The California Chamber of Commerce yesterday released the first wave of bills to be included on its 2022 job killer list. The preliminary list includes 9 new bills and two carry-over proposals from 2021. The CalChamber expects several additions to the list in the coming weeks.
“California companies are the economic engine that drives innovation and job creation in our state and are responsible for the record revenues the state is currently experiencing,” said CalChamber President and CEO Jennifer Barrera. “Yet, the bills on this year’s job killer list reflect a lack of appreciation of the economic realities and regulatory challenges employers—and especially small business employers—face as they continue to emerge from the impacts of this pandemic. A shrinking workforce coupled with California’s oppressive legal climate, penchant for overregulation, and continued push for even higher taxes, will hamper the ability of California companies to remain competitive in the future. This year’s job killer list highlights policies that will hurt job creation and will shut down or reduce investment in our economy.”
The 2022 CalChamber Job Killer List includes the following bills:
Labor and Employment
AB 2095 (Kalra; D-San Jose) Unfair Denial of State Opportunities. Places new onerous administrative burdens on employers by requiring annual reporting of wage and hour data and employee benefits on an employer’s entire United States workforce that will unfairly criticize employers for lawful conduct by publishing that data on the Labor and Workforce Development Agency’s website and using such data to rank employers and deny them state opportunities, and will subject employers to frivolous litigation and settlement demands.
AB 2182 (Wicks; D-Oakland) Expansion of Duty to Accommodate Employees and Litigation Under FEHA. Imposes new burdens on employers to accommodate any employee with family responsibilities, which will essentially include a new, uncapped protected leave for employees to request time off and exposes employers to costly litigation under the Fair Employment and Housing Act by asserting that any adverse employment action was in relation to the employee’s family responsibilities, rather than a violation of employment policies.
SB 1044 (Durazo; D-Los Angeles) State of Emergency. Allows employees to leave work or refuse to show up to work if employee subjectively feels unsafe regardless of existing health and safety standards or whether employer has provided health and safety protections and subjects employers to costly Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) lawsuits if they dispute the employee’s decision or need to have another employee take over any job duties.
SB 1162 (Limón; D-Goleta) Publication of Pay Data. Encourages litigation against employers based on the publication of broad, unreliable data collected by the state. Undermines employers’ ability to hire, imposes administrative and record keeping requirements that are impossible to implement, and subjects employers to a private right of action and penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA).
Taxation
AB 2289/ ACA 8 (Lee; D-San Jose) Wealth Tax. Seeks to impose a massive tax increase upon all forms of personal property or wealth despite California already having the highest income tax in the country. This tax increase will drive high-income earners and job creators out of the State as well as the revenue they contribute to the General Fund.
AB 1771 (Ward; D-San Diego) Targeted Tax on Certain Home Sellers. Seeks to impose a tax—in addition to the capital gains tax—of 25% on the profits from a home resold within three years after it is purchased. The tax rate is reduced on a sliding scale for seven years thereafter. This will worsen housing unaffordability and constrain the already limited housing supply.
SB 1301 (Becker; D-Menlo Park) Fossil Fuel Investment Surcharge. Arbitrarily raises taxes on companies that invest in fossil fuel businesses based upon the financing amount. This adds another layer of expenses onto the fossil fuel industry that will significantly increase the costs of doing business, thereby increasing prices paid by consumers for goods and services in California.
CEQA
AB 1001 (Garcia, Cristina; D-Los Angeles) Expands CEQA and Hurts Housing. Creates new highly subjective, non-quantifiable and litigation-bait standards in CEQA that will threaten California’s economic recovery and ability to construct much needed housing. It also removes local government discretion regarding how to analyze and mitigate proposed project impacts, thereby making projects more expensive, harder to build and more likely to be thrown into courts by NIMBY opposition. 2021 carry-over bill.
Privacy and Cybersecurity
SB 1189 (Wieckowski; D-Fremont) New Private Right of Action for Biometric Information. Creates legal liability for businesses large and small, potentially in the millions to tens of millions of dollars, while not providing any exceptions, such as for the use of biometric data for safety, security, or other reasonable purposes. Also imposes new, untenable restrictions on the use and disclosure of biometric information in a thinly veiled attempt to undermine the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) limited private right of action for data breaches.
Workers’ Compensation
SB 213 (Cortese; D-San Jose) Workers’ Compensation Presumption: Hospital Employees. Expands Costly Presumption of Injury. Significantly increases workers’ compensation costs for public and private hospitals by presuming certain diseases and injuries are caused by the workplace and establishes an extremely concerning precedent for expanding presumptions into the private sector. 2021 carry-over bill.
Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources
AB 2764 (Nazarian; D-Van Nuys) Livestock Ban. Bans new or expanded commercial animal feeding and processing operations for meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy. Will increase food prices for Californians and force food to be imported from out of state to meet consumer demand.
