From Damon Conklin, Sacramento Regional Builders Exchange
I wanted to provide you with a brief recap of new laws for 2017. As a reminder Governor Brown signed 898 of the 1,059 bills that were sent to him (or 85%) on or before the September 30th legislative deadline. The governor signed all four (4) of the bills that SRBX supported and vetoed only one (1) of the six (6) that SRBX opposed. To view the measures in greater depth, please go to SRBX’s advocacy webpage here or review the summary provided below.
SB 661 (Hill) – Dig Safe Act of 2016 (subsurface installations). Signed. Establishes a new Board, new fund, new rules. Requires a person planning to conduct an excavation to contact the appropriate regional notification center prior to commencing the excavation regardless of whether it will be conducted in an area that is known, or reasonably should be known, to contain subsurface installations. Will require a lot of training for our members and non-members. SRBX will engage the State Fire Marshall and PUC on this and follow the new board, fund, and requirements.
AB 2288 (Burke): MC3 Curriculum. Signed. All entities that wish to use WIOIA federal funds for pre-apprenticeship will now be required to use the MC3 curriculum. Apprenticeship programs are not affected. The MC3 curriculum is only taught and available through the building trades which would mean trade programs not affiliated with the Building Trades would not be able to accept WIOIA funds because they do not have access to the MC3 curriculum. Multi-Craft Core Curriculum is the AFL-CIO union construction trade training, and can only be taught by union trainers. Throughout California, and in merit-shop apprentice programs, we use NCCER Core Curriculum. SRBX will work with the Workforce Development Board to better provide information for our members.
And, here are a some new laws that represent more regulations, restrictions, and fees to our industry:
SB 954 (Hertzberg): Prevailing Wage. Signed. Despite arguments made that the Legislature should not be singling out prevailing wage contributions based on the union or non-union status of the contractor, this new law eliminates non-union contractors' ability to fund industry advancement as part of their permitted credits when calculating the prevailing wage for their workers.
AB 1890 (Dodd): Equal Pay. Signed. Employers with 100 employees or more will now need to compile and submit an annual report to Department Fair Employment and Housing on gender & wage who have state contracts.
AB 1926 (Cooper): Prevailing Wage—apprentices. Signed. This new law requires contractors that request apprentices to work on a public works project to pay the apprentices for time spent traveling to the worksite, filling out an application, undergoing testing, training or examinations or other pre-employment processes. Late amendments pulled out failing to pass alcohol and drug testing. This obviously is contrary to most usual interpretations of an employment relationship and opens the door to being required to pay other non-employees and liability concerns for those individuals who may get involved in an accident en-route to a project.
SB 1063 (Hall): Equal Pay—Race/Ethnicity. Signed. Expanding on Dodd’s Equal Pay to include race/ethnicity. This new law seeks to resolve the issue of CA workers who claim to suffer from chronic ethnic and racial wage gaps by requiring employers to report annually to the DIR’s Division of Labor Standards and Enforcement, who currently do not collect this data. Jackson 358 (2015) on gender is being litigated.
SB 1167 (Leyva): Employment Safety-heat regulations. Signed. This law requires the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) to propose for the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (Standards Board) review and adoption, standards that minimize heat-related illness and injury among indoor workers by July 1, 2019. SRBX will work with DOSH and Cal OSHA on the standards. We have argued that this requirement is duplicative since existing regulations already require employers to have written procedures, to conduct worksite evaluations, to identify and correct worksite hazards, and train employees through their IIPP.
The following measures that passed are policies that we supported:
AB 326 (Frazier): Signed. Prevailing Wage Penalty Assessments. The DIR must now return any employer deposits made in wage & hour disputes within 30 days of final completion of the case. Specifically, if contractors appeal a contested unpaid wage claim and receive a favorable decision, this measure requires a 30-day time limit for DIR to release funds back to the contractor.
AB 2126 (Mullin): CM/GC Limits. Signed. This bill doubled (from 6 to 12) the number of projects for which Caltrans is authorized to use the CM/GC procurement method. Further specified that of the 12 projects, at least 10 projects must have construction costs greater than $10 million and at least eight projects are required to use Caltrans employees or Caltrans consultants. Various Cities and Counties as well as the General Contractors Association are in support, no opposition. This measure passed unanimously out of Senate Transportation and Housing on the 21st(yesterday) and is now scheduled to be heard in Senate Appropriations Committee.
AB 2486 (Baker): License Search. Signed. The Contractors State License Board, by January 1, 2019, must now update its website to allow consumers to search for a licensed contractor by zip code or geographic locator.
SB 66 (Leyva): Career Technical Edu. Signed. The Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) must now provide of the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office information on every licensee to measure employment outcomes of students who participate in career technical edu programs at CCC.
SB 465 (Hill/Jackson: Building Standards. Signed. This new law stemmed from the balcony collapse, killing 6 people and injuring 7 others in Berkeley last year. The new law requires a study and allows state agencies to more efficiently exchange information with information related to public safety.
SB 1209 (Morrell): Contractors—Discipline. Signed. This bill is sponsored by the Contractors State License Board. This bill provides that citations issued against a licensed contractor follow the contractor if he or she is issued another license and authorizes the disclosure of these citations within existing disclosure timeframes.
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As a reminder, everyone should be pleased to know that SB 654 (Jackson):Parental Leave. was vetoed! It sought to require employers with 20 or more employees to provide a minimum of 6 weeks of parental leave. Previous bill (SB 1166 (Jackson) died under Chairman Hernandez who is now on LOA and stripped of committees. New chairman Tony Thurmond (Oakland) was supportive, but ultimately the Governor vetoed it. Also, AB 520 (Levine) related to metallic corrosion prevention did not pass. The authored decided not to further pursue this issue after receiving substantial pressure from opponents (SRBX included) and realized that not only were the votes not there the governor was likely going to veto it (SB 792 from last year was vetoed). Also, AB 1738 (McCarty) which SRBX opposed sought to establish a regulatory framework for Dark/Graywater systems was pulled by the author. One more measure that was thankfully dropped was AB 1520 (Judiciary Committee). AB 1520 (Judiciary): Data Sharing. This bill sought to remove the California Public Records Act exemption for commercial, industrial, and institutional customers. If it had passed, public water utilities would have been required to disclose a customer’s water usage data, without their knowledge or consent, to any person or entity that requests it. While we generally support measures that seek greater transparency, AB 1520 requires usage information that serves no public purpose other than to exploit business operations or to shame others.
That being said, next year will bring in a new cadre of members and many of these bills that were pulled will likely be brought back.
Hope that you find this helpful.
Damon R. Conklin
1331 T Street ǀ Sacramento, CA 95811
Telephone: 916.442.8991 ǀ Fax: 916.446.3117
Email: dconklin@srbx.org ǀ www