Four California Chamber of Commerce-opposed job killer bills will be heard in policy committees today.
Increased Labor Costs
- AB 357 (Chiu; D-San Francisco) Predictable Scheduling Mandate/Protected Leave of Absence — Imposes an unfair, one-size fits all, two-week notice scheduling mandate on certain retail and food employers that penalizes these employers with “additional pay” for making changes to the schedule with less than two weeks notice, and additionally imposes new, protected leave of absence from work as well as a broad new protected class of employees who are receiving public assistance or have an identified family member receiving such assistance. Assembly Labor and Employment Committee.
- SB 406 (Jackson; D–Santa Barbara) Significant Expansion of California Family Rights Act — Creates less conformity with federal law by dramatically reducing the employee threshold from 50 to less than 5 employees and expanding the family members for whom leave may be taken, which will provide a California-only, separate 12-week protected leave of absence for both small and large employers to administer, thereby increasing costs and risk of litigation. Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee.
- SB 563 (Pan; D-Sacramento) Significant Increase in Workers’ Compensation Costs — Exposes injured workers to potentially inappropriate treatment, undercuts the recent workers’ compensation reforms, and significantly increases workers compensation costs by eliminating the Utilization Review and Independent Medical Review process for many treatment requests. Senate Labor and Industrial Relations.
Increased Health Care Costs
- SB 546 (Leno; D-San Francisco) Health Care Rate Regulation — Threatens employers with higher premiums and interferes with their ability to negotiate with health plans by imposing unnecessary and burdensome new reporting requirements on health plans and insurers in the large group market, and giving the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance authority to modify or deny all rate changes in the large group market. Senate Health Committee
