News

“A California governor is asked to sign historic, far-reaching legislation that could have unknown consequences — and tells the Legislature he will only go along if there is an escape clause that can be used if the law causes economic mayhem. That’s what happened in 2006 when Arnold Schwarzenegger worked with legislative leaders to shape Assembly Bill 32, the landmark law forcing a shift to cleaner, costlier sources of energy. And it’s what happened in the last month with Jerry Brown and the bill increasing the state’s minimum wage steadily until it reaches $15 an hour in 2022, which Brown signed Monday.”

“Gov. Jerry Brown will sign legislation Monday increasing California’s paid family leave benefits for people who take time off to bond with a new child or care for a sick relative, his office said Friday. . . The state’s Economic Development Department estimates increased payments of $348 million in that first year, rising to $587 million by 2021.

Since 2008, the CalChamber has identified bills that will encourage employers to invest resources back into the economy and local communities rather than spend them on unnecessary government-imposed costs.

This letter to Honorable Tom Lackey, Assembly Member, 36th District, estimates the effects of including transportation fuels in California’s cap-and-trade program on: (1) the retail price of gasoline and diesel fuel and (2) the additional amount motorists are spending on gasoline and diesel fuel as a result of the program.

The Bay State, which hiked its minimum wage from $8 to $9 at the start of 2015 and to $10 on the first day of 2016, is now mired in its longest stretch of net job losses since the recession in both the retail and the leisure and hospitality sectors, Labor Department data show.

U.S. demand for foreign skilled-worker visas often used by technology companies surpassed the entire year’s mandated supply within five days, prompting the government to announce it will award them through a lottery.

Planned moves—across labor, health, finance and the environment—range from overtime pay for white-collar workers to more obscure matters such as requiring food makers to disclose added sugar on cartons of flavored milk.

The soon-to-be new laws, which have been introduced but not yet finalized, stem from a resident protest two years ago in response to Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s now-abandoned plan to drill 200 new oil and gas wells. The city, they argued, has too many industrial operations causing environmental and health problems.

We tried to make the case that with diesel and gas prices at $1.00 / gal higher then AZ, the higher CARB [California Air Resources Board] standards on sprinkler pumps, higher electrical rates in California, restrictions on insecticides, fungicides and fumigants and a plethora of government agencies capped by one of the highest income tax rates in the nation, all combine to put us at an economic disadvantage.

Shortly before Brown signed the California law on Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a similar measure for his state. During the ensuing public celebration, New York state’s AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento said, “When we raise the floor in wages, we raise the ceiling. … Those of you making 16 or 17 or 18 dollars an hour, the next time your union goes in to negotiate, they’re going to ask for 19 and 20 and 21 dollars and up!”

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has unanimously passed a new law requiring all businesses in the city with more than 20 employees to offer six weeks of fully paid parental leave to their workers.

But the state minimum wage increase affects more than the nonexempt workers who received the minimum wage; the increase also affects the classification of employees as exempt versus nonexempt.

In what could go down as one of the most honest moments in political history, Brown told reporters that raising the minimum wage was more about culture and politics than about economics.

Brown, traveling to the state’s largest media market to sign the landmark bill, remained hesitant about the economic effect of raising the minimum wage, saying, “Economically, minimum wages may not make sense.”

The state’s new minimum wage law, signed into law Monday by Gov. Jerry Brown, is expected to give a boost to Silicon Valley’s burgeoning robot and automation industry as businesses seek to replace increasingly expensive workers.