SB1132 - Workforce development: workplace rights training.

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION Senate Bill No. 1132 Introduced by Senator Smallwood-Cuevas February 17, 2026 An act to amend Sections 14013, 14206, 14221, and 14230 of the Unemployment Insurance Code, relating to workforce development. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST SB 1132, as introduced, Smallwood-Cuevas. Workforce development: workplace rights training. Existing law establishes the California Workforce Development Board as the body responsible for assisting the Governor in the development, oversight, and continuous improvement of California’s workforce investment system and the alignment of the education and workforce investment systems to the needs of the 21st century economy and workforce. Existing law requires the board to assist the Governor in specified activities for this purpose. Existing law requires each local workforce development board to develop and submit to the Governor a comprehensive 4-year local plan and to establish at least one full service one-stop career center, as specified. This bill would require the California Workforce Development Board to develop a workplace rights curriculum in partnership with subject matter experts and would require the local boards to ensure provision of a workplace rights training consistent with that curriculum to individuals receiving services through the California workforce system. The bill would require each local plan to include a description of how the local board plans to comply with this training requirement. The bill would state the intent of the Legislature to provide this training to individuals receiving services through the one-stop system, as specified. The bill would require the California Workforce Development Board, in partnership with the Employment Development Department and the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, to ensure local compliance with these provisions. By imposing new requirements on local workforce development boards, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above. Digest Key Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: YES Bill Text The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTION 1. Section 14013 of the Unemployment Insurance Code is amended to read: 14013. The board shall assist the Governor in the following: (a) Promoting the development of a well-educated and highly skilled 21st century workforce, and the development of a high road economy that offers an educated and skilled workforce with fair compensation and treatment in the workplace. (b) Developing, implementing, and modifying the State Plan. The State Plan shall serve as the comprehensive framework and coordinated plan for the aligned investment of all federal and state workforce training and employment services funding streams and programs. To the extent feasible and when appropriate, the State Plan should reinforce and work with adult education and career technical education efforts that are responsive to labor market trends, as well as economic trends that impact the labor market and workforce, including, but not limited to, climate change, automation of work, and employment. (c) The review and technical assistance of statewide policies, of statewide programs, and of recommendations on actions that should be taken by the state to align workforce, education, training, and employment funding programs in the state in a manner that supports a comprehensive, high-quality, and streamlined workforce development system in the state, including the review and provision of comments on the State Plan, if any, for programs and activities of one-stop partners that are not core programs. (d) Developing and continuously improving the statewide workforce investment system, including: (1) The identification of barriers and means for removing barriers to better coordinate, align, and avoid duplication among the programs and activities carried out through the system. (2) The development, promotion, and implementation of strategies, as well as the administration of, an field assistance for, programs to advance the use of career pathways for the purpose of providing individuals, including low-skilled adults, youth, and individuals with barriers to employment, and including individuals with disabilities, with workforce investment activities, education, and supportive services to enter or retain high-quality employment. To the extent permissible under state and federal laws, these policies and strategies should support linkages between kindergarten and grades 1 to 12, inclusive, and community college educational systems in order to help secure educational and career advancement. These policies and strategies may be implemented using a sector strategies framework and should ultimately lead to placement in a job providing economic security or job placement in an entry-level job that has a well-articulated career pathway or career ladder to a job providing economic security. (3) The development, promotion, and implementation of strategies for providing effective outreach to and improved access for individuals and employers who could benefit from services provided through the workforce development system. (4) The development, promotion, and implementation of strategies, as well as the administration of, and field assistance for, programs that meet the needs of employers, workers, and jobseekers, particularly through industry or sector partnerships related to in-demand industry sectors and occupations, including policies targeting resources to competitive and emerging industry sectors and industry clusters that provide economic security and are either high-growth sectors or critical to California’s economy, or both. These industry sectors and clusters shall have significant economic impacts on the state and its regional and workforce development needs, including, but not limited to, California’s transition to a carbon neutral economy, and have documented career opportunities. (5) Consistent with the definitions in Section 14005, developing standards, procedures, and criteria for defining high road employers, high road jobs, high road workforce development, and high road training partnerships in California, in accordance with lessons learned from the board’s ongoing high road workforce development initiatives. (6) The administration, promotion, and expansions of, as well as field assistance for, high road training partnerships, as defined in Section 14005. (7) The administration, promotion, and expansion of, as well as field assistance for, high road construction careers, as defined in Section 14005. (8) Recommending adult and dislocated worker training policies and investments that offer a variety of career opportunities while upgrading the skills of California’s workforce. These may include training policies and investments pertaining to any of the following: (A) Occupational skills training, including training for nontraditional employment. (B) On-the-job training. (C) Incumbent worker training in accordance with Section 3174(d)(4) of Title 29 of the United States Code. (D) Programs that combine workplace training with related instruction, which may include cooperative education programs. (E) Training programs operated by the private sector. (F) Skill upgrading and retraining. (G) Entrepreneurial training. (H) Transitional jobs in accordance with Section 3174(d)(5) of Title 29 of the United States Code. (I) Job readiness training provided in combination with any of the services described in subparagraphs (A) to (H), inclusive. (J) Adult education and literacy activities provided in combination with any of the services described in subparagraphs (A) to (G), inclusive. (K) Customized training conducted with a commitment by an employer or group of employers to employ an individual upon successful completion of the training. (e) The identification of regions, including planning regions, for the purposes of Section 3121(a) of Title 29 of the United States Code, and the designation of local areas under Section 3121 of Title 29 of the United States Code, after consultation with local boards and chief elected officials. (f) The development and continuous improvement of the one-stop delivery system in local areas, including providing assistance to local boards, one-stop operators, one-stop partners, and providers with planning and delivering services, including training services and supportive services, to support effective delivery of services to workers, job seekers, and employers. (g) Recommending strategies to the Governor for strategic training investments of the Governor’s 15-percent discretionary funds. (h) Developing strategies to support staff training and awareness across programs supported under the workforce development system. (i) The development and updating of comprehensive state performance accountability measures, including state-adjusted levels of performance, to assess the effectiveness of the core programs in the state as required under Section 3141(b) of Title 29 of the United States Code. As part of this process the board shall do all of the following: (1) Develop a workforce metrics dashboard, to be updated annually, that measures the state’s human capital investments in workforce development to better understand the collective impact of these investments on the labor market. The board shall determine the approach for measuring labor market impacts, provided that, to the extent feasible, the board uses statistically rigorous methodologies to estimate, assess, and isolate the impact of programs on participant outcomes. The workforce metrics dashboard shall be produced, to the extent feasible, using existing available data and resources that are currently collected and accessible to state agencies. The board shall convene workforce program partners to develop a standardized set of inputs and outputs for the workforce metrics dashboard. The workforce metrics dashboard shall do all of the following: (A) Provide a status report on credential attainment, training completion, degree attainment, and participant earnings from workforce education and training programs. The board shall publish and distribute the final report. (B) Provide demographic breakdowns, including, to the extent possible, race, ethnicity, age, gender, veteran status, wage and credential or degree outcomes, and information on workforce outcomes in different industry sectors. (C) Measure, at a minimum and to the extent feasible with existing resources, the performance of the following workforce programs: community college career technical education, the Employment Training Panel, Title I and Title II of the federal Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-220), Title I and Title II of the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (Public Law 113-128), Trade Adjustment Assistance, and state apprenticeship programs. (D) Measure participant earnings in California, and to the extent feasible, in other states. The Employment Development Department shall assist the board by calculating aggregated participant earnings using unemployment insurance wage records, without violating any applicable confidentiality requirements. (2) The State Department of Education is hereby authorized to collect the social security numbers of adults participating in adult education programs so that accurate participation in those programs can be represented in the workforce metrics dashboard. However, an individual shall not be denied program participation if the individual refuses to provide a social security number. The State Department of Education shall keep this information confidential, except, the State Department of Education is authorized to share this information, unless prohibited by federal law, with the Employment Development Department, the board, or the board’s designee, who shall keep the information confidential and use it only to track the labor market and other outcomes described in subparagraph (A) of paragraph (1) of program participants in compliance with all applicable state and federal laws and mandates, including all performance reporting requirements under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. (3) (A) Participating workforce programs, including, but not limited to, those specified in subparagraph (C) of paragraph (1), shall provide participant data in a standardized format to the Employment Development Department, the board, or the board’s designee. (B) The Employment Development Department, the board, or the board’s designee, shall aggregate data provided by participating workforce programs and shall report the data, organized by demographics, earnings, and industry of employment, to the board to assist the board in producing the annual workforce metrics dashboard. (4) The board shall ensure that a designee has the technical and operational capability of meeting appropriate privacy and security requirements. (j) The identification and dissemination of information on best practices, including best practices for all of the following: (1) The effective operation of one-stop centers, relating to the use of business outreach, partnerships, and service delivery strategies, including strategies for serving individuals with barriers to employment. (2) The development of effective local boards, which may include information on factors that contribute to enabling local boards to exceed negotiated local levels of performance, sustain fiscal integrity, and achieve other measures of effectiveness. (3) Effective training programs that respond to real-time labor market analysis, that effectively use direct assessment and prior learning assessment to measure an individual’s prior knowledge, skills, competencies, and experiences, and that evaluate such skills, and competencies for adaptability, to support efficient placement into employment or career pathways. (k) The development and review of statewide policies affecting the coordinated provision of services through the state’s one-stop delivery system described in Section 3151(e) of Title 29 of the United States Code, including the development of all of the following: (1) Objective criteria and procedures for use by local boards in assessing the effectiveness and continuous improvement of one-stop centers described in Section 3151(e) of Title 29 of the United States Code. (2) Guidance for the allocation of one-stop center infrastructure funds under Section 3151(h) of Title 29 of the United States Code. (3) Policies relating to the appropriate roles and contri [Text truncated for display. Full text available on Congress.gov.]