Cal Matters

For years, California businesses have tried to repeal a unique state labor law that allows workers to sue their bosses over alleged workplace violations and generates hundreds of millions of dollars in employer penalties for the state. In a deal announced today to amend the law, some of those employers would pay less, and instead get more of a chance to improve the workplace.

California labor unions cleaned up in the Legislature last session, and often get their way on the bills they care about.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has removed one member and demoted the chairperson of a state workplace safety board who criticized his administration’s handling of a proposed heat protection rule this year. 

When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 365 last week, he opened a new chapter in a decades-long political and legal war over California laws governing relations between employers and their workers.

The hot labor summer was scorching at California’s Capitol.

California’s Employment Development Department had a meltdown when facing a deluge of unemployment insurance claims and a new report explains how it happened.

The use of automation technologies to track and monitor safety or productivity is widespread in supply-chain management, and it is now seeping into grocery stores, other retail settings, and even knowledge work. That is bad news for workers.