Overview
California employers comply with the most stringent and complex labor laws in the nation and face some of the highest fines and penalties when they fail to do so. As a result, employers are calling for simplification in workplace rules and laws.
Related Business Issue: Managing Employees
Goals
Protect employers' rights to organize, direct and manage their companies' employees in an efficient, safe and productive manner.
Major Victories:
- Stopped costly workplace mandates, such as proposals removing the overtime exemption for agricultural employees (SB 1121) and undermining the process that now guarantees, through secret-ballot elections, a fair vote and the expression of agricultural employees’ true sentiments on the selection of a collective bargaining representative (SB 1474).
- Prevented expansion of employer liability by stopping restrictions on the ability of employers to base employment decisions on the evaluation of all legally available information, including consumer credit reports (AB 482) or a criminal conviction (AB 2727); and an attempt to potentially criminalize almost any legitimate wage dispute with a terminated employee that takes longer than 90 days to resolve (AB 2187).
Issue Summaries
Card Check
Position:
The CalChamber opposes the card check method of unionizing employees and believes that workers are better protected from interference and intimidation by casting their vote privately with a secret ballot instead of through a public authorization card available for anyone to review and/or influence. Card Check 
U.S. Department of Labor Strategic Plan
Position: One of the repeated themes throughout the DOL’s strategic plan is targeting high-risk, fissured industries to identify wage-and-hour violations, such as independent contractor misclassifications. The California Chamber of Commerce supports the DOL’s focus to create “good jobs for everyone” by identifying and penalizing employers who deliberately evade their wage-and-hour responsibilities. The CalChamber is concerned, however, with specifically focusing on misclassification of “independent contractors” due to the continued failure by any state or federal agency to provide a clear, objective definition as to who qualifies as an independent contractor. The CalChamber supports any legislation or regulation that clarifies who may qualify as an independent contractor, yet does not discourage businesses’ use of independent contractors. U.S. Department of Labor Strategic Plan
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