San Francisco Bay Area - Labor & Employment Committee - National Lawyers Guild

Miriam Pawel is an award-winning reporter and editor who spent twentyfive years working for Newsday and the Los Angeles Times.  She was recently an Alice Patterson Foundation fellow and a John Jacobs Fellow at the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies.

This event is sponsored by the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law and the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Email bjell@law.berkeley.edu with any questions.

Today  two "people-killer" bills were defeated in Sacramento.   Attorneys joined worker advocates to testify against SBX8 66 and SBX8 70, which would undercut labor rules guarding the 8-hour workday and meal breaks. Both bills were defeated along party lines.  Labor Chairman Mark DeSaulnier (D-Martinez), Senator Denise Ducheny (D-San Diego) and Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) should be commended for standing up for  workers.

Governor Schwarzenegger signed the following bills into law. In a year of tremendous hardship for working families, these bills represent some important gains for California's workers.

• Right for injured workers to see their own doctors - SB 186 (DeSaulnier).  A worker's right to predesignate and be treated by her/his own doctors if injured on the job was going to sunset at the end of 2009. SB 186 makes doctor predesignation a permanent right, allowing union members to continue to be able to seek treatment from their own doctors. Schwarzenegger's 2004 workers' compensation reforms had allowed employers to create their own medical provider networks and forced injured workers to see the "company doctor."
  
• Car wash registry - AB 236 (Swanson).  In 2004, the Legislature created a Car Wash Registry to assist in enforcing labor laws in an industry rife with blatant and widespread abuses of low-wage workers. But when workers' rights were violated, companies would simply close up shop and reopen under new names to avoid liability. AB 236 extends the Registry program requiring car wash owners to register with the state and post a two-year bond. This program has resulted in unprecedented organizing among car wash workers who want to make a better life for their families. It has also led to a significant increase in state enforcement activities to protect these vulnerable workers.
  
• Mortgage lending reform - AB 260 (Lieu).  Working families have been hit hard by the foreclosure free-fall, triggered by unregulated, irresponsible lending practices. One of the most abusive practices is called steering, in which families who qualified for lower risk loans were steered into subprime, riskier mortgages because the broker got a financial incentive for it from the bank. AB 260 bans broker steering, requires brokers to put the interest of the borrower ahead of their own financial interest, and prohibits some of the loan products that led to record foreclosure rates.
  
• Workers' Compensation Database - AB 483 (Buchanan).  One of the ways unscrupulous businesses cheat is by not carrying workers' compensation coverage. This bill helps to crack down on such fraud by establishing a publicly searchable database of employers and their workers' comp insurer. The Department of Insurance will create this database by January 1, 2011. This bill will protect injured workers, responsible businesses, and the state from the costs of workers' compensation fraud.
  

Several other worker-friendly bills were vetoed:

• AB 838 (Swanson) would have required Cal-OSHA to develop a heat safety standard to protect workers in hot indoor workplaces.
• AB 943 (Mendoza) would have prevented employers from using credit reports to deny employment opportunities.
• AB 1276 (Skinner) would have required legislative approval before the Governor could bind California to international trade agreements.

Click here for the website of the SF Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.