New California law requires some businesses to rehire workers laid off during COVID
Some California employers when rehiring will have to offer jobs first to the former workers they laid off during the coronavirus pandemic under a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Friday.
Those employers include hotels, large event centers and airports, as well as janitorial, security and maintenance workers at commercial buildings. Companies would have to offer jobs only for a position that’s the same or similar to what their workers had before their layoff, according to the bill.
“As we progress toward fully reopening our economy, it is important we maintain our focus on equity,” Newsom said in a statement. “(Senate Bill) 93 keeps us moving in the right direction by assuring hospitality and other workers displaced by the pandemic are prioritized to return to their workplace.”
With the hospitality industry having lost hundreds of thousands of jobs during the pandemic, the bill was a top of unions and labor advocates. Newsom vetoed of a similar bill last year.
As the industry recovers — it added more than 42,000 jobs in March — labor advocates and legislators said the bill is crucial to making sure hospitality workers aren’t left behind in the state’s recovery.
“Latinas make up most of the service workers in the state and have suffered record job losses during the pandemic. With California’s economy on track to reopen, this law provides the basic right for laid-off hotel, janitorial, and airport service workers to return to their previous jobs,” said Assemblywoman Gonzalez, D-San Diego, in a press release. “This policy is critical to the state’s economic recovery and will provide our hardest-hit workers the chance to get back on their feet and support their families.”
Legislators this year made several tweaks to address Newsom’s concerns, such as letting the bill expire in 2024, covering only workers who lost their jobs because of the COVID pandemic and specifying workers can’t sue their employers in court over the provision.
To be rehired, workers would have to have been employed by their employer for at least six months in 2019. If multiple workers qualify for one position, the bill would require companies to rehire based on seniority.
Companies would have to offer jobs within five business days of establishing a position. Once offered, workers would then have five business days to decide whether they want to accept it.
California Hotel & Lodging Association in a statement expressed disappoint at Newsom’s signature.
“We need all our returning and new employees ASAP to meet the reopening demand at our hotels,” the association’s President, Lynn Mohrfeld, said in the statement. “Unfortunately, restrictive hiring regulations only slow down our employees from resuming the careers they love.”
But labor advocates and unions such as Unite Here, which had called Newsom’s earlier veto “devastating to the low wage workers,” celebrated his signature on the bill.
In an event shortly after Newsom’s signature, Unite Here Local 11 Co-President Kurt Petersen said some employers were talking about “remaking their workforce.”
“These employers were determined to use the crisis to expunge troublemakers, hire younger, whiter workers for their new look and bust the union,” Petersen said. “But as usual, these employers underestimated their workers.”
This story was originally published April 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "New California law requires some businesses to rehire workers laid off during COVID."
