{"id":84430,"date":"2025-12-07T00:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T00:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/84430\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T00:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T00:53:09","slug":"new-california-labor-law-could-have-unwanted-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/84430\/","title":{"rendered":"New California labor law could have unwanted consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Two<\/a>A cook preps food restaurant in South Lake Tahoe. (File photo by Salgu Wissmath\/ CalMatters)<\/p>\n

This column\u00a0was originally published by CalMatters.\u00a0Sign up<\/a>\u00a0for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

\"Opinion<\/a><\/p>\n

The California Legislature has a bad habit of writing new law in the moment and paying little or no attention to its potential consequences.<\/p>\n

While legislative history contains many examples, the\u00a0most spectacular occurred three decades ago<\/a>\u00a0when legislators and then-Gov. Pete Wilson massively overhauled how electricity is generated, distributed and priced, telling consumers it would make power more affordable and reliable.<\/p>\n

The real world impact was just the opposite. Power became less reliable, prices skyrocketed and the state\u2019s investor-owned utilities were pushed into insolvency.<\/p>\n

Other examples of unintended consequences in California include launching a bullet train project without comprehensive construction or financial plans, sharply increasing public employee pensions without considering costs and doing the same with unemployment insurance benefits.<\/p>\n

One could also add the current practice of\u00a0draining emergency reserves<\/a>\u00a0to cover budget deficits that result from overestimating revenues and underestimating spending, leaving the state\u2019s finances vulnerable to an inevitable economic downturn.<\/p>\n

Then there is\u00a0Assembly Bill 288<\/a>, one of many measures the Legislature dominated by Democrats and Gov. Gavin Newsom have passed in recent years to thwart \u2014 or so they hope \u2014 President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

AB 288, sponsored by California labor unions and carried by\u00a0Assemblymember Tina McKinnor<\/a>, an Inglewood Democrat, expands the authority of California\u2019s Public Employment Relations Board \u2014 which oversees union-management activities in state and local governments and school districts \u2014 to include private sector employment.<\/p>\n

The bill aims for the Public Employee Relations Board, or PERB, to step into the role performed for many decades by the National Labor Relations Board because, McKinnor and other advocates maintain, the NLRB is frozen by a dispute over its membership.<\/p>\n

Early this year, Trump removed Dwynne Wilcox, the NLRB\u2019s chair, leaving the board without a quorum and unable to decide pending cases. Trump\u2019s action is being fought in the courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019ll just say that if we have no board, no quorum, no board, no justice to state workers, for state workers,\u201d McKinnor\u00a0told the state Senate Judiciary Committee<\/a>\u00a0just before AB 288 passed. \u201cAnd so, we need to make sure that, you know, that PERB can hear these cases, because if there\u2019s no forum for workers to resolve unfair labor practices, then where do they stand?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do we do for them? We can\u2019t just leave them out in the cold because the NLRB doesn\u2019t have a quorum. We also can have loss of union protections, like bargaining rights, organizing protections and reinstatement after retaliation. And so, we can\u2019t have our workers unprotected, because employers will take advantage of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Private employer groups opposed the measure, contending the existence of the NLRB, even though it\u2019s stymied, preempts a state from usurping federal authority.<\/p>\n

Generally, states can legislate on labor relations only in economic sectors not covered by federal law. That\u2019s why, a half-century ago, California could create the public employment board and the Agricultural Labor Relations Board to oversee employment on farms and in food processing plants.<\/p>\n

The NLRB and interests that opposed AB 288 are\u00a0suing in federal court<\/a>, contending that the legislation is illegal under federal law.<\/p>\n

AB 288 represents a potentially disruptive, even dangerous, precedent. Were it to survive the legal challenge, every state would be free to create its own set of laws governing unionization of workers.<\/p>\n

Blue states such as California could virtually mandate unionization of private sector employees, as it already has for public employees and farm workers.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, red states could virtually prohibit unions from organizing workers, to make the states more attractive to industry and insulated from NLRB oversight even if Democrats regain the White House.<\/p>\n

Balkanizing labor-management relations would create chaos in the national economy. It also could potentially work to the overall disadvantage of union organizing efforts. Do California\u2019s unions and their political allies really want to take that chance?<\/p>\n

CalMatters<\/a>\u00a0is a nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization bringing Californians stories that probe, explain and explore solutions to quality of life issues while holding our leaders accountable.<\/p>\n

Want to submit a letter to the editor, guest column or\u00a0opinion\u00a0piece? Find our guidelines and submission form\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A cook preps food restaurant in South Lake Tahoe. (File photo by Salgu Wissmath\/ CalMatters) This column\u00a0was originally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[47667,7,9,8,6752,17463,3001,5187],"class_list":["post-84430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-assembly-bill-288","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-calmatters","tag-labor-law","tag-legislation","tag-national-labor-relations-board"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}