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Issues and Legislation
The Labor Movement has a plan to invest in California’s future. For the first time in over five years, California is no longer running a deficit. But we can’t grow our economy unless every corporate tax break is put through the jobs test. If tax giveaways don’t create jobs, we should reform or eliminate them.
This is the year to move forward and build the California we believe in, with good jobs, strong communities, and a vibrant economy.
Legislative White Papers
The California Labor Federation has produced a series of White Papers on pressing policy issues impacting union members and the middle class in 2012. Topics include Job Creation, Contingent Work, the Health Benefit Exchange, Unemployment Insurance and Workers' Compensation.
Workers’ Compensation Reform: Undoing the Damage of Schwarzenegger’s Rules
Over ten years ago, California’s employers began to report a substantial rise in the cost of workers’ compensation premiums. Insurers, citing a variety of cost drivers, simply responded with additional increases. The volume of complaints eventually attracted legislative attention and in 2002 and 2003, former Governor Gray Davis signed two sweeping reform packages that forced new rules for medical treatment of injured workers.
Invest in California —California Labor’s Plan for Good Jobs
Californians are—and always have been— visionaries who see no limit to our future. The world looks to us for leadership and we must take that responsibility
seriously. Budget cuts, dwindling investment and a lack of vision for the future have imperiled California’s economy. We cannot cut our way to the future. The way to grow our economy and create good jobs is to invest in California again.
That means investing in the workers of the future—our kids— by giving them the kind of public education that creates the innovative workforce we need to compete in the 21st century. It means investing in worker training today that will give our workers the edge they need to compete. It means raising the revenue to invest in world-class infrastructure—roads, bridges and mass transit—and innovating clean energy technology. It means creating high quality jobs in high road industries that make California a good place to do business and a good place to raise a family.
2012 Legislative Agenda
Labor's 2012 Legislative Agenda focuses on seven key issues: building high-speed rail in California, stopping corporate wage thieves, cutting waste, fraud and abuse in enterprise zone tax giveaways, ensuring corporate fair share for workers' health care, restoring benefits to injured workers, ending discrimination against the unemployed, and stopping foreclosures on families in loan modification.
Build High-Speed Rail in California
The high-speed rail line will bring immediate economic stimulus and long-term economic growth. It will result in thousands of good new jobs in construction and operations, attract businesses to California, and benefit the environment. We cannot afford to lose this opportunity.
Stop Corporate Wage Thieves
Companies that follow state laws shouldn’t have to compete with those that cheat their employees. Today, companies are increasingly using third party labor contractors, like staffing and temporary agencies, to avoid responsibility for wages, hours, and working conditions. We must close loopholes that allow employers to shift and shirk their responsibilities to their workers.
Cut Waste, Fraud and Abuse in Enterprise Zone Tax Giveaways
Every year, the state spends over $500 million on the ineffective enterprise zone tax giveaway program. This program has been proven to create no new jobs. In fact, companies can get these tax credits even if they lay off existing workers to relocate where labor is cheaper. That’s an outrageous use of taxpayer funds and it must be stopped.
Corporate Fair Share for Worker Health Care
With the implementation of health care reform, there are major corporations that pay no tax dollars yet expect taxpayers to subsidize the cost of employees’ health care. We need transparency to figure out which companies aren’t paying their fair share by dumping their workers into the taxpayer subsidized Health Care Exchange.