Existing law requires the Department of Technology to conduct, in coordination with other interagency bodies as it deems appropriate, a comprehensive inventory of all high-risk automated decision systems (ADS) that have been proposed for use, development, or procurement by, or are being used, developed, or procured by, any state agency. Existing law establishes the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, which is composed of various departments responsible for protecting and promoting the rights and interests of workers in California, including the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, led by the Labor Commissioner, within the Department of Industrial Relations. This bill, beginning on July 1, 2027, would prohibit an employer, as defined, from using an ADS to perform certain functions and would limit the purposes for and way in which an ADS may be used. The bill would, when an employer primarily uses an ADS to make a disciplinary or termination decision, authorize an employee to request, and require an employer to provide, a description of the employee's own data primarily used by an ADS to make a disciplinary or termination decision, as specified. The bill would require an employer that primarily relied upon an ADS to make a disciplinary or termination decision to provide the affected employee with a written postuse notice, as specified. This bill would prohibit an employer from discharging, threatening to discharge, demoting, suspending, or in any manner discriminating or retaliating against any employee for taking certain actions asserting their rights under the bill. The bill would authorize the Labor Commissioner to enforce the bill's provisions and also authorize a public prosecutor to bring a civil enforcement action, as specified. The bill would set forth specified types of relief that a plaintiff may seek and specified penalties that an employer that violates these provisions is subject to, including a $500 civil penalty per violation. This bill would also provide that an employer who complies with the requirements related to notice in this bill is not required to comply with any substantially similar provisions under any other state law, except as specified. The bill would not apply to parties covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement if the agreement contains specified information, including an explicit waiver of the bill's provisions. The bill would provide that it does not prohibit the use of an automated decision system relating to the development of aircraft for use in the national airspace or the development of products or services for national security, military, space, or defense purposes, if the use of an automated decision system is reasonably necessary to comply with the federal statute, the federal regulation, or the binding federal contract, as specified. The bill would include a statement that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities. This bill would declare that its provisions are severable.
The California Fair Employment and Housing Act makes specified employment practices unlawful, including the harassment of an employee directly by the employer or indirectly by agents of the employer with the employer's knowledge. Under existing law, the Civil Rights Department administers these provisions. Existing law requires a specified employer with 5 or more employees to, by January 1, 2021, provide at least 2 hours of classroom or other effective interactive training and education regarding sexual harassment to all supervisory employees and at least one hour of classroom or other effective interactive training and education regarding sexual harassment to all nonsupervisory employees in California and, after that date, once every 2 years. Existing law requires an employer to include prevention of abusive conduct as a component of that training and education. This bill would require, beginning on January 1, 2028, if a state agency provides any type of compensation, salary, or stipend to a state agency official of that agency, that all state agency officials of that agency receive training on responding to hate, as prescribed. The bill would define "state agency official" to mean a state elected official for that purpose. The bill would require at least one hour of training and education for a state agency official within the first 6 months of taking office or commencing employment, and every 2 years thereafter. The bill would authorize a state agency or an association of state agencies to offer one or more training courses, or sets of self-study materials with tests, to meet these requirements. The bill would authorize a state agency to develop its own training that meets the requirements or direct elected officials to complete a training developed by the department. The bill would require the department to develop or obtain an online training course on responding to hate and make the course available on its internet website. Existing law requires local agency officials, as defined, to receive sexual harassment prevention training and education if the local agency provides any type of compensation, salary, or stipend to those officials. Existing law requires the training and education to include practical examples aimed at instructing the local agency official in the prevention of sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. This bill would additionally require, beginning on January 1, 2028, the above-described training and education to include for any elected local agency official, as a component of the training and education, anti-hate speech training, as described. The bill would authorize an elected local agency official to take a training developed for state agency officials pursuant to the bill to satisfy the anti-hate speech training requirement. By imposing new requirements on local agencies, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
(1) The California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, administered by the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, generally regulates the disposal, management, and recycling of solid waste. The act establishes stewardship programs for various products, including, among others, carpet. The act includes a product stewardship for carpet program and a successor carpet producer responsibility program, and requires the product stewardship for carpet program to become inoperative upon the completion of certain conditions related to the implementation of the successor carpet producer responsibility program. Existing law, the product stewardship for carpet program, requires a manufacturer of carpets sold in this state, individually or through a carpet stewardship organization, to submit a carpet stewardship plan to the department, which is required to include specified elements, including achieving specified carpet recycling rates and a funding mechanism that provides sufficient funding to carry out the plan. Existing law authorizes the department to administratively impose a civil penalty of $10,000 per day on any person in violation of the program or $25,000 per day if the violation is intentional, knowing, or negligent, as specified. This bill would instead authorize the department to impose administrative, rather than civil, penalties in those amounts, and to impose an administrative penalty of $25,000 per day if the violation is intentional or knowing. Existing law requires a carpet stewardship organization to include nonvoting board members with representation from, among others, a retailer that sells carpet. This bill would instead require the stewardship organization to create a governing board for the stewardship program, with 14 voting members, as specified. Existing law requires a manufacturer of carpets sold in this state, individually or through a carpet stewardship organization, to submit to the department an annual report describing its activities to achieve the purposes of the program, as provided. Existing law authorizes a carpet stewardship organization to award grants and subsidies to incentivize the recycling of carpet materials that have the highest recyclability. This bill would require a carpet stewardship organization to include in its annual report specified information related to the grants and subsidies provided pursuant to the program, as specified. (2) Existing law, the successor carpet producer responsibility program, requires producers of covered products to form and join a single producer responsibility organization (PRO) for the collection and recycling of a covered product. Existing law defines "PRO" to include, among others, the carpet stewardship organization, as defined by the product stewardship for carpet program. Existing law defines a "covered product" as carpet, as defined, and requires the PRO to develop a producer responsibility plan for the collection, transportation, recycling, and the safe and proper management of covered products in the state. This bill would remove the carpet stewardship organization from the definition of PRO. The bill would redefine "carpet" to have the same definition used by the product stewardship for carpet program. Existing law requires an assessment to be added to the price of all covered products sold in the state to fund the program. Existing law also requires the costs of the program to be borne by producers of covered products, as provided. This bill would eliminate the requirement for the costs of the program to be borne by producers of covered products. Existing law requires, no later than January 1, 2029, a person who removes a covered product as part of the installation of a covered product to transport, or contract to transport, all of the removed covered product to an approved collection site, as provided. Under existing law, an approved collection site is a solid waste facility that has agreed to be a collection site for the PRO. This bill would exempt a covered product from this transport requirement if certain conditions are met, including that it is returned to the producer. The bill would recast approved collection sites and would expand them to include certain carpet recycling centers, municipal facilities, and retailers. Existing law requires the governing board of a PRO to include 4 nonvoting members, including, but not limited to, a nonvoting member representing a nonprofit organization established to promote a circular economy and to address environmental issues. Existing law requires the PRO to submit an annual report to the department on or before July 1 of each year, as provided. Existing law requires a producer to publish on its internet website, for each of its covered products, an environmental product declaration that identifies a covered product's components, as provided. This bill would instead require the PRO to create a governing board for the program, with 14 voting members, as specified. The bill would require the annual report to be submitted on or before September 1 of each year, instead of July 1 of each year. The bill would instead require a producer to publish on its internet website, for each of its covered products, the components that constitute more than 1% of the product's weight and any component that is a hazardous chemical, as specified. Existing law requires the PRO to submit to the department an annual report, as specified, and to make the report publicly available on the PRO's internet website. Existing law requires the PRO to provide annual grants to apprenticeship programs for training carpet installers in proper carpet recycling techniques, as provided. This bill would require the PRO to include in its annual report specified information related to the grants and incentive payments provided pursuant to the program, as specified. Existing law requires a producer responsibility plan, among other things, to explain how producers will use standardized stamping or some other means to provide a visual mark on the back of a covered product that is a synthetic material to allow expeditious sorting of the carpet, as provided. This bill would instead require a producer responsibility plan to explain how producers will use standardized stamping or some other means to provide a visual mark on the back of a covered product that provides the name of the producer, the date of manufacture, and a listing of the types of face fibers and backing materials contained in the product. Existing law requires a producer responsibility plan to describe how the PRO will provide free dropoff and convenient collection system for covered products. This bill would require a producer responsibility plan to instead provide the ability for people to drop off postconsumer carpet, free of charge, at collection sites that are open according to a prescribed schedule. Existing law requires a producer responsibility plan to provide annual grants to apprenticeship programs, as provided. This bill would require a producer responsibility plan to additionally allocate $2,000,000 annually to apprenticeship programs operated by labor organizations, as provided. Existing law requires the department to review a submitted producer responsibility plan and to approve or disapprove the producer responsibility plan, as provided. Existing law requires, if the PRO subsequently submits a revised producer responsibility plan and the department disapproves the revised plan, the PRO to revise and resubmit the revised plan consistent with the department's direction. This bill would authorize, rather than require, the PRO to resubmit one additional revised producer responsibility plan if the initial revised plan is disapproved and would delete the requirement for the revised plan to be consistent with the department's direction. Existing law requires a producer responsibility plan in effect as of January 1, 2025, to continue in effect, as provided, until it expires or is revoked, as provided. This bill would repeal this provision. Existing law requires a producer responsibility plan to prioritize expenditure of assessments collected pursuant to the product stewardship for carpet program on activities to carry out the producer responsibility plan, including grants for apprenticeship programs. This bill would instead require a producer responsibility plan to require the expenditure of assessments collected pursuant to the carpet producer responsibility program to be used for activities that support the implementation of the producer responsibility plan, including grants for apprenticeship programs. Existing law authorizes the department to establish, review, and adjust performance standards, which may include, but are not limited to, collection, reduction in disposal, and maximizing recycling. Existing law requires the producer responsibility plan to meet any performance standards published by the department. Existing law requires the department to use sales data to establish the performance standard for recycling carpet, as specified. This bill would eliminate the requirement for the department to use sales data to establish the performance standard for recycling carpet. Existing law authorizes the department to determine the PRO ineligible to act as the PRO if the PRO violates the provisions of the carpet producer responsibility program 3 or more times. This bill would require the above-described violations to be knowing or intentional violations. Existing law requires the department to adopt regulations to implement the program with an effective date no earlier than December 31, 2026. This bill would instead require the department to adopt the regulations no later than January 1, 2029.
Existing law establishes, until July 1, 2027, the Displaced Oil and Gas Worker Pilot Program, to be administered by the Employment Development Department (department) , for the purpose of addressing employment dislocations associated with oil, gas, and related industries. That program requires the department, using funds to be appropriated by the Legislature for purposes of the program, to award grants on a competitive basis to qualified applicants, as specified, for specified eligible activities. This bill would extend the program indefinitely by removing the July 1, 2027, repeal date. The bill would require the department to implement and administer the program only to the extent that funding is appropriated by the Legislature, as specified.
Existing law, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, except as specified, makes it an unlawful employment practice for an employer with 5 or more employees to include on any application for employment, before the employer makes a conditional offer of employment to the applicant, any question that seeks the disclosure of an applicant's conviction history, to consider the conviction history of the applicant until after the employer has made a conditional offer of employment to the applicant, or to distribute information about an arrest not followed by conviction, referral to or participation in a pretrial or posttrial diversion program, or convictions that have been sealed, dismissed, expunged, or statutorily eradicated or any conviction for which the convicted person has received a full pardon or has been issued a certificate of rehabilitation while conducting a conviction history background check in connection with an application for employment, as specified. This bill would define the term "conviction or arrest record," for these purposes. The bill would include among those things that it is unlawful for an employer with 5 or more employees to do while conducting a conviction history background check in connection with an application for employment, asking any question that directly or indirectly seeks consent for a conviction history background check or requesting consent for or beginning a conviction history background check before providing the applicant with a list of all essential job duties, requiring a job applicant to cover the cost of a conviction history background check, or requiring any time before or after the conditional job offer, that an applicant self-disclose conviction history or provide the employer with any documentary evidence related to conviction history or rehabilitation, as specified. Existing law requires an employer that intends to deny an applicant a position of employment solely or in part because of the applicant's conviction history to make an individualized assessment of whether the applicant's conviction history has a direct and adverse relationship with the specific duties of the job that justify denying the applicant the position considering specified factors. This bill, instead, would prohibit an employer from denying an applicant a position of employment or taking any other adverse action solely or in part because of the applicant's conviction history unless the employer first, reasonably and in good faith, demonstrates via an individualized assessment, that the applicant's conviction history has a direct and adverse relationship with the specific duties of the job that justifies denying the applicant the position and it complies with a specified process. The bill would require the employer to commit the results of the individualized assessment to writing if it makes a decision to deny a position of employment or takes any adverse action. The bill would specify that it is not an adverse action for an employer to temporarily suspend an employee, with pay and for a reasonable amount of time, while the employer complies with the requirements of these provisions. Existing law makes these provisions inapplicable to a position as a farm labor contractor, as specified or to a position where an employer or agent thereof is required by any state, federal, or local law to conduct criminal background checks for employment purposes or to restrict employment based on criminal history. This bill would remove the exemption for farm labor contractors.
Existing law establishes the Department of Industrial Relations in the Labor and Workforce Development Agency and provides that one of the functions of the department is to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of California, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment. This bill would require the department, in consultation with the Department of Managed Health Care, the Department of Insurance, the Department of Health Care Access and Information, and the Office of Health Care Affordability, to conduct a comparable worth study to examine and compare compensation and reimbursement for behavioral health providers with compensation and reimbursement for similarly situated medical-surgical providers. The bill would require the study to analyze compensation and reimbursement across specified payment flows, including payments made by health care service plans and health insurers directly to behavioral health providers and medical-surgical providers, and payments made to intermediaries and health systems for behavioral health services and medical-surgical services. The bill would require the department to take certain actions in conducting the study, including developing a methodology for determining which behavioral health provider roles are comparable to which medical-surgical provider roles. The bill would require a health care service plan or health insurer to report certain data to the department with respect to payments made directly to providers and payments made to intermediaries and health systems. The bill would also require specified intermediaries and health systems to report certain data to the department relating to payments received and payments made. The bill would make an entity that fails to comply with the reporting requirements subject to civil penalty, as prescribed. The bill would require the department and the other state entities listed above to protect the confidentiality of any propriety or commercially sensitive information submitted pursuant to the bill, as provided. The bill would require the department, on or before January 1, 2028, to submit a report to the Legislature containing the findings of the study. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.
Existing law, the California Public Employees' Pension Reform Act of 2013 (PEPRA) , on and after January 1, 2013, requires a public retirement system, as defined, to modify its plan or plans to comply with PEPRA, as specified. Among other things, PEPRA prohibits a public employer from offering a defined benefit pension plan exceeding specified retirement formulas, requires new members of public retirement systems to contribute at least a specified amount of the normal cost, as defined, for their defined benefit plans, and prohibits an enhancement of a public employee's retirement formula or benefit adopted after January 1, 2013, from applying to service performed prior to the operative date of the enhancement. PEPRA prohibits a public employer from offering a supplemental defined benefit plan if the public employer did not do so before January 1, 2013, or, if it did, from offering that plan to an additional employee group after that date. This bill would authorize a public employer, as defined, to bargain over contributions for supplemental retirement benefits administered by, or on behalf of, an exclusive bargaining representative of one or more of the public employer's bargaining units, subject to the limitations specified above.
Existing law, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, prohibits various forms of employment and housing discrimination, including various types of discrimination because of national origin. Existing law empowers the Civil Rights Department to investigate and prosecute complaints alleging unlawful practices. Existing labor law also prohibits an employer or other person or entity from engaging in, or to directing another person or entity to engage in, unfair immigration-related practices against a person for exercising specified rights. Existing law defines unfair immigration-related practices for these purposes. Existing law additionally makes it unlawful for an employer to request more or different immigration documents than are required under federal law, to refuse to honor documents tendered that reasonably appear to be genuine, and to take other related actions concerning employee work authorization documents. Existing law authorizes an applicant for employment or an employee who is subject to an unlawful act that is prohibited by these provisions, or a representative of that applicant for employment or employee, to file a complaint with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement. Existing law establishes specified civil penalties for a violation of these provisions. This bill would require each employee, upon request, to be released by their employer for up to 5 unpaid working days within a 12-month period in order to attend appointments, interviews, adjudications, legal proceedings, detainment, or any other meeting at which the employee's presence is required concerning the employee's immigration status, work authorization, visa status, or any other immigration-related matter, as specified. The bill would also require a postintroductory employee, as defined, whose employment has been terminated due to an inability to provide documentation of proper work authorization, to be immediately reinstated to their former classification without loss in seniority, subject to producing proper work authorization, except as provided. The bill would also require an employer, if the employee demonstrates a need for additional time, to rehire the employee into the next available opening in the employee's former classification, as a new hire without retaining seniority, subject to the employee providing proper work authorization and meeting certain other conditions. This bill would require an employer that is notified that an employee has been detained or incarcerated as a result of pending immigration or deportation proceedings, to place the employee on an unpaid leave of absence for a period pending the employee's release from detainment or incarceration and not to exceed 12 months. If the employee is released and provides appropriate work authorization documentation within the period of the authorized unpaid leave of absence, the bill would require the employer to return the employee to their former job classification without loss of seniority, except as specified. This bill would apply the above requirements to a public or private employer, but would exempt a public or private employer with 25 or fewer employees. The bill would prohibit each public or private employer from disciplining, discharging, or discriminating against an employee because of national origin or immigration status, or solely because the employee is subject to immigration or deportation proceedings, except as required to comply with the law. The bill would prohibit an employee subject to immigration or deportation proceedings from being discharged solely because of those proceedings, so long as the employee is authorized to work in the United States. This bill would provide that its provisions do not invalidate a collective bargaining agreement or a memorandum of understanding that contains a provision addressing rehire or reinstatement rights or leave rights regarding employees who are subject to immigration proceedings, nor does it supersede the seniority provisions of a collective bargaining agreement or a memorandum of understanding. The bill would require the Labor Commissioner to enforce the bill's provisions. This bill would make these provisions inoperative on July 1, 2029, and would repeal them on January 1, 2030.
Existing law establishes the Department of Industrial Relations within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency to, among other things, foster, promote, and develop the welfare of wage earners, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment. This bill would, until January 1, 2031, require the department, upon appropriation of funds for this purpose, to establish and maintain the California Workplace Outreach Program to promote awareness of, and compliance with, workplace protections that affect workers. The bill would require the department to issue a competitive request for application for qualified organizations, as defined, to provide education and outreach services to workers and to assist workers to assert their workplace rights. This bill would require the department to guide discussions with qualified organizations regarding priority topics for outreach and education and to consult with those organizations and the Labor and Workforce Development Agency and, as relevant, its departments and boards to create education and outreach materials informing workers of their rights on priority topics and training materials for workers and organizations. The bill would require the materials to be translated into non-English languages, to be determined by the department in consultation with each qualified organization, as appropriate for the geographic region the qualified organization serves, and would require the materials to be made in consultation and collaboration with the Civil Rights Department if those materials involve protections under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act or certain other statutes. The bill would require the department and qualified organizations to meet at least twice a year to coordinate outreach and education efforts and for qualified organizations to share information relevant to enforcement activities of the department.
Existing law declares every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind to be void, except as expressly provided. Existing law provides for a system of labor standards enforcement administered by the Labor Commissioner. This bill would, for contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2026, make it unlawful to include in any employment contract, or to require a worker to execute as a condition of employment or a work relationship a contract that includes, specified contract terms, including a term that requires the worker to pay an employer, training provider, or debt collector for a debt if the worker's employment or work relationship with a specific employer terminates. The bill would declare these contracts as contracts that restrain a person from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business, and as void and contrary to public policy, except as provided. This bill would authorize a worker who has been subjected to the above-described prohibited conduct regarding a contract or its terms or a work representative to bring an action on behalf of that worker, other persons similarly situated, or both, in any court of competent jurisdiction. The bill would make a person who violates these provisions liable for specified civil penalties and relief.
