“The justices by a 6-3 vote overturned a state ruling and threw out a class-action lawsuit against DirecTV over its termination fees for customers who canceled its service,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “The high court said the Federal Arbitration Act calls for honoring arbitration agreements that are written into company contracts, regardless of whether there are more consumer-friendly protections set by states such as California.”
To illustrate, take the most recent PPIC survey. In it, 57% of Californian adults say global climate change is a very serious problem. This, by itself, would suggest overwhelming support for climate change action. But while it shows concern, it doesn’t necessarily reveal motivation. To understand voter saliency, one must force respondents to prioritize among policy concerns. The same PPIC survey does just that by asking “thinking about the state as a whole, what do you think is the most important issue facing people in California today?”. Just 3% of Californian adults named the “environment, pollution, global warming.”
Despite the utilities’ campaign, the California Public Utilities Commission largely backed the solar industry, which had said the power companies’ proposals could have devastated its business.
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez offered a glimpse Monday of what could be the next chapter in a battle involving workers in the so-called gig economy. Upcoming legislation would allow those workers to collectively bargain for rights like health care – even if they aren’t unionized. . . The forthcoming legislation comes from a political consultant and lawyer with professional ties to organized labor, though this legislation is not pushed by any particular labor group, said Evan McLaughlin, chief of staff to Gonzalez.
It’s to bypass unions entirely and create a new organizing tool that allows groups of gig workers to collectively bargain with the company operating the app. It’s titled the California 1099 Self-Organizing Act — 1099 being the annual tax form independent contractors are supposed to receive from the entity paying them, such as Uber.
To meet the city of San Diego’s goals for fighting climate change, a lot of people will have to get out of their cars and start walking, biking or taking public transportation to work.
The climate agenda being pursued in California is one of high taxes and stringent regulations that are hampering cheap and abundant forms of energy while propping up costly ones at taxpayer expense. It may please activist billionaires (who don’t seem to have a problem producing their own massive carbon footprint), but it is increasing unemployment, poverty and income inequality in the state.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will make the labor supply, measured as the total compensation paid to workers, 0.86 percent smaller in 2025 than it would have been in the absence of that law, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Three-quarters of that decline will occur because of health insurance expansions, which raise effective tax rates on earnings from labor—for instance, by phasing out health insurance subsidies as people’s income rises—and thus reduce the amount of labor that workers choose to supply. The labor force is projected to be about 2 million full-time-equivalent workers smaller in 2025 under the ACA than it would have been otherwise. Those estimates were based mainly on CBO’s calculations of the effects of the law’s major components on marginal and average tax rates and on the agency’s analysis of research about the change in the labor supply resulting from a change in tax rates. For components of the law that were difficult to express in terms of changes in tax rates, CBO based its estimates on a review of the available literature about similar policy changes.
The California Chamber of Commerce today released the list of new employment laws scheduled to take effect in 2016 or earlier that will have an impact on businesses in California.
Even as California sells itself as an environmental success story during the United Nations summit here, the state is in danger of failing to meet its own targets for getting clean vehicles on the road.
Projects designed to advance California’s environmental policy objectives are the most frequent targets of CEQA lawsuits: transit is the most frequently challenged type of infrastructure project, renewable energy is the most frequently challenged type of industrial/utility project, and housing (especially higher density housing) is the most frequently challenged type of private sector project.
“Never underestimate the coercive power of a central state in the service of good and wisdom,” he said. “You can screw it up, but you can also do it well.”
“You do have to have, at the end of the day, a regulation, a law,” he said. “Progress comes from well-designed regulatory objectives that business then follows.”
The total workforce will shrink by just under 1 percent as a result of changes in worker participation because of the new coverage expansions, mandates and changes in tax rates, according to a 22-page report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The Pacific Coast Collaborative released its 2014 jobs update report showing the strength of the West Coast’s clean economy.