The Promote Ownership by Workers for Economic Recovery Act.

Existing law, the Cooperative Corporation Law, authorizes the formation of a corporation for any lawful purpose that is organized and conducts its business primarily for the mutual benefit of its members as patrons of the corporation. Existing law authorizes a corporation organized under those provisions to elect to be governed as a worker cooperative, as specified. Existing law creates the Labor and Workforce Development Agency within state government and places the agency under the supervision of the Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development, and provides that the agency consists of, among other entities, the California Workforce Development Board, the Employment Development Department, and the Department of Industrial Relations. Existing law provides specified protections for employees in regard to payment of wages, hours, working conditions, and labor organizations, among other protections. This bill would enact the Promote Ownership by Workers for Economic Recovery Act. The act would establish a panel to conduct a study regarding the creation of an Association of Cooperative Labor Contractors for the purpose of facilitating the growth of democratically run high-road cooperative labor contractors. The bill would require the study to consider specified issues, including how to promote tenets of democratic worker control and ensure that the association's members offer high-road jobs. The bill would require the panel, in preparing the study, to engage in a stakeholder process by which it consults with, at a minimum, organized labor, worker cooperatives, and business groups that can assess the opportunities and challenges associated with expanding workplace democracy. The bill would require the panel to complete the study and make it publicly available on the internet by June 30, 2024.