by Mitch Seaman
California’s workers won a victory today with the Governor’s approval of AB 908 (Gomez)—legislation to raise benefits and improve access within our landmark Disability Insurance and Paid Family Leave programs.
Mitch Seaman
No one wins when employers break labor laws, but whenever California’s star Labor Commissioner Julie Su announces the latest round of enforcement actions, it sure feels like a victory.
Case in point: This week, Commissioner Su hit three of the worst violators with over $1.8 million in backpay and penalty assessments for stealing employees’ wages, defrauding the workers’ comp system and willfully breaking a variety of other workforce protection laws. Her efforts to ensure the responsible use of public funds, protect workers and promote legitimate contractors help keep California a great place to live and work.
In any recession, from any era, unemployed workers face challenges that are unique to the time but consistent across history. Finding new work is never easy, but during a recession the search can prove almost impossible, as greater numbers of unemployed workers fight over fewer available jobs. For example, at the peak of the current downturn, around seven unemployed workers existed for every open position. Though this 7-1 ratio has since improved to 4-1, the outlook remains bleak and the unemployed still struggle.
Making matters worse, the severity and structural nature of the current downturn means many jobs are gone for good, and idled workers need all the help they can get when finding new work. Some employers, however, disagree, and have even begun refusing to consider the unemployed for open positions. We believe this insidious new policy stands out as a particularly inexplicable and inexcusable form of discrimination, and legislators should act immediately to stop the practice in its tracks.
Every year on April 28th, working families nationwide gather to commemorate Workers Memorial Day and honor those who’ve lost their lives to work-related injury or illness. The occasion commits every one of us to prevent additional fatalities and minimize workplace injuries — and always call on others to do the same. April 28th also presents us, as workers, with a unique opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices we make and to renew the fight for the safety and respect we deserve at work.
In 2010, over 300 Californians lost their lives in work-related accidents, and about 6,500 died from chronic workplace exposure to chemicals and other toxins. Workers throughout every industry sector are affected, and potentially deadly hazards persist in every workplace.
by Mitch Seaman
California’s workers’ compensation system was created a century ago to provide medical treatment and wage replacement benefits to workers injured on the job. Employers fund the system, and in return, injured workers are generally prohibited from suing the employer of injury—even if employer negligence was to blame. What sounds like a grand compromise has, in practice, become something of a nightmare. But most of the worst abuses are relatively new, and the system wasn’t always quite so broken.
Among labor’s top priorities for 2012 will be a massive overhaul of the entire workers compensation system. That’s why the California Labor Federation today launched its campaign to restore benefits to injured workers with the release of “Workers’ Compensation Reform: Undoing the Damage of Schwarzenegger’s Rules,” a research paper outlining concerns with the current system and recommendations for how it could better serve injured workers.
On Thursday, March 1st, an exciting new website launched to allow California workers access to their employer’s workers compensation coverage status. With this website, any employee can now verify whether or not their employer carries valid workers compensation coverage—information that not only keeps workers safe but helps the public and regulators crack down on the underground economy.
This valuable new tool was created by AB 483 (Buchanan), backed by the California Labor Federation and passed into law in 2009. AB 483 directed California’s Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCIRB) to collect the information and present it publicly through an easily accessible Internet website.
While we agree that Bank of America’s incompetence runs rampant throughout the banking industry, by several measures of greed and arrogance, this troubled corporation stands alone. Allow us to present Bank of America with the following uniquely dubious titles:
Lost in the debate around California’s regulatory environment is a simple fact: regulations didn’t crash the economy. Wall Street banks crashed the economy.
Not only did greedy Wall Street bankers get us into this mess, they’re certainly not doing anything to help the middle class dig out. They’re even devising ways to exploit the economic crisis and the mass unemployment it’s caused to pad their pockets. That’s why the California Labor Federation partnered with consumer advocates and others on two key bills to protect workers from the worst Wall Street abuses.
Three years ago this Monday, María Isabel Vásquez Jiménez collapsed and died after spending 9 hours pruning grapevines in Farmington. She was 17 years old, engaged and two months pregnant. This tragic loss, however, was far from accidental.
As the temperature soared to 95 degrees that day, Maria Isabel’s employer ignored California’s outdoor heat regulations requiring adequate drinking water, shade and rest. When she collapsed, Merced Farm Labor company bosses still denied her both shade and even medical treatment, and following a failed attempt to revive her—by draping an alcohol-soaked cloth over her face—released her to fiancee Florentino Bautista. Florentino, who had been working alongside her that day, recalls supervisors “grumbling” at workers who tried to drink water. Maria Isabel died two days later at Lodi Memorial Hospital.
Obviously there’s been some sort of mistake. As I’m sure you’re aware, Duke Energy, Toyota and Bayer—all recipients of your letter—are not residents of California’s gorgeous 49th district. Maybe you were thrown by the names of the American Petroleum Institute and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA), hoping they were consumer-driven nonprofits focused on improving the safety of oil production and transport—assuming you’d like to protect the 49th district’s world-class beaches and environmental beauty.
