SACRAMENTO — Freelance writers and photographers on Tuesday filed the second legal challenge to a broad new California labor law that they say could put some independent journalists out of business. The law taking effect Jan. 1 aims to give wage and benefit protections to people who work as independent...
Walters: Unions Win Big, to What Avail?
California’s labor unions scored big wins in the just-concluded legislative session — to the surprise of precisely no one. Democrats’ huge gains in last year’s legislative elections, coupled with the election of Gavin Newsom, who had strong union support, as governor, foretold what would happen. The biggest of union victories, Assembly...
Walters: Is There a California Tipping Point to the Abyss?
Circa of America got its start more than a half-century ago, during San Francisco’s Hippie heyday, when Ronaldo Cianciarulo began making and selling leather belts out of his van in the city’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. During several changes of ownership and names, it continued to make belts in a factory in...
Walters: California Unions Win in Politics But Lose Members
One of the more curious anomalies about California is that while labor unions’ political power has increased to virtual hegemony, especially in the last decade, union membership has declined just as sharply. On Labor Day 2019, one can only wonder whether both trends will continue and if so, what the...
Walters: Politicians Mull the Future of Work
The Legislature’s 2019 session will end in two weeks and no issue will have more impact on California’s workers and economic future than Assembly Bill 5 – even if it doesn’t pass. AB 5 would place in law, with some exceptions, a landmark state Supreme Court decision that sharply tightened the legal parameters governing...
Walters: Politicians Mull the Future of Work
The Legislature’s 2019 session will end in two weeks and no issue will have more impact on California’s workers and economic future than Assembly Bill 5 – even if it doesn’t pass. AB 5 would place in law, with some exceptions, a landmark state Supreme Court decision that sharply tightened the legal parameters governing...
Walters: Politicians Mull the Future of Work
The Legislature’s 2019 session will end in two weeks and no issue will have more impact on California’s workers and economic future than Assembly Bill 5 – even if it doesn’t pass. AB 5 would place in law, with some exceptions, a landmark state Supreme Court decision that sharply tightened the legal parameters governing...
Walters: New State Budget a Windfall for Unions
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. Take, for example, Senate Bill 90, the budget’s omnibus education measure. It would allocate $3.1 billion to reduce mandatory payments that...
Assembly Votes to Tighten Rules on Independent Contractors
SACRAMENTO — California residents working for companies like Lyft and Uber would get the rights of employees entitled to a minimum wage and workers compensation under a law the state Assembly passed on Wednesday. The sweeping bill, which now goes to the Senate, carries new standards defining whether workers are...