From your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento
Welcome to the June 24-28 Main Street Minute from your small-business-advocacy team in Sacramento.
Big week of news last week and this week.
First Things First
- NFIB thanks members Sunder Ramani and Nick Montano for speaking to the media in the story hyperlinked above. Next Monday, July 1, all employers, with a few exceptions, are required by law of have their workplace violence prevention plans written.
- No one knows or can speak more authoritatively about small business issues than a small business owner and NFIB is delighted when it can be the conduit for pairing our members with reporters. The workplace violence prevention plan is no small matter.
- In the Los Angeles Business Journal story above, Ramani asks, “What do I put in the plan? And in doing this, am I supposed to scare the bejesus out of my employees? Even with all these plans and training sessions in place, I can never prove that I did everything possible to prevent a violent event from occurring. This is especially true when it’s something involving the homeless or one of these smash-and-grab robberies, situations over which I have little or no control. In effect, It’s an open-ended litigation trap.”
- Montano echoed the same concerns in the article, “My first reaction was that this is totally unnecessary. We of course take steps to make sure our employees feel safe. They are like family. If we have a homeless guy coming into the restaurant and behaving erratically or has a knife, my employees are instructed not to intervene and instead to call the police. I don’t see how drawing up a big, complicated plan is going to change that.”
- Also quoted in the article is employment law attorney Hannah Sweiss, whom NFIB thanks once again for taking the time to address our members’ questions in this webinar. More information can be found in this three-page Fact Sheet put out by the state Department of Industrial Relations’ Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
- “One of the issues I’ve seen employers struggle with: When you have employees that go out to other worksites, what are the obligations there? That’s a gray area. The concern about having to deal with the homeless is that this law is not clear about how far an employer can go to remove threats of violence against customers and employees trying to access the premises. That’s a gray area of the law that will have to be litigated and is an especially big issue here in Los Angeles.”
- Only a week left until July 1 deadline. More information can be found by Googling, “California workplace violence prevention plan.”
Two November Ballot Initiatives Already Decided
- Well, that was quick. Two initiatives that qualified for a vote by the people this November will not be on the ballot.
- Last week’s (June 20) bombshell decision by the Supreme Court of California to toss the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act (TPGA) off the ballot caused political reverberations throughout official Sacramento. NFIB California was an early supporter of the Act for reasons explained in this March 28 news release.
- The June 21 edition of the Capitol Morning Report, a subscriber-only publication, ran a long list of reaction that included Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher’s, “This decision is an outrageous abuse of power by seven Justices who think they know better than the 40 million people of California. The Court is supposed to look out for the people, not rubber stamp the anti-democratic schemes of politicians hell-bent on protecting their power. Today, the Court silenced the voices of Californians and shredded its credibility in the process.”
- So, what about Assembly Constitutional Amendment 13, the cynical attempt by the Legislature, prior to the Supreme Court’s decision, to purposely neuter the TPGA should it have passed. “ACA 13 will remain on the ballot because special interests continue to threaten the voters’ right to decide elections by majority vote,” said its author, Assemblyman Chris Ward, in, we assume a ‘This will teach you to threaten us’ tone.
PAGA Repeal Shelved
- A deal has been cut. Another ballot measure voters will not see in November is the Fair Pay and Employers Accountability Act, which would have repealed and replaced the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), more accurately known to small business owners as the ‘Sue Your Boss’ law.
- Currently, under PAGA, which took effect in 2004, employees have a private right of action, on behalf of themselves and other employees, to collect civil penalties for violations against the state’s labor code without the traditional state intervention. Before pursuing a lawsuit under PAGA, however, an employee must first notify the state of the alleged violation. If the state does not investigate the violation, the employee may proceed with the lawsuit. The Fair Pay and Employer Accountability Act, advanced by the business community, would have repealed PAGA and replaced it with a new law that would have:
- doubled statutory and civil penalties for willful violators
- required that 100% of monetary penalties, rather than the current 25%, be awarded to harmed employees
- and provided resources to employers to ensure labor compliance.
- No matter. It’s been negotiated away.
- In a news release issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom, he commented, “We came to the table and hammered out a deal that works for both businesses and workers, and it will bring needed improvements to this system. This proposal maintains strong protections for workers, provides incentives for businesses to comply with labor laws and reduces litigation.”
More Money to Spend for Labor
- Reported Politico last Thursday (June 20), “Taken together, this week’s ballot activity underscores the rapidly shifting political situation for labor groups as the final slate of measures for November starts to solidify: In a span of mere days, labor’s two biggest headaches — and the ones on which they’d planned to spend heavily to defeat — have disappeared from the ballot.
- “[Lorena] Gonzalez said this week’s wins allow the Labor Federation to put its resources toward other issues — like the close California House races that could determine control of Congress and electing labor advocates to the Legislature.”
Please Join Us This Thursday, June 27
- A lot is going on. We hope you can join us this Thursday, June 27, from 11 a.m. to Noon, for NFIB’s Virtual Small Business Day from Sacramento.
- Topics to be discussed include:
- Minimum wage
- Retail theft
- Unemployment benefits for striking workers
- Taxes
- State budget
- Single-Payer Health Care
- State of California’s insurance market.
- The event is free, but advanced registration is required. Register today. Register here.
The Calendar
- June 27 deadline for ballot measure to qualify for November. Last day for proponents of a qualified ballot initiative to withdraw it
- June 30 Governor must sign a balanced state budget into law
- August 31 deadline for bills to have passed Legislature and sent to governor
- September 30 deadline for governor to sign bills into law
- November 5, General Election Day
It’s the Optics of the Matter, Don’t You See?
- Governments will occasionally have their incidents of unanticipated and unwelcomed attention when they fail to consider the optics of their actions — how things might appear — as the State Controller’s Office did last week when it came to light that somewhere between $20,000 to $30,000 was paid to a motivational speaker wearing a Spider-Man’s mask to pump up the troops.
- “One poster on Reddit described the speech as ‘half political rally for [State Controller Malia] Cohen, half weird motivational speaker yelling at me about superheroes,’” reported The Sacramento Bee.
- When asked by The Bee “about the optics of bringing in a motivator to speak at a time when the state is facing a $45 billion budget deficit,” agency spokesman Bismarck Obando [real name] said not to worry, the speaker “was hired by the firm Ernst and Young, a state vendor with the office’s two multi-billion-dollar, enterprise-wide technology projects.”
- Back to work everyone. Nothing to see here.
National
Highlights from NFIB Legislative Program Manager Caitlin Lanzara’s weekly report
- On June 21, NFIB sent a letter opposing H.R. 8639, the Warehouse Worker Protection Act. The legislation would lead to increased costs, burdensome mandates, and more red tape on small businesses. Read the press release here.
- On June 17, NFIB Vice President of Federal Government Relations Jeff Brabant joined C-SPAN’s Washington Journal to discuss the issues impacting Main Street businesses nationwide. Brabant highlighted the importance of making the 20% Small Business Deduction permanent, and why beneficial ownership reporting requirements should be repealed.
- On June 17, the NFIB Research Center released an industry-specific quarterly Small Business Economic Trends survey highlighting the construction, manufacturing, retail, and services industries. Read the press release here.
Next Main Street Minute July 1.
