Published
4 years agoon
The state budget package Democratic legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom just enacted is sprinkled with billions of dollars in extra goodies for their most important political constituency, labor unions.
SB 75 also allocates $10 million to create records on childcare workers, with the stated goal of making it easier for the Service Employees International Union or some other labor organization to organize them in the future.
The state is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into expanding what’s called “early childhood education” and unions see the child care industry as ripe for unionization.
It’s similar to what happened a couple of decades ago when workers who care for the elderly and disabled under the federal-state In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program were designated as employees who could be unionized.
Speaking of which, still another budget trailer bill, Senate Bill 80, would impose financial penalties on counties that don’t reach a contract agreement with IHSS worker unions, thus giving them leverage in negotiations.
The biggest labor bill of the year, however, is not attached to the budget. Assembly Bill 5 would lock into law a ruling by the state Supreme Court that several million workers who have been treated as contractors must become payroll employees with the attendant benefits and, of course, the potential to be unionized.
Unions sought the ruling, saying workers misclassified as contractors were being exploited, citing drivers for on-call transportation services such as Uber and Lyft as examples.
Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He has written more than 9,000 columns about the state and its politics and is the founding editor of the “California Political Almanac.” Dan has also been a frequent guest on national television news shows, commenting on California issues and policies.
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