Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Contact: Denise Davis

SACRAMENTO, CA — The California Chamber of Commerce today released its annual list of proposed legislation that threatens to hurt California’s job climate and hamper economic recovery. 

“The first step in an economic recovery program is to do no more harm to the economy,” said Allan Zaremberg, President and CEO of the California Chamber of Commerce. “Proponents of anti-business legislation who think California’s economy can withstand additional pressure from new regulatory and legislative burdens are simply unwilling to accept the unfortunate reality that California has the second highest unemployment rate in the country.”

This year’s list of “job killers” includes 28 proposed laws which threaten California employers with new costly workplace and employee benefit mandates, economic development barriers, regulatory burdens and inflated liability costs. 

“More regulations will lead to more litigation, worsening California’s reputation throughout the world,” said Zaremberg. “We simply cannot allow California to continue to be ranked as having one of the worst business climates in the country.”

The 2011 “job killer” bill list is also available at: www.calchamber.com/jobkillers.

The 2011 “job killer” list follows:

Costly Workplace Mandates

AB 10 (Alejo; D-Watsonville) Automatic Minimum Wage Increase
Creates uncertainty by imposing an automatic indexing of the minimum wage based on inflation whether or not California is in a recession and increases the minimum wage while California struggles to recover from the recession.

AB 22 (Mendoza; D-Artesia) Hampers Employment Decisions
Unfairly limits private employers’ ability to use consumer credit reports for legitimate employment purposes, unless the information in the report is “substantially job-related” and for a “managerial position.”

AB 375 (Skinner; D-Berkeley) Expands Costly Presumptions
Increases workers’ compensation costs for public and private hospitals by presuming certain diseases and injuries are caused by the workplace.

AB 1155 (Alejo; D-Watsonville) Erodes Workers’ Comp Reforms
Increases costs and lawsuits in the workers' compensation system by eroding the apportionment provision that protects an employer from paying for disability that did not arise from work.

SB 104 (Steinberg; D-Sacramento) Increased Agricultural Costs
Attempts to limit employees’ ability to independently and privately vote for unionization in the workplace, by essentially eliminating a secret ballot election and replacing it with the submission of representation cards signed by over 50% of the employees, which leaves employees susceptible to coercion and manipulation by labor organizations.

SB 129 (Leno; D-San Francisco) Employee Safety Risk
Undermines employers' ability to provide a safe and drug-free workplace by establishing a protected classification for employees who utilize medical marijuana.

SB 829 (DeSaulnier; D-Concord) Undermines Employer Rights
Undermines employer rights in California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) citations by allowing private parties to interfere with the appeals process which could impose significant costs on employers, the Cal/OSHA Appeals Board and on Cal/OSHA. 

Economic Development Barriers

AB 350 (Solorio; D-Anaheim) Costly Employee Retention Mandate
Inappropriately alters the employment relationship by requiring any successor contractor for “property services,” defined as licensed security, landscape, window cleaning or food cafeteria services, to retain employees of the former contractor for 90 days and thereafter offer continued employment unless the employees’ performance during the 90-day period was unsatisfactory.

AB 448 (Ammiano; D-San Francisco) Split Roll Property Tax
Undermines the protections of Proposition 13 by redefining the term “change of ownership” for legal entities so that reassessment of such property occurs when, cumulatively, there is a transfer of 100% of the ownership interests in a rolling three-year period.

AB 832 (Ammiano; D-San Francisco) Back Door Tax Increase
Imposes a back door tax on software with a majority vote bill by making it virtually impossible for the owner to show that the software is eligible for a property tax exemption.

AB 1130 (Skinner; D-Berkeley) Small Business Tax Increase
Targeted tax increase on higher income brackets, which will have a detrimental impact on small start-up businesses and discourage growth of such companies in California.

AB 1239 (Furutani; D-South Los Angeles County) Small Business Tax Increase
Targeted tax increase on higher income brackets, which will have a detrimental impact on small start-up businesses and discourage growth of such companies in California.

Employee Benefit Mandates

AB 59 (Swanson; D-Alameda) Family and Medical Leave Expansion
Creates an increased burden on employers and makes a California-only mandated benefit different than the federal family leave act by significantly expanding the category of individuals with serious health conditions for whom an employee can take a leave of absence.

AB 325 (B. Lowenthal; D-Long Beach) Unpaid Bereavement Leave
Adds to California’s reputation of being an overly litigious state by creating a private right of action and mandating an employer to provide an employee with up to four days of unpaid bereavement leave.

AB 400 (Ma; D-San Francisco) Paid Sick Leave Mandate
Unreasonably expands both public and private employers’ costs and liability by mandating employers to provide paid sick leave for employees.

Expensive, Unnecessary Regulatory Burdens

AB 52 (Feuer; D-Los Angeles) Rate Regulation
Imposes implementation fees on health insurers to support additional bureaucracy and to regulate rates without addressing the costs that drive the rates.

AB 638 (Skinner; D-Berkeley) Increased Transportation Costs
Increases costs on consumers and business by mandating an unrealistic reduction of petroleum fuel consumption with an unrealistic increase in alternative fuel consumption to 15% below 2003 levels by 2020.

SB 568 (Lowenthal; D-Long Beach) Polystyrene Food Container Ban
Threatens thousands of manufacturing jobs within the state by inappropriately banning all food vendors from using polystyrene foam food service containers, ignoring the numerous environmental benefits associated with polystyrene products.

SB 761 (Lowenthal; D-Long Beach) Regulatory Burden
Creates an unnecessary, unenforceable and unconstitutional regulatory burden on Internet commerce by indirectly regulating virtually all businesses that collect, use or store information from a website.

Inflated Liability Costs

AB 559 (Swanson; D-Oakland) Undermines Judicial Discretion
Unreasonably increases business litigation costs by limiting judicial discretion to reduce or deny exorbitant attorneys fees in fair employment and housing claims that should have been raised in a limited civil proceeding.

AB 1062 (Dickinson; D-Sacramento) Undermines Efficient Dispute Resolution
Dramatically increases litigation costs for employers by eliminating the right to appeal a court order denying or dismissing a petition to compel arbitration, driving more cases into the courts.

AB 1208 (C. Calderon; D-Montebello) Court Inefficiency
Creates uncertainty, inefficiency and unpredictability for litigants, further aggravating California’s reputation as a bad place to do business, by decentralizing control of trial court funds.

SB 242 (Corbett; D-San Leandro) Technology Sector Liability
Worsens California’s reputation as a highly litigious state by exposing tech-sector employers to unlimited civil liability, and creates an unworkable regulatory scheme with which Internet companies must comply.

In recent days, there have been stepped up efforts by the proponents of anti-business legislation to discredit the job killer designation. Labor-backed front groups have claimed that there is no merit to the job killer tag because more regulations and costs on business do not actually kill jobs. In fact, they claim, more regulations can even help employers. 

“It shouldn’t be any wonder that advocates of pending anti-business legislation are trying to divert attention away from the language of these potential job killing regulations and focus instead on the California Chamber of Commerce because we are willing to stand up for jobs and the economy,” said Zaremberg. “Whatever argument is used to try to undermine the job killer label, the facts remain. Employers are under tremendous stress in this uncertain economy and the cumulative impact of all of the California-only mandates and costs are killing investment here. It is not enough that we have a terrific climate. Employers need certainty. Rather than ignoring the reality of California’s obvious and painful economic situation, we should all be focused on getting California back to work.”

Cumulative Job Killer Vetoes

2010: 43 “job killer” bills identified, 12 sent to Governor, 10 vetoed;

2009: 33 “job killer” bills identified, 6 sent to Governor, 6 vetoed;

2008: 39 “job killer” bills identified, 10 sent to Governor, 9 vetoed;

2007: 30 “job killer” bills identified, 12 sent to Governor, 12 vetoed;

2006: 40 “job killer” bills identified, 11 sent to Governor, 9 vetoed;

2005: 45 “job killer” bills identified, 8 sent to Governor, 7 vetoed;

2004: 23 “job killer” bills identified, 10 sent to Governor, 10 vetoed;

2003: 53 “job killer” bills identified, 13 sent to Governor, 2 vetoed;

2002: 35 “job killer” bills identified, 17 sent to Governor, 5 vetoed

2001: 12 “job killer” bills identified, 5 sent to Governor, 2 vetoed;

2000: No job killers identified. Of 4 bad bills identified at end of session, Governor Davis signs 2 and vetoes 2.

1999: 30 “job killer” bills identified, 9 sent to Governor, 3 vetoed;

1998: 64 “job killer” bills identified, 11 sent to Governor, 11 vetoed.

1997: 57 “job killer” bills identified, 9 sent to Governor, 9 vetoed.

The California Chamber of Commerce (CalChamber) is the largest broad-based business advocate to government in California.  Membership represents one-quarter of the private sector jobs in California and includes firms of all sizes and companies from every industry within the state.  Leveraging our front-line knowledge of laws and regulations, we provide products and services to help businesses comply with both federal and state law.  CalChamber, a not-for-profit organization with roots dating to 1890, promotes international trade and investment in order to stimulate California's economy and create jobs.  Please visit our website at www.calchamber.com.