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The California Legislature on Tuesday handed a invoice aiming to provide staff earlier discover within the occasion of mass layoffs. Subsequent up is Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
The invoice, Meeting Invoice 1356, would lengthen the discover interval of impending layoffs, closure or relocation to 75 days from 60, as required below the California Employee Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act.
Initially the invoice sought to extend the size of discover to 90 days however was amended. The regulation, if enacted, would apply to any employer with 50 or extra staff at a single location.
“That is the largest enlargement of layoff protections for California staff in in all probability 30 years,” mentioned Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), creator of the invoice. “That is one thing all staff deserve once they have this actually disruptive state of affairs of being laid off.”
The laws was impressed by sweeping layoffs at Google, Meta and different tech firms within the final 12 months. Specifically, the haphazard dealing with of layoffs at Twitter after billionaire Elon Musk purchased the corporate in 2022 drew lawsuits from laid-off staff who mentioned they didn’t obtain the notification required by regulation. (Musk not too long ago rebranded the social media platform X.)
Haney mentioned that within the aftermath, he heard from all types of staff at Twitter.
“Everybody from janitors to engineers have been advised to pack their issues and be out by the tip of the week,” Haney mentioned. “They did nothing mistaken.”
Some have been on immigration visas, and instantly apprehensive about having the ability to stay within the nation, pay lease and maintain their households, Haney mentioned.
“We’ve referred to it because the ‘Twitter layoff invoice’ for months,” mentioned Nate Allbee, a Haney spokesperson.
“San Francisco makes lots of concessions with taxes and advantages to get tech firms to return right here,” Allbee mentioned. “But when out of nowhere staff are dropped — it may imply we lose our greatest property, the employees, to different states and cities.”
The measure additionally expands the WARN Act to use to individuals employed by a labor contractor. For the principles to use to staff of labor contractors, they will need to have labored at the least six of the 12 months and at the least 60 hours previous the date on which a mass layoff discover is required. Language within the invoice clarifies that staff of a labor contractor finishing a short lived mission with an outlined finish date are exempt.
Haney had singled out Twitter for, he mentioned, shedding 4,400 of its 5,500 contract staff with out discover or severance, noting that contract staff typically do the identical work as individuals employed instantly by an organization, however they earn much less, get fewer advantages and have much less profession mobility.
The laws additionally prohibits employers from pressuring staff to signal away their rights via waivers, nondisclosure agreements or non-disparagement agreements in trade for severance pay.
A slew of employment payments
The Legislature additionally authorised a invoice on Tuesday to require employers to develop office violence prevention plans.
Final week the Legislature handed Senate Invoice 403, which might amend the California Honest Employment and Housing Act to ban discrimination in opposition to staff based mostly on their caste.
The caste discrimination invoice was partly prompted by allegations that an engineer at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters confronted discrimination as a result of he’s a Dalit Indian. Dalits, as soon as known as “untouchables,” have lengthy been on the backside of India’s social hierarchy and inequities and violence in opposition to Dalits persist in lots of South Asian communities. California regulators sued Cisco over the allegations in 2020.
Main pay boosts for fast-food, healthcare staff
California fast-food staff are poised to win main pay will increase below a deal introduced Monday by SEIU California and fast-food firms, following a multiyear battle over measures the union pushed to spice up pay and enhance situations broadly for low-wage staff at chain eating places throughout the state.
The 2 sides agreed to set a minimal wage of $20 an hour beginning in April 2024 at fast-food restaurant chains with greater than 60 places nationwide. That’s a giant enhance from the state minimal wage, which might be $16 an hour subsequent 12 months.
Underneath the deal, restaurateurs agreed to scrap an industry-supported referendum that halted a regulation looking for to provide fast-food staff a seat on the desk in negotiating higher wages and office situations.
Restaurateurs acquired some issues in return. The deal scuttles metropolis or county efforts to pursue increased wage boosts till the settlement expires in 2029. And a push to carry firms collectively chargeable for franchisees’ labor violations gained’t proceed.
A separate settlement between SEIU California and healthcare {industry} gamers ought to give California healthcare staff a $25 minimal wage, barring any main hiccups. The {industry} agreed to the rise in trade for a 10-year moratorium on native measures that purpose to extend compensation for medical staff, in line with CalMatters.
The deadline to move payments throughout the present session of the California Legislature is Friday. Gov. Newsom can have till Oct. 14 to signal the ultimate batch of payments, approve the payments with out signing them, or veto the payments.
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