assembly Member Mckinnor to return to the hearing room and we can continue our Committee hearing. Okay, thank you. Assembly Member Mckinnor. We will now move forward with AB596 whenever you are ready.

I am here to present AB596 which seeks to uphold critical worker safety protections by ensuring that employees have the right to wear a face covering at work unless it poses a safety hazard.

During the Covid 19 epidemic Cal OSHA implemented workplace safety standards to protect workers from airborne illnesses, including the right to wear a mask even when not required. However, these protections expired on February 3, 2025 leaving workers vulnerable to employer imposed mask restrictions.

As we have already seen in other states, AB596 will codify this protection into law, ensuring that no employer may prohibit an employee from wearing a mask or respirator unless it creates a direct safety hazard. This bill is a simple, yet essential step to protect worker health, prevent employer overreach, and maintain California's leadership in workplace safety.

This measure does not impose new cost on employers. It simply preserves an existent existing right that has helped keep workers safe and empowered. At its core, AB596 prioritized personnel health autonomy, workplace safety and preparedness for the future public health risk. Listen, my mother is super allergic to everything, you guys. She can't smell anything. Food smells, perfume, flowers.

And when she worked, she worked at it for a television station, KCET. And she wore her mask. Before the pandemic, she wore her mask and she still wears her mask. She's retired now, but it would have been a shame for them to force her not to wear her mask because she needed for her health.

And so with me today to testify in support of this bill is Tim Steed from the Orange County Employees Association and Elmer Lazarda, Lizardi from California Federation of Labor Unions.

Hi. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and honorable Committee Members. My name is Tim Steed. I'm the assistant General manager at the Orange County Employees Association. OCEA represents approximately 18,000 public servants in the County of Orange. And these are public health nurses, social workers, frontline city workers, and quite frankly, everything else under the public servant sector.

Until recently, our Members were able to wear masks in the workplace as a part of the Covid 19 safety standard. As just indicated, that has just recently expired. So we support this Bill because it codifies just that portion into law and will allow anybody to wear a mask at work if they so choose.

Now, our Members have numerous reasons for wanting to wear a mask. They themselves might not want to get someone sick. They might have a loved one at home who's immunocompromised. Could be because of the wildfires in the region. They just want to protect the air quality.

Any one of those reasons are reason enough for a worker to want to wear a mask at work without employer interference. And it's for all those reasons that we respect that we ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Ortega and Members. Elmer Lizardi here with the California Federation of Labor Unions. We're proud to co sponsor AB596 to ensure the workers right to protect themselves from illness, air pollution and wildfire smoke wearing a mask in the workplace.

As mentioned, the pandemic combined with the increasingly frequent and destructive wildfires have highlighted the importance of PPE and its efficacy in protecting workers from both respiratory virus exposure and also immediate and long term health consequences from smoke inhalation.

And that's why this bill is so important, because we know that we're going to continue to see wildfires in the future. We know that we're going to continue to see viruses spread regardless of whether or not we are in a State of emergency.

And we appreciate the analysis highlighting the fact with the data around seasonal influenza, because having it reach its highest intensity in at least 15 years and causing over 900 deaths perfectly illustrates that even if other common respiratory viruses are not making headlines, they are still impacting people every day.

And obviously, as Tim mentioned, this is especially true for those who are immunocompromised. It is also important to note that as we continue to struggle with health and safety law enforcement, that one of the best ways to stop violations is to empower workers to protect themselves whenever possible.

Not only does it help reduce the burden on our understaffed agencies, but it also helps protect workers from harm by preventing it altogether. And ultimately, workers know their bodies best and protecting their own health and longevity with something as simple as a mask should continue to be an option for those workers at every work site.

And we know that SB594 will ensure that they have that option moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have additional comments in support?

Good afternoon, Madam Chair Members. Marty Lopez with the California Nurses Association in support.

Mitch Steiger with CFT, a union of educators and classified professionals.

Also in support, Navneet Puryear on behalf of the California School Employees Association, in support.

Sandra Barrero on behalf of SEIU California, in support.

Okay, I was like, which one are you? Thank you. Now we'll have comments in opposition.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Robert Mutri, the California Chamber of Commerce. We are respectfully and very narrowly opposed to AB596. I want to be clear, we absolutely appreciate the office intent here.

We certainly do not contest the potential benefits of wearing a mask, you know, and you know, for yourself and for others, particularly the efficacy of masks in slowing the spread of disease.

In fact, I, you know, rarely get to say this, but agree with almost all the statements said, particularly, you know, the rights of workers and the importance of that.

Our narrow concern here is that looking to the Covid 19 regulation, even where the Covid 19 regulation compelled the use of masks, which it did do right in certain circumstances, post outbreak situations like that, even that regulation recognized that certain job duties would not be feasible with MAS and allowed a very narrow exception for those moments and again not for the whole job, but just for the moments you're doing the infeasible task.

That exception was noted in subsection F of the Covid regulation in one of the portions that's no longer in effect is where I'm referring to. So absolutely agree with the concerns and certainly do not oppose masks.

We're just here to try to work with the author to make sure that where it becomes a feasibility issue, we can have a narrow exemption on that. So look forward to working with the author and sponsors on it. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have additional comments in opposition? Seeing none. I will move it to the Committee. Any questions or comments? We have a motion and a second. Oh yes, Assembly Member Chen. Also welcome to the Labor and Employment Committee.

It's an honor to be here. Madam Chair. Look forward to learning from you as always. Really want to say thank you Mckinnon for bringing this Bill up. I know that you have been incredible working with Chamber of Commerce and the opposition on finding language that can move forward that is more feasible for the chamber.

But also want to say that you brought your 800 pound gorilla. Tim Steed, one of my favorite people from OCEA, the mighty OCEA and I just basically do whatever he says. So I want to thank Mr. Tim Steed for coming from Orange County to be here today and happy to support your incredible bill.

Thank you for all that you do.

Thank you.

Seeing no additional comments I will go ahead and we have a motion a second with a recommendation for an Aye vote. Secretary, please call the roll. Oh, would you like to close? I always forget this part.

I do too sometime. I look forward to working with stakeholders to see if we, you know to come to a a more feasible tighter bill that everybody can kind of agree with. So this bill is simply reinforces a protection that workers have relied on for years. I respectfully ask for your Aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you and thanks for your patience as I get going on this again. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is do pass to appropriate abbreviations. [Roll Call]

That measure is out. Thank you.

Thank you.

No we won't. Yes, we'll keep the roll open for absent Members. So, Ms. Elwari.

[Roll Call]

We are now adjourned with labor and employment.