AB288 - Employment: labor organization and unfair practices.

Assembly Bill No. 288 CHAPTER 139 An act to amend Sections 1141 and 1148 of, and to add Sections 923.1 and 1140.6 to, the Labor Code, relating to employment. [ Approved by Governor September 30, 2025. Filed with Secretary of State September 30, 2025. ] LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST AB 288, McKinnor. Employment: labor organization and unfair practices. Existing law declares the public policy of the state regarding labor organization, including, among other things, that it is necessary for a worker to have full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment, and to be free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection. Existing law establishes the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) in state government as a means of resolving disputes and enforcing the statutory duties and rights of specified public employers and employees under various acts regulating collective bargaining. Under existing law, PERB has the power and duty to investigate an unfair practice charge and to determine whether the charge is justified and the appropriate remedy for the unfair practice. Existing law, the federal National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), establishes a comprehensive statutory scheme regulating unfair labor practices on the part of employers and labor organizations in industries affecting interstate commerce, and vests in the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) the power to conduct elections to determine employee representatives and to prevent unfair labor practices affecting commerce. Existing law, the California Public Records Act, requires that public records, as defined, be available to the public for inspection and made promptly available to any person. This bill would expand PERB’s jurisdiction by authorizing a worker, to petition PERB to protect and enforce prescribed rights under specified circumstances, including if the worker is employed in a position subject to the NLRA but the NLRB has expressly or impliedly ceded jurisdiction. The bill would authorize PERB to, among other things, decide unfair labor practice cases pursuant to a specified timeline and order all appropriate relief for a violation, including civil penalties, as prescribed. In order to pursue relief from PERB, the bill would require a covered worker or their representative to file an unfair practice charge or petition that includes specified information, including, where applicable, the original charge or petition filed with the NLRB. The bill would require PERB to hold the supporting documentation and evidence confidential and maintain it as part of its investigatory file and would exempt this documentation and evidence from the California Public Records Act. If PERB determines, among other things, it has insufficient resources to process certain cases or doing so would prevent it from meeting specified statutory deadlines, the bill would require PERB to process and prioritize charges, as specified. The bill would also establish the Public Employment Relations Board Enforcement Fund (fund) in the State Treasury, would require the above-described civil penalties to be deposited into the fund, and would make moneys in the fund available upon appropriation by the Legislature to PERB for the purpose of administering the above-specified provisions. The bill would authorize PERB to rely on its own decisions and precedent under the NLRA and would authorize review of its decisions by a state appellate court, as specified. Existing law, the Alatorre-Zenovich-Dunlap-Berman Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, grants agricultural employees the right to form and join labor organizations and engage in collective bargaining, as specified, and prohibits agricultural employers and labor organizations from engaging in unfair labor practices. Those provisions establish the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) and empower the ALRB to prevent any person from engaging in those practices. Existing law establishes various definitions for these purposes. Existing law requires the ALRB to follow applicable precedents of the NLRA. This bill would specify that the ALRB has exclusive jurisdiction in all phases of the administration of the act, and to determine whether any person or entity meets one or more of those definitions. The bill would instead authorize the board to follow applicable precedents of the NLRA, but would not obligate the board to follow precedents where the ALRB deems it inappropriate to do so. This bill would make related findings and declarations and would make its provisions severable. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect. Digest Key Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: NO Bill Text The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following: (a) Workers have inalienable rights, and rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and under the California Constitution, to free speech and free association and to exercise their right to collectively bargain over the labor they provide to employers, in order to improve their terms and conditions of employment. (b) The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was passed in 1935 as a way to codify those rights for the majority of private sector workers by “encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection,” through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an agency created by Congress. (c) The NLRA recognized workers’ inalienable right to control their own labor and was intended to alleviate the labor unrest that predominated before 1935 when employees were forced to find their own avenues to exercise those rights and were often met with violence, by giving workers an avenue to vindicate those rights through a multimember board of experts who were protected from political removal so that they could develop expertise in enforcing the rights recognized by the NLRA. (d) Over the past several decades, the NLRB has become less effective at protecting and enforcing workers’ rights, due to a variety of factors such as completely inadequate funding, understaffing, a narrowing of the types of workers who can invoke the protections of the NLRA, a narrowing of the scope of protected concerted activity, and its enforcement mechanisms are further threatened with the loss of decisionmaking due to a lack of a quorum with its administrative proceedings being enjoined through challenges to its constitutionality and its independence. (e) California law has also codified workers’ fundamental and constitutionally protected rights as part of its public policy, stating in Section 923 of the Labor Code that “[workers] have full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of his employment, and that he shall be free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers of labor, or their agents, in the designation of such representatives or in self-organization or in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” (f) The NLRB’s inefficacy has meant that more and more California workers are being deprived of these rights and that more and more employers have not been meaningfully held accountable for, or deterred from, violating those rights. These employers are squelching worker organizing, refusing to bargain, and committing other unfair labor practices with impunity. This means that California workers who choose to unionize are often forced to wait for years to have their right to meet their employer at the bargaining table vindicated. That delay and the NLRB’s increasing inability to provide meaningful and timely relief negates the very purposes underlying the NLRA. It discourages collective bargaining and incentivizes employers to not bargain in good faith. It precludes workers from timely obtaining improved wages and working conditions, undermines union support, and causes workers more instability. Workers are irreparably harmed by either being forced to abandon their efforts to improve their lot, subjecting them to continued exploitation, or by being forced to find ways outside of the NLRA to demand their inalienable rights, opening the door to the industrial unrest and violence that plagued pre-NLRA labor relations in our country. (g) The inequality of bargaining power between employees, who do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract, and employers, who are organized in corporate or other forms of association, substantially burdens and affects the safety, health, and general welfare of the populace of California. Experience has demonstrated that certain practices by employers have the effect of disturbing the general welfare of the state through unfair or unsafe business practices that harm workers individually, as a group, and cause harm to the public at large. The elimination of such practices through the promotion and protection of organizing and collective bargaining is a necessary condition to the assurance of the rights herein guaranteed. (h) California, therefore, has a duty to protect its workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain because these rights promote employees’ control over the conditions of their working life, the creation of a more just workplace, and help stem the tide of wealth inequality rampant in the state. It has a duty to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the general welfare and to mitigate and eliminate these unfair labor practices when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection. (i) A state’s power is at its zenith when it is exercising its police power to protect its populace’s physical, social, and economic well-being. See Barbier v. Connolly (1884) 113 U.S. 27, 31. As the Supreme Court has long recognized that “[i]n dealing with the relation of employer and employed, [a state] legislature has necessarily a wide field of discretion in order that there may be suitable protection of health and safety, and that peace and good order may be promoted through regulations designed to insure wholesome conditions of work and freedom from oppression.” Chicago, B. & Q.R. Co. v. McGuire (1911) 219 U.S. 549, 570. (j) California, therefore, has a right and responsibility to utilize its inherent police powers to regulate the working conditions of workers within its borders, including by preserving workers’ fundamental and constitutionally protected rights to free speech and to freely associate in order to improve their terms and conditions of employment, when the NLRB is not adequately protecting those rights. Although California recognizes that it cannot take away rights granted to employees under the NLRA, California also recognizes that existing federal law cannot prevent it from doing its part to enforce and further the rights recognized by the NLRA, which stem from an individual’s inherent sovereignty and from the United States and California Constitutions. California also recognizes that workers exercising such rights are not subject to antitrust liability. (k) Giving employees access to an effective process for vindicating their rights and for improving their terms and conditions of employment was instrumental to reducing the labor unrest and industrial strife that plagued the country prior to the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935. Now, employees are losing access to that effective process due to threats to the NLRB’s independence, ongoing legal challenges to the NLRB’s constitutionality, and the NLRB’s inability to undertake the tasks delegated to it by Congress. This has the potential to cause significant and widespread disruption throughout the supply chain, harming the state and national economy. It is imperative that California act to ensure stable labor relations in this state. (l) Justice delayed is justice denied, and refusal to decide is itself a decision. Accordingly, where an agency or body of government is deprived of adequate funding or personnel to adjudicate, or otherwise refuses to adjudicate, cases affecting the rights of parties appearing before it in a timely manner, and California has determined that this inaction constitutes a rule of decision ceding jurisdiction of those cases. SEC. 2. Section 923.1 is added to the Labor Code, to read: 923.1. (a) (1) All of the provisions of this section shall be liberally construed to ensure that all workers in California can effectively vindicate their fundamental rights to full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, free from retaliation or intimidation by their employer. (2) The rights described in this subdivision mean that a worker shall be allowed to engage in collective action, to organize, form, join, or assist labor organizations, and, when they choose to do so collectively through selected or designated bargaining representatives, to engage in effective and expeditious collective bargaining that results in a collective bargaining agreement addressing their terms and conditions of employment. (3) The state and its political subdivisions shall not, directly or indirectly, deny, burden, or abridge the rights described in this subdivision except as necessary to serve a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means. (b) (1) A worker who meets the description in subparagraph (A) or (B) may petition the Public Employment Relations Board to protect and enforce the rights described in subdivision (a). (A) The worker is employed in a position that is, or would have been, subject to the National Labor Relations Act as of January 1, 2025, but they lose coverage under the National Labor Relations Act because the Nat [Text truncated for display. Full text available on Congress.gov.]