GSBE Weekly Update 05/30/2018
Three critical bills moved to Assembly Floor
AB 2384 (Arambula; D-Kingsburg) Increases Health Care Premiums — Increases health care premiums by mandating medication-assisted treatment for substance disorders and by eliminating all quality control and cost containment mechanisms.- AB 2613 (Reyes; D-Grand Terrace) Wage Statement Penalties — Imposes another layer of Labor Code penalties for wage and hour violations in addition to the penalties already available under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) and imposes personal liability onto employees who have no control over the actual payment of wages.
- AB 3080 (Gonzalez Fletcher; D-San Diego) Ban on Settlement Agreements and Arbitration Agreements — Significantly expands employment litigation and increases costs for employers and employees by banning settlement agreements for labor and employment claims as well as arbitration agreements made as a condition of employment, which is likely preempted under the Federal Arbitration Act and will only delay the resolution of claims. Banning such agreements benefits the trial attorneys, not the employer or employee.
AB 2384
Three bills held in Assembly Appropriations Committee
- AB 1902 (Levine; D-San Rafael) Interference with Contracts — Discourages and reduces “personal service contracts” as defined, by unfairly increasing the contract price for these services based upon an undefined and unspecified “area income” rate that presumably will include wages from different industries and different occupations that are not comparable to personal services. It also provides the Department of Industrial Relations with extraordinary authority to value companies, determine “similar services” to be included under the provisions of this bill, and what constitutes “area income.”
- AB 2069 (Bonta; D-Oakland) Medical Marijuana in Employment — Undermines employer’s ability to provide a safe and drug-free workplace by requiring employers to provide a reasonable accommodation to employees who use marijuana for a disability or medical purposes, exposing employers to costly and unnecessary litigation under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) whenever the employer terminates an employee who has created a safety hazard in the workplace. Held in
- AB 3087 (Kalra; D-San Jose) Health Care Price Controls — Jeopardizes employers’ negotiating power and access to care, ignores the drivers of health care costs, and adds another layer of bureaucracy by creating an appointed commission to impose price controls on health care providers and insurers.