But rather than adding to the rules governing Uber and Lyft, an effort that has seen limited success in Sacramento in recent years, Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) wants to deregulate the taxi industry.
After years of net losses, moving production out of Los Angeles is necessary for the survival of American Apparel, industry experts said. The company initially considered staying in California and moving to the city of Vernon, according to a person familiar with the discussions who was not authorized to speak publicly. After the state raised the minimum wage, executives began looking at manufacturers in the South, the person said.
Los Angeles workers would be able to earn at least six paid sick days annually — twice the state minimum — under a proposed law that the City Council backed Tuesday.
California still has a higher rate of unemployment than the nation, at 5%, a sign that labor markets are still struggling in some parts of the state. Job growth was hampered by employment cuts in several industries, including high-paying fields such as professional and business services.
The reason why California faces a housing affordability crisis is simple, many experts say: Lots of people want to live in the state and there aren’t enough houses for them. . . Legislators have shied away from tackling broad efforts to increase housing supply, such as overhauling the California Environmental Quality Act or reforming the tax code to incentivize residential development. Doing so would force lawmakers to take on some of the largest and thorniest policy issues in the Capitol.
The February 2015 explosion, which triggered state and federal investigations, led to higher gas prices in Los Angeles than the rest of the nation. The fully operational refinery provided a fifth of the refined gasoline capacity in Southern California and 10% of the statewide capacity.
Monday’s report, based on data gathered in the last year, follows an earlier study by the group that found more than 4 million Californians had their licenses suspended for unpaid tickets since 2006. The cost of tickets soared during the state’s budget crisis because a variety of fees were added to the fines to pay for state programs.
When Los Angeles City Council members voted two years ago to give hotel workers a raise, Bill Martinez was the type of worker they said they wanted to help. . . He soon found out he wouldn’t be getting a raise after all. Under an obscure provision of the city’s wage hike, unionized hotels were granted an exemption allowing them to pay their employees less. The result is that Martinez, who pays $56.50 every month for membership in the hotel workers union Unite Here, now makes less than those doing the same job in non-union workplaces.
But there are caveats. The federal subsidy runs out once a manufacturer sells 200,000 vehicles in the U.S. And wealthy California buyers will also miss out: Starting last week, state rebates were no longer available to single filers earning more than $250,000 a year, head-of-household filers making more than $340,000 and joint filers making a combined $500,000.
California’s economy will grow faster this year than the national economy, and unemployment will drop to 5% in early 2017, according to a new report by the UCLA Anderson Forecast.
Bowlin had joined a class-action lawsuit against the pharmacy chain, one of dozens filed in California during the last several years against corporations that required workers to stand. In a unanimous ruling Monday, the court clarified labor law in a way that is likely to make it more difficult for companies to deny workers a chair.
The Port of Los Angeles paid a Chinese government-owned shipping company $5 million in 2005 to equip cargo vessels to plug into electric shore power while at dock to keep their massive diesel engines from polluting neighborhoods near the harbor.
DWP officials have been campaigning for the $330-million water rate hike and a $720-million power rate increase for the last several months. They say the revenue is necessary to replace aging water mains and develop more local water supplies. On the power side, officials estimate that about 80% of new revenue would go toward meeting clean energy and climate change mandates.
The slide in California’s gasoline prices could abruptly end Friday, with prices possibly jumping 30 cents a gallon because of seasonal changes in the state’s refinery operations, a consumer group predicted Thursday.
Employers in Los Angeles and the rest of California will keep hiring in the next two years but at a slightly slower pace than in 2015, a new report said.