Senate Pers — 2026-07-01

All right, good morning everyone. Senate Labor Public Employment and Retirement Committee will come to order. We have 16 items on our agenda today, chock full, and we're so glad to see members here from the Assembly with us. We are going to start with file item number 2, that's AB 65. Assembly member Aguilera, please, Aguilera Curry. It's an early morning. I'm getting started. It's a very early morning. But thank you. And if you have witnesses, they're welcome to sit at the front desk with us. Thank you very much. Good morning, witnesses. And proceed when ready. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair and members. Of course, AB 65 would grant public school employees up to 14 weeks of leave with full benefits for pregnancies and pregnancy-related health issues. Today our educators can't earn paid pregnancy leave. If teachers need time to recover from pregnancy, they must first use all of their accrued sick leave if they have any to begin with. After that, they receive differential pay. And of course, that's a fancy way of saying a teacher must pay half their salary to cover a substitute teacher. Today, too often, educators are told they can simply schedule their pregnancies around a school calendar or go without pay. As we work to ensure Californians can care for their families, we cannot allow the people who care for our children to bear this burden. These outdated policies also have long-term financial consequences. Data from CalSTRS shows women receive nearly $100,000 less in retirement benefits than their male counterparts. In a profession where more than 70% of educators are women, that disparity is unacceptable. And at a time when California is struggling to recruit and retain educators, we should be removing barriers and not creating them. AB 65 modernizes an outdated system and supports educators through pregnancy without financial penalty. I am glad to see it included in the Governor's budget after many years of working on this effort. Thank you for helping me move this through the legislative process as trailer bill language mirrors AB 65. Speaking in support with me today is Nikki Molesky on behalf of the Sacramento Teachers Associations and Adara Clark-Gunn on behalf of the California School Employees Association. Thank you, and you each have two minutes.

vote aye on AB 65. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, Ms. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Adara Clark-Gunn, and I'm the Debt and Compliance Technician for San Juan Unified School District and Chapter President for Chapter 127. This bill is about fairness. California has long recognized that pregnancy deserves workplace protections. Most employees in the private sector are entitled to pregnancy disability leave under state law, giving them important job protections during pregnancy and recovery from childbirth. Yet many of California's public school employees, including classified employees, who educate and support our students every day do not receive those same statutory protections simply because they work for a public school. Classified school employees are often forced to plan pregnancies around school breaks or exhaust their sick leave before taking unpaid leave. While some employees may qualify for up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, many classified employees do not qualify because they have not yet met the eligibility requirements. Even for those who do qualify, FMLA protects a job, not a paycheck. Many employees never return to work. Those who do often come back with no leave, remaining to care for themselves or their families. I know this firsthand. In the spring of 2021, while I was seven months pregnant with my first child, I received a layoff notice after more than a decade with my school district. I immediately began researching my rights and wondering how I would protect both my growing family and my livelihood. Because it was during the pandemic, I was able to interview for jobs over Zoom and hide my pregnancy from the waist up. But I had no idea what leave or job protections I would have with my new employer. I wondered whether I would have to return to work immediately after giving birth simply because I couldn't afford not to. Thankfully, my layoff was rescinded, and after more than 10 years of service, I was able to use my accumulated sick leave to receive six weeks of full pay while I recovered and cared for my newborn daughter. Then in January 2023, I gave birth to my son. My leave balances had not yet recovered from my first pregnancy. I only had enough leave to cover two of the eight weeks my doctor recommended. I thought I had prepared by enrolling in supplemental disability insurance, only to learn that my pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition.

Good morning Jason Henderson on behalf of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges proud co respectfully asking your aye vote Thank you Good morning Janice O with AFSCME California in strong support Connie Chan on behalf of California State Treasurer Fiona Ma proud co

Good morning, Joycelyn Martinez-Wade with the California State Teachers Retirement System in support.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Senator Connor Gussman on behalf of Teamsters California and the Amalgamated Transit Union in proud support.

Isha Ayer on behalf of the City of Glendale in support.

Good morning. Mitch Steiger with CFT, a union of educators and classified professionals, also a co-sponsor. Urge your support.

Thank you. Any other Me Too's in support? Seeing none, we will move to opposition. Are there any opposition witnesses here today? Seeing none, any opposition Me Too's here? okay well we will bring it back to the dais and good assembly member we don't have a full quorum so we're starting pretty much as a subcommittee but i want to just tell you how important this bill is not just to the women who are here giving testimony and thank you so much for your testimony i can relate i have two children and went through the same anxiety uh it is incredibly important for every woman in California, the bill that you're moving forward today. And it is unfortunate that we are here having to even negotiate and debate 14 days when we know that the rest of the developed world requires and provides so much more to women. Over 120 countries around the world provide guaranteed paid maternity leave, while the United States is one of the shortest on the list and we are outpaced by places like Papua New Guinea and Micronesia. So when we say California needs to lead the way as we have already led the way on so many areas where it comes to child care and leave, family paid leave, there's so much more that we need to do. So I just want to applaud you for your efforts. As a member of the Women's Caucus, I'm very proud co-author and supporter of this bill and with that I respectfully ask for your

and I appreciate yeah hey we're really into that but you know I just want to remind everybody you know we ask these educators to show up every day for our children it's time that California shows up for them and I do respectfully ask for your I vote for all of them thank you very much appreciate that and we will take this bill up once we get to our quorum. Thank you. We will move on to file item number five, Assemblymember Ortega. We're gonna going to skip the file item order. And if you have witnesses, they're welcome to take a seat at the front table. Okay Please You may proceed.

Thank you. I'm Jason Rabinowitz, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 2010, proudly representing over 28,000 workers in California education, including 1,100 skilled trades workers across 22 campuses of the CSU, whose work makes CSU work every day. We urge your support for AB 1818, which is simply aimed at making sure that CSU honors its promises to workers and does not unilaterally refuse to pay raises that it has contractually agreed to. This is not an idle question. CSU has unilaterally failed to pay contractual raises that were due in July of 2025, last year, and in fact has given no raises to anyone in the system other than the already overpaid executives who they handed out huge raises to, and even though the legislature allocated the funding in the budget for CSU to pay these raises. CSU has not bargained in good faith with our union, and this has created all kinds of problems, labor unrest, strikes, and has affected employee morale and services to the students and the state. We urge support for AB 1818, and we note that it places the decision properly now with PERB based on the recent amendments, instead of allowing CSU unilaterally to refuse to pay raises that it can afford and that it has contractually agreed to. Thank you for your support and for listening. Good morning. My name is Ernesto Torres, Team 2010 Skill Trades Director and Project Supervisor at Cal State Seminar Dino. I'm here to voice our need for Bill AB 1818. I have worked for the Cal State system for almost 10 years. Time and again, the CSU uses excuses not to pay our contractual raises. They find loopholes not to honor our contracts. They offer one-time payments instead of salary-based building raises. Yet 1,100 skilled trades workers at every Cal State University honor their commitment and service over 470,000 students every year. We keep the lights on, we keep them hot and cold, we keep our buildings freshly painted and the water running. We keep public safety vehicles maintained, which is essential to protect the life and safety of our students, staff and faculty. We do our part without excuses. We ask this body to support this bill. Our families and our students depend on it. It's not fair for the CSU to take and manipulate legislative education action funds to their own pockets. They turn around and cut the working class. Yet their salaries continue to grow regardless of any contingency. We urge this body to support AB 1818. Thank you.

Janice O'Malley, AFSCME, California, in strong support.

Mitch Steiger with CFT, also in support.

Eric Paredes with the California Faculty Association in support. Yvonne Fernandez on behalf of the California Federation of Labor Unions in support.

I'll be very quick. Eric Bakke with the California State University. Just want to apologize to the committee for the late shift in our position. We just wanted to let the committee know that we're moving from opposed to neutral with the June 8th amendments.

Would you like to close?

Thank you. We have a motion by Senator Cortese. Please call the roll. The motion is due passed to the Senate Committee on Appropriations. Senator Smolde-Cuevas?

Smolde-Cuevas, aye. Senator Strickland?

Strickland, no. Senator Cortese?

Cortese, aye. Senator Durazo?

We have a vote of 2-1. That bill is uncalled. We'll take it up when members return. Thank you. Okay, we're going to go back to file item order, and next we have file item number eight,

If you have witnesses, perfect. Have a seat at the table. And you may proceed when you're ready.

Good morning and thank you, Chair and members. Catherine Squire representing the Commission on the Status of Women and Girls. We are proud co-sponsor of AB 1940. When our Fair Employment and Housing Act was first written, women were not as prevalent in the workforce as they are today. They were regularly kept out of the workforce, but today's changing economy not only requires us, but due to a lifetime of being paid less than our male counterparts, requires us to work well past the age of retirement. Our systems were not designed with women in mind. No two women will experience this time the same, but every single woman lucky enough to make it to that age will be affected by menopause. Menopause does not care about your education, zip code, income level, job title, or duty statement. This bill will importantly add perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause to the list of normal life events that will happen to every woman, unlike the accommodations made for childbirth, which actually won't be experienced by every woman. The addition of menopause recognizes the whole woman and all her life experiences in a way that doesn't reduce a woman's only experience to childbirth. Explicitly placing this information in the workplace can help women be adequately informed of their rights, because saying this can just be covered under the reasonable accommodations process means it can be denied. And if it were that simple, we would not have to be here. But not every workplace values their workers' rights or health care needs. Furthermore, the announcements our agency is charged with comprise the exact kind of awareness campaigns that are essential to this topic, as this topic continues to come out of the shadows. As women experience pregnancy and childbirth, there's no shortage of books and advice, but as they approach their mid-40s and try to understand how this will affect them, it's crickets. This is just another in the long line of equity-based adjustments that we need to make to our systems. And for these reasons, the Commission is proud to be a co-sponsor and strongly urges your aye vote. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee.

Are there support Me Too's in the audience? Please state your name and affiliation. Thank you.

Any others? Okay, we will move to opposition. Any opposition witnesses? You have two minutes.

Thank you. Any other opposition Me Too's out there, please come to the mic, state your name and affiliation. Okay, seeing none, we'll bring it back to the dais. I do want to thank you for bringing this bill. I think not enough has been done on the health care of women, and particularly in this area. I'm just curious, given the opposition's points, and you're welcome to address them in the close, are you working with the opposition on some of this language about accommodation versus where you initially started with the bill? How are you thinking about what the opposition is raising and what these cases are pointing toward?

Well, I appreciate it. I absolutely support this bill and want to see it move forward. Having worked with workers on discrimination cases, you know, it's really tough for workers to meet the bar for discrimination cases. And whatever we can do to clarify and make it stronger so that women can actually use this statute and get relief from it is critically important. I appreciate your bringing this bill, and would you like to close?

Thank you. We have a courtesy motion. Thank you. We have a courtesy motion from Senator Strickland. Please call the roll. The motion is due pass to the Senate Committee on Appropriations. Senator Smaller-Juevas?

Smaller-Juevas, aye. Senator Strickland?

Senator Cortese?

Senator Laird? We have a 1-0 vote. We'll take it up when members return. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. We are going to move back to file item number 1. We have Senator Jones.

Sounds great. Let's do that. Assistant, please call the roll. On the consent calendar, Senator Smallwood Cuevas.

Smallwood Cuevas, aye.

Strickland, aye. Senator Cortese?

Senator Laird? We have a vote of 2-0. Consent Talender is on call. And Senator, you may proceed.

Thank you. Any other support witnesses? Please come to the mic.

Any opposition witnesses? Please come forward. Any opposition me-tos? Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the dais. I just think this is a good measure. I'm a co-author. It's not right to punish our small businesses. to pay back this loan based on, as the leader said, on governmental decisions. And I would like to move this bill when appropriate. So we have a motion. And I want to just say, Senator Strickland and I, we rarely agree on things in this committee, as you probably would suspect. I've heard it's the most fun committee to serve on. Well, I will say that I, unfortunately, will not be supporting this bill. And there are many reasons for that, but one that I want to point out is unemployment insurance is about employers paying in good times so that workers are protected in bad times. And any efforts to eliminate employer adjustments is detrimental to our system. And any reform, and I think this is the most important point that will happen to our unemployment insurance process, will be done by California and for California. It will not come from the federal government. So, you know, for starters, I agree, reform is needed. We need to modernize the system, and we have to start by making sure it's fully resourced. California is, it lags so far behind. We are taxing only on the first $7,000 in wages, and that's putting us down at the bottom. And we looked into this with Florida, Arizona, and Tennessee, and we know the scale of our workforce. We know the number of workers. We know all of the diversity of industry. That just simply is not enough. Our own LAO has given a number of ways for us to fix the system. And starting with the legislature's need to increase our tax investments to $46,000 from $7,000. And so we've got a long way to go on reform. I'd be happy to work with you, though, on a resolution toward this effort. I think that we should be working to get the federal government to forgive UI loans. I think the debt is unreasonable given the situation where we had no real guardrails for how the funding was to be distributed. And that, you know, there was also no funding or mechanisms to prevent fraud from happening by the federal government. So, again, we need to trust ourselves to work toward the solutions. And solutions have been presented to us. Workers we know paid the price during COVID. We know families paid the price during COVID. and I want to say they continue to pay the price. Many of our communities have not fully recovered. Certainly many of our businesses haven't. Government, we did make mistakes, and yes, there were some criminals who exploited the situation, as that often happens. But the answer cannot be leaving the unemployment system permanently underfunded and eliminating adjustments that help it be solvent and to really help and serve the families that need it the most. So with that, we have a motion from Senator Strickland, but I will allow you to close.

Assistant, thank you. Assistant, please call the roll. Motion is be adopted, but first re-refer to the Senate Committee on Appropriations. Senator Simone Cuevas?

Simone Cuevas, no.

Aye.

Senator Cortese?

Senator Durazo? Senator Laird? One to one, that bill's on call. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. We are going to move to file item number three. Assemblymember Erwin, are your witnesses here? Please have a seat at the front table, witnesses.

compensated by a tuition sharing model which has been shown to encourage inappropriate incentives. I appreciate the recent discussions committee staff had with my office on how we can assure that local boards are transparent with how they spend federal workforce development funds and I am committed to continuing to work with the chair and committee to strengthen transparency measures in this bill. We want to make sure that we can track outcomes and maximize the impact of these important investments. With me to testify in support is our sponsor from TCAS. Thank you,

Thank you. Any Me Too's in support of this bill, please state your name and affiliation.

Thank you. Any others? Okay, we will move to opposition. Any opposition witnesses here today? Seeing none. Any opposition Me Too witnesses? Okay, we will bring it back to members? Assembly member, I'm going to support the bill. I'm going to move the bill. I just wish that you would take a look at private institutions as well, you know, because my understanding through the analysis is it's excluding, you know, private institutions from being able to take advantage of this. And I think you're lowering the participation rate when you do that. And so I'm going to support the bill because I think there's more good than bad, but I would love for you to take a look at trying to include that in the future. And the reason that we had initially not included private institutions is because we were waiting for the budget trailer bill to come out. That did include private institutions, so we will be amending our bill to include private institutions. And now you say there's even more good than bad. And now we can say we have even more agreement on our committee. I'm really liking this bill more more. I had raised an issue with you earlier in your team about this question of making sure that participants who can have access to the program can continue to have access to training programs. Oftentimes in my work before coming to the state legislature, the challenge was always not did folks want to participate in the training, but could they get to it? Meaning did they have childcare? Do they have transportation? Do they have stipends? The things that actually help them be successful in participating and completing programs. I really appreciate you saying that you want to continue to work on that because that is one of the leading causes for those participant levels dropping lower than what we would want them to do. I think this bill goes a long way to making sure that we are connecting people to good jobs, that we're helping to address poverty through workforce training and really appreciate you bringing this bill forward and would love to be added as a co-author as you move to the next level of this process. So please close. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Okay, we have a motion from Senator Strickland. Please call the roll. The motion is due passed to the Senate Committee on Appropriations. Senator Smolkoevas? Aye. Smolkoevas, aye. Senator Strickland? Aye. Strickland, aye. Senator Cortese? Cortese, aye. Senator Durazo, Senator Laird. We have a vote of 3-0. That bill's on call. Thank you. Okay. And now moving to file item number seven Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez You may proceed Hi Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, members. First, I would like to thank the committee staff for their work on this important bill. I'm pleased to present AB 1896, the GTFO Act, which says, Get the Feds Out. This bill says that individuals who participate in immigration enforcement activities between January 20, 2025 and January 20, 2029 will be disqualified from holding state, county, or local public employment in California except for conduct already permitted under California Senate Bill 54, the law that protects trust between our communities and our local government. The bill is authored by myself and our speaker, whose partnership in this effort sends a message that California will not bend when it comes to defending our communities, our civil rights, and the values that define our golden state. Since January of 2025, fear has been knocking on doors before the sun even rises, and especially in both our respective districts. Families waking up wondering if today is the day someone knocks on their door to kidnap them. Communities are wondering if the people who swore to protect them are actually working against them. This is not an abstract thought. This is our reality. And what we have seen with our own eyes, the terror that follows when cruelty is given authority without accountability. These acts are not isolated. They are not faceless. A pattern that has been shown, a pattern of poor training, poor decision-making, and poor values. Terrible events like the immigration enforcement officials publicly executing Renee Good, shooting Alex Preddy in the street, kidnapping 5-year-old Liam Cornejo to use as bait, and shooting and killing Keith Porter during a holiday. Whistleblower complaints and congressional documents show alarming changes to ICE training standards. Current ICE recruits now receive 250 fewer hours of training and complete only a 14-week program. Entire practical examinations have been completely eliminated. The number of tests recruits must pass dropped from 25 to 9. And entire courses have disappeared including instruction on use of force, the structure of the United States government, and even the difference between criminal proceedings and civil removal proceedings. In comparison, peace officers in California must go through a minimum of 40 weeks of training just to graduate from the academy. California expects its public employees to be moral, to defend the people against all enemies, and to support and defend both the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of California. And anyone who has participated in these raids has shown that they do not live up to the bar that California deserves from their public servants. So today, California answers with clarity. If you participated in cruel, baseless immigration enforcement, if you violated civil rights, ignored due process, or followed unlawful orders, you will not be welcome into California's public workforce. This morning, primary witnesses in support are Edgar Guerra, advocate with SIU California, and Monica Madered, state policy advocate with CHERLA. Take it away. Thank you. You each have two minutes. Thank you.

Thank you.

Your time is up. Thank you. Any support witnesses, me too, please come to the mic and state your name and affiliation position.

JP Hanna with the California Nurses Association in support.

Good morning, Chair and members. Jonathan Feldman with the California Police Chiefs Association. I want to start by saying we are not opposed to the idea of vetting out candidates thoroughly to make sure that they are qualified and suitable to be peace officers in the state We are opposed and have concerns categorically excluding people based off of their employment and not their actions I have a tremendous amount of respect for the author, the sponsors, and understand with empathy the issue at hand. But, you know, we have done a lot of work in the state. I've been with the police chiefs for 10 years. We've worked on background checks, training standards, academy standards, decertification, accountability. We've done a lot to make sure that we've picked the best of the best, but we've created pathways too for all eligible candidates, which included sponsoring a bill with the UC several years ago to allow undocumented Californians to become peace officers. And I've got a number of police chiefs that have been fighting for their DACA officers to remain on the force over the last few months. Again, because no one should be excluded just because of their background. They should be excluded because of their actions. We're going to continue to have conversations with the author, staff, sponsors, you know, to try and see if there's some type of agreement that we can come to. But as the bill stands now, we are opposed, and I'm happy to answer questions. Madam Chair, members, Randy Perry, on behalf of PORAC, also in opposition, but working with the author's office and their sponsors. We appreciate that. Our concern, again, is we have, you know, many agencies throughout the state who are short, extremely short, sometimes 20 percent short on manpower, which is dangerous, not only the officers, but the community. Secondly, we do think that there's a pathway here where we could put a lot of guardrails and parameters around people who are applying. We can do the background checks. We can go to DOJ, for example. We can have them find out, did you work for ICE? Did you work on any immigration? And then vet them out. We would be open to that. We would be open to language in this bill that simply said that if that's a determination, it would make them ineligible. and they would be vetted out through the information of DOJ, and Post could be the final determinator, make the final determination on whether or not they should be peace officers in California or that they cannot be peace officers in California. So we want to continue working on this. We hope that we can shape the bill into a way that would still get the end game of what the goal of the bill is, but through a way where we're not just categorically denying people jobs. Thank you. Do we have any other opposition Me Too's? Please state your name, position, and affiliation. David Bolhug, opposition. I am representing SFV Alliance, and as a union member, we oppose this retaliatory legislation. Thank you.

We could agree to disagree without being disagreeable on this issue. Let me open with I hate these public raids. I think they're unacceptable, and I wish it wasn't this way. But I think there's many factors into what happens here. One, let's just back up. President Obama actually deported more people, undocumented immigrants, than Donald Trump. One of the reasons why it was a little bit more precise and people didn't know about it because we didn't have these sanctuary city and sanctuary state laws. Now because of those laws that we have in place it's not as precise and therefore it's in our public communities like car washes and our are supermarkets, which I absolutely despise. I don't like seeing that at all. But it shouldn't be a shock to anybody that the president's enforcing our federal immigration laws, one of his main points of running for office, it was a centerpiece of his campaign. And we are in a democracy. I know a lot of people don't agree with the president on that, but that's why we have elections. One of the main reasons why he has that seat in the Oval Office is because he campaigned on this issue. And I do believe that those folks who are enforcing that are just doing their job. But when we look at this bill, we already have a problem, as was stated by our testifiers today, we already have a problem attracting individuals into law enforcement. I believe the gentleman said we're 20% lower than where we need to be in many of our communities across the state of California. and who ends up hurting the most at that is our citizens. The most essential role of government is public safety and to keep our citizens safe. I do believe by this bill moving forward, it would keep our communities less safe. I understand where the author is coming from. I understand he has a big heart on this. We could agree to disagree on this issue. But for those reasons, that's why I'm not supporting this bill moving forward. I think there's things that we could do to make things better for our communities and not as chaotic. But this bill, I don't think in the end, at the end, if this bill passes, I think it keeps our communities less safe. And for those reasons, I'm not supportive of the bill today. So and I want to thank the author for bringing the bill. And what I also appreciate is all the heads that were nodding during both the opposition and support witness testimony. I think it is a testament to how far California has come on making sure that law enforcement does have the trust of the people.

Good morning, Chair Smallwood Cuevas and members of the committee, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Anita Maldonado, Executive Director of the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency, and I am here in strong support of AB 2300. SETA serves as Sacramento County's local workforce development board, connecting job seekers, workers, and employers through the American Job Center of California system. Our work is about helping people move from job loss to opportunity and helping employers find the skilled workers they need. In workforce development, timing matters. For someone who has lost a job, a four- to six-month delay is not just a process issue. It means that rent is coming due, bills are piling up, and a family is waiting for stability. It can mean the difference between enrolling in training for a better career or taking the first job available just to get by. A Sacramento worker who ready to retain and return to work cannot wait months for resources to become available During that time opportunities can disappear and the path forward becomes harder. Our training providers experience the same challenges. Instructors are ready, classrooms are prepared, and participants are waiting. But delayed funding can postpone training and interrupt pathways towards employment. Employers feel it too. Businesses need a workforce system that can respond quickly when they have open positions and need skilled workers. Delayed guidance creates additional barriers. Our teams work hard to maintain compliance and accountability, but when direction comes months after implementation begins, programs may need to pause, procedures may need to change, and the staff time is diverted from serving workers to employers. AB23 helps California workforce system move with the urgency our communities need. It strengthens our ability to respond quickly, support businesses, and help workers to get back on their feet. For the people we serve, waiting is not neutral. It has real consequences. SETA respectfully urges your yes vote on AB23. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Smallwood Cuevas and members of the committee. I'm Adam Peck, Executive Director of the California Workforce Association. We sponsor AB2300 and we represent the local workforce boards that are the backbone of the California workforce development infrastructure. You just heard what a four to six month delay means for a worker in Sacramento. I want to explain why it happens and because it is structural and it repeats in every region of the state. Right now, the same local board is funded two different ways. federal WIOA dollars reach it through a sub-grant, a process that is fast, efficient, and has worked for decades. State workforce dollars are treated as procurement contracts that wait for Department of General Services approval. That is where the months go before anyone is served. AB 2300 lets the proven sub-grant process carry both. AB 2300 also protects how boards get their day-to-day guidance. For years, EDD has issued operational directives, much like the all-county letters that Department of Social Services issues to counties. That guidance reaches us quickly, and our work depends on it. AB 2300 confirms EDD's authority to keep issuing it directly, and if it had to go through full rulemaking instead, the same direction could take a year or more, leaving boards waiting when federal rules shift. On accountability, AB 2300 changes the process, not the oversight. Every dollar stays subject to the same federal reporting, record keeping, and audit requirements boards already meet under WIOA. We are asking to move faster, not to answer to less. On behalf of California's 45 local workforce boards, I respectfully

Good morning, Andy Liebenbaum on behalf of the County of Los Angeles in proud support. Jenny Aguilar on behalf of California Edge Coalition in support. Thank you.

It's file item 8.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning, committee. My name is Carl Miller, and I'm the president of Ask Me Local 2620, representing more than 5,000 health and social service professionals who serve California every day. I also work as a frontline licensed clinical social worker at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton. I am here today in strong support of AB 2223. Our members work every day inside of California's correctional facilities providing essential medical, mental health, and rehabilitative services. We see firsthand what happens when critical positions remain vacant and departments increasingly rely on outside contractors to perform work that has historically been done by dedicated state employees. The issue is not that the contractors are being used, there are times when contracting may be necessary. The real issue is that there is very little transparency about how much outsourcing is occurring, what it costs taxpayers, and whether it actually addresses the state's workforce challenges. The findings of the state auditor confirmed exactly what our members have been experiencing. The audit identified persistent vacancy rates, increased reliance on contract workers, and found that CDCR has not consistently assessed its staffing needs or evaluated the effectiveness of its recruitment and retention efforts. AB 2223 offers a common sense solution. It does not prohibit contracting. It simply requires CDCR to provide basic information about contracts for medical and mental health services historically performed by civil service employees, including what services are being contracted, how much taxpayers are paying, how many contractors are being used, how those positions compare to civil service classification, and the scope and duration of those contracts. Just as importantly, this information will be shared with the legislature and the exclusive bargaining representatives of affected employees. California cannot effectively plan its workforce without accurate information. Transparency is the foundation for better workforce planning, stronger recruitment and retention, fiscal accountability, and informed policies. On behalf of more than 5,000 workers of AFSCME, Local 2620, I respectfully ask for your aye vote on AB 223. Thank you for your time. Good morning, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Vanessa C. Strong. I'm a registered nurse, and I work for the state of California. I am proud to serve as the Bargaining Unit 17 Chair for SEIU Local 1000. Through my union, I represent healthcare workers in CDCR facilities across California. I am here today because AB 2223 speak directly addressing the challenges my coworkers deal with daily. For years, those facilities have been short-staffed, and vacancies have gone unfilled, but yet the work continues to go on. When there's not enough state employees, the solution becomes expensive contractors. That means workers are asked to work side by side with registry nurses who are making double their salary This is a real consequences that lead to burnout resentment and high turnover which only makes staffing shortage worse. As well, contractor staffs help with the shortage, but relying on them year after year costs the state far more than invested in civil service workers. Workers have raised the concerns for years. We've asked how many positions are vacant, how much money is going to contractors, and why aren't public civil service being hired for these positions. Right now, these answers aren't being available to the legislators or to us workers affected by this. AB 2223 is about transparency and accountability. It requires regular reporting on vacancies and contracts so policymakers, departments, and workers can clearly see what's happening in these state health care facilities and begin to address the root causes. State auditors recently report confirms what workers have been saying for years. The system isn't working.

I want to quickly close. I respectfully ask for your support for AB 2223.

Janice O'Malley, proud co-sponsor of AB 2223. Thank you. Annalisa Quintero, SCIU Local 1000, proud co-sponsor of this bill. Leticia Whitman, CDCR, CCHCS, registered nurse, employer of the state of California, and support this. Elsa Monroe, RN, San Quentin, and also the co-chair for the Coastal for the Nurse Alliance of California.

Yvonne Fernandez on behalf of the California Federation of Labor Unions in support. Edgar Guetta with SEIU California in support. Thank you. Renee Bayardo representing the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians in support.

Yeah I'll go first. Hello chair and members. My name is Benjamin Fowler. I'm a crew lead one with the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program. A proud co-sponsor of AB 2483. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. As an incarcerated firefighter, I fought some of California's most dangerous wildfires, including the Caldor, Zogg, Ranch, Dixie, SE, ZU Complex, August Complex, and Kincaid fires. I did real work. I received real training. I served on real fire lines. I put my body, my safety, and my life on the line to protect communities across California. And when I came home, I wanted to continue that work, not just as a job, but as a career and a calling. But like many formerly incarcerated firefighters, I quickly learned that my experience did not translate into a clear employment pathway. Even though I had done the work, I did not receive the industry recognized certifications I needed. I also did not see fair access to the career opportunities that should have been available to me based on my training and experience. So instead of immediately entering the wildfire workforce, I became a construction laborer. Eventually, I found FFRP. I graduated from FFRP's career training program, earned the certifications I needed, and secured a job with the U.S. Forest Service, the work I'm most drawn to and the work I have been trying to get back to since coming home. Today, I'm proud to be back with FFRP, but this time as a crew lead one, helping others who are working and trying to find the same path I once walked. AB 2483 is about removing unnecessary barriers to employment for people who have already done the work. It recognizes real training and real experience, requires meaningful certification, and helps qualified candidates compete for careers in firefighting and forestry. These are not just jobs. These are careers that can provide family-sustaining wages, stable benefits, upward mobility, and employee protection. They are careers that allow people coming home to support their families, contribute to their communities, and build long-term stability. California needs firefighters. Formerly incarcerated firefighters need fair access to careers they have already trained for. AB 2483 helps connect these two needs. I respectfully ask for your eye. Thank you. Good morning, Chair and members. The Michelson Center for Public Policy is proud to co-sponsor and strongly support AB 2483. Every wildfire season, California calls on incarcerated firefighters to protect our homes, businesses, communities, and natural resources. They compete in rigorous training, perform dangerous work, and put their lives online alongside professional firefighters. But when their service ends, so does their opportunity. The skills they earn and the experience they gain often do not lead to a clear pathway into the firefighting profession For many of these firefighters AB 2483 is not about a second chance It is about a first real chance. A first chance to have their hard work recognized. A first chance to turn their experience into a career. A first chance to provide for their families through meaningful employment. A first chance to continue serving the state they have already risked their lives to protect. No one who already has proven they are willing to protect California should have to start over simply because of where they gained that experience. We know that stable employment is one of the strongest predictors of successful reentry. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, individuals who spent one year or more in fire camps have a recidivism rate of 31.6% compared to 45.2% for those who did not participate. California has already invested in training these firefighters. AB 2483 ensures that investment does not end at the prison gate by creating a pathway to long-term employment in a profession where experienced firefighters are urgently needed. At its core, this bill recognizes that hard work matters, earned skills matter, and people who have already demonstrated their commitment to protecting California deserve the opportunity to continue serving. For these reasons, the Michelson Center for Public Policy respectfully requests your aye vote.

state your name, affiliation, and position. Good morning, Griselda Chavez with the California Association of Local Conservation Corps is in support. Thank you. Good morning, Connor Gusman

Good morning, Carmen Nicole Cox on behalf of the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program,

Thank you, Madam Chair, members, and staff. Mitch Steiger with CFT, a union of educators and classified professionals, proud to co-sponsor this bill along with CSCA. And thank you to Senator Cortese for stepping up to present the bill. Just wanted to give a little bit more perspective on what the situation looks like for our members. It's a huge priority for our classified division, one that we hear about from them very frequently. And there's an example that I'm always bringing up because it's the one that really sticks in my mind of someone who was employed for 37 years in a community college bookstore as a short-term temporary worker. So that means at the end of every year, they were terminated, brought back at the beginning of the next year for 37 years. It's 37 years of no seniority, no benefits, no sick leave, no vacation, no nothing other than getting fired at the end of every year and then brought back. We think it's extremely hard to defend any kind of a system that allows that sort of thing to happen. And we would also encourage everyone to also try to keep in mind what it's like for a classified worker, even when they're properly classified. If you go on your local school boards or your school district's website, look at the open positions. Limited to classified, you'll see that a lot of these jobs pay $19, $20 an hour, give 20, 30 hours a week. So it's already very, very difficult to staff these positions. And sometimes those positions require a great deal of experience or training. And so when you compound that with you might be fired at the end of every year, you don't get any sort of seniority or benefits or sick leave or anything, it makes it very, very difficult to staff these. And we would also point out that when you deny workers sick leave, especially when they're making wages that low, you often leave them no option other than going to work sick. So these work with students, these work with young children, some of our most vulnerable students with special needs. It is not fair to them or those they work with to force them to go without sick leave and have to make this impossible decision of, do I go to work and potentially jeopardize the health of my students or do I stay home and provide for my own family? So we think this bill is a great step forward to help solve that problem and finally award these workers the rights they deserve, and we strongly urge your support. Thank you. Any Me Too's in

Gressman on behalf of Teamsters California and the Amalgamated Transit Union in support. Edgar Geday with SEIU California in support. Thank you. Yvonne Fernandez on behalf of the California Federation of Labor Unions in support.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members. Dorothy Johnson on behalf of the Association of California School Administrators. in respectful opposition. Our classified staff are essential, critical parts of serving students and the school community. Regrettably, AB 2142 makes sweeping changes to the ability to staff short-term positions with added costs and challenges for layoff notices. Why do we have short-term positions in the first place? Well, sometimes they are grant-funded, like literacy coaches or homeless assistance specialists. Sometimes they're funded by limited federal dollars like our COVID ESSER emergency relief dollars. Sometimes we get discretionary block grants one dollars for a one position These are not ongoing resources to provide ongoing full permanent status along with the benefits that are afforded to those positions We also concerned again about the added liability for failure to notice through our existing March 15 layoff notice process. Time permanency to a rolling multi-year threshold makes alignment extremely difficult. Currently, school employers can identify short-term positions and create full-time equivalency calculations to ensure that we are not exceeding those times, exceeding the money afforded for those positions. And that could only be complicated through this, again, multi-year rolling percentage. And then we are deeply concerned that this would have the unintended consequence of denying really well-qualified, well-liked, classified short-term positions from coming back in future years should they exceed the threshold. One really quick example, someone supporting in the executive office has come back multiple years. If that person exceeds more than 50 percent for more than three or five years, that individual will become permanent. That individual will likely not be invited back despite their desire to serve in a short-term position and their excellent qualifications. So for these reasons, we respectfully oppose. Thank you. Martinez, Community College League of California, respectfully must be opposed to the measure. We are thankful for the author and sponsor for meeting with us and discussing the bill as it's moved through the process. But we still have concerns with the bill as is in print, as mentioned by my colleague. We are concerned about the rebuttal of presumption. We are worried about how it will impact our ability to address short-term fluctuating needs of our students by establishing that rebuttal of presumption that certain positions must be treated as classified based on multi-year workload patterns. Our colleges rely on short-term employees to meet the dynamic student needs. As an open access system, we serve all students and deliver a wide range of services, including associate degrees, dual enrollment, career technical education, online instruction. Flexibility and local control are critical for colleges to effectively support enrollment periods. Many of the needs are driven by funding sources beyond the control of our locally elected boards. And while we're appreciative of the investments that our colleges have made, received in this year's budget, they have to be mindful that the out years could be a challenge for us going forward. taking away additional flexibility for our colleges to manage our employees is a challenge for us and is something that we'll continue to be concerned about as this bill progresses.

Bella Kern on behalf of the Small School Districts Association and respectful opposition. Good morning. Michelle on behalf of California Association of School Business Officials and on behalf of my colleagues at the Kern County Superintendents of Schools in respectful opposition. Thank you.

I'm proud to represent Bargain Unit 17. I'm their Bargain Unit Chair, and I represent healthcare workers in the state facilities across California. I'm here for AB 2367, directly addressing the challenges my coworkers and I face every day on the job. For years, our facilities have been short-staffed, vacancies gone unfilled, and yet work goes on. When there aren't enough state workers, the solution is often mandatory overtime and expensive contractors. That means state workers are working multiple double shifts just to keep things running. And this causes leads to burnout, unsafe working conditions, high turnovers, which only makes staffing shortage worse. And while contract staff help short term, but use them year after year instead of investing in civil service workers. State workers have raised these concerns for years. We've asked how many positions are vacant, how much overtime is being mandated, how much money is going to registry staff. Right now, those answers are not always available to the legislators or the workers affected by these decisions. AB 2363 is about transparency, accountability. It requires regular reporting on vacancies, overtime use, and contracts, so political makers and policy makers and departments and workers can clearly see what's happening in the state health facilities and begin addressing these root causes. State auditors recently reported confirms what state workers have been saying for years. The system isn't working. AB 2367 gives us the information we need to do better for patients, workers, and taxpayers. I respectfully ask for your support. Good morning, Madam Chair Cuevitt and members of the committee. My name is Hockam Jaber. I work with SEIU Local 1000. We represent over 90,000 civil servants here in the state of California. I work very closely with Vanessa. I'm her lead staff person with SCA Local 1000, and we work together on a joint labor management task force for mandatory overtime, which is the topic that Vanessa was just speaking to. We work with several departments, the Department of Veterans Affairs, California Correctional Health Care Services, and the Department of State Hospitals in this mandatory overtime task force. and we've made little to no progress over the last five plus years in me working for this task force. The departments have recently rejected all of our mandatory overtime proposals in totality during present bargaining. We are currently bargaining our state contract right now. These departments are trying to strip current rights away from our labor management task force and take it away. These departments have made little again to no progress eliminating mandatory overtime and this task force was created in 2017 It now 2026 and we made little to no progress on this issue So this is an extremely important bill for AB 2367 We respectfully ask for your aye vote. Even though the departments I mentioned insist that mandatory overtime has significantly decreased, we still file grievances in an appalling manner with regard to these departments for constantly violating our contract with respect to mandatory overtime. Our nurses deserve better compensation that they are presently getting. That is one of the biggest issues that we have is a recruitment and retention problem across the state of California, and it's due to low compensation for nurses. Currently in this bargaining cycle, the state has offered us 0% for 2026, 3% for 2027, and 0% for 2028. That's unacceptable for our civil servant nurses that work across the state. These departments have multimillion-dollar registry contracts.

We respectfully ask for your aye vote for AB 2367.

Hello, Annalisa Quintero, SCIU Local 1000. We are proud co-sponsors of this bill, and we really appreciate you guys hearing this today. Janice O'Malley, AFSCME, California, and strong support. Thank you. Leticia Whitman, Registered Nurse, 20-Year Service with CDCR, CCHCS, and I support this. Elsa Munro, RN for San Quentin for 20 years, and also the co-chair for the Coastal Area for the Nurses of California of SEIU. We support this. Madam Chair, Edgar Guerra with SEIU California, proud co-sponsor. Thank you.

And then if it's okay with you, Madam Chair, after I present my bills, I will also be presenting AB 2150 on behalf of Assemblymember Haney. I'm potentially asking for a no vote. We'll see.

we like two for one. You may proceed when ready. Well good morning I believe this is actually my first time in front of the Senate Labor Committee under your chairwomanship. I'm proud to present AB 1883 which will prohibit the use of invasive and potentially discriminatory surveillance systems in the workplace. Workplace surveillance is not a recent phenomenon but today's workplace surveillance tools differ in their scale their speed and their invasiveness Employees Employers used to have to monitor video feeds to track workers Now artificial intelligence models and tech advancements allow them to compile massive amounts of data points and analyze them in real time without that human interaction. Current technology includes devices to monitor worker speech, collect neural data, and systems that use emotional recognition. Employers can use these surveillance data for predictive behavior analysis to prevent workers from exercising their protected rights or to figure out deeply personal information such as health or immigration status. This bill prohibits the use of the most unreliable and discriminatory types of surveillance, emotion recognition tools, and surveillance tools that collect neural data. Joining me to testify is Yvonne Fernandez with the California Labor Federation. I respectfully ask for that.

Hello, Madam Chair and members of the committee. Yvonne Fernandez on behalf of the California Federation of Labor Unions, a proud co-sponsor of AB1883. The surveillance technology that exists today is clearly more powerful than ever before, but the principles guiding the creation and the need for worker-centered guardrails remain consistent. Labor has been at the forefront of making workplaces safer and more humane for decades, and today is absolutely no different. The Assemblymember just described how emotion recognition methods are conducted on call center workers at MetLife, Humana, and even at Kaiser. But unfortunately, these tools do exist outside of call centers. Developers such as MorphCast and Hume AI sell emotion recognition software products capable of monitoring Zoom meetings and worker interactions to provide managers with a real-time analysis of a worker's positivity or excitement throughout the day. And not only are these practices invasive, but they are likely to discriminate against workers who fail to meet arbitrary and potentially racially biased communication standards. And as we know, these tools are not free of biases, yet employers still deploy them in workplaces all across the state with a false sense of confidence and perceived accuracy. In addition to monitoring worker emotions, employers also have access to tools purportedly capable of analyzing neural data to determine if a worker is tired, concentrating, or stressed. Developers like Emotive sell hardware to allow employers to understand a worker's true mental and cognitive state, all for the purposes of improving ROI and supposedly improving worker morale. These surveillance methods rely on questionable tools to make bold claims of a person's mental state. The likelihood of inaccurate readings are very high, yet despite these questionable outcomes, workers are still susceptible to these tools being deployed in the workplace. With recent amendments, AB 1883 prohibits employers from using AI-powered technology to make inferences on a worker's emotional state and prohibits employers from deploying neural recognition tools. AB 1883 does not prevent employers from using actual surveillance methods and tools for safety purposes. Tools that provide interpretation of a worker's emotional and mental state do not create a safe working environment. They create a dystopian and invasive workplace. And for these reasons, I respectfully urge Ivo at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Janice O'Malley asks me, California, in strong support.

Carlos Lopez speaking just on behalf of the California School Employees Association in support. Edgar Guetta with SEIU California in support. Thanks. Hi, Brooke Benetti on behalf of Electronic Frontier Foundation and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in support. Eric Barreves with the California Faculty Association in support J Hannon with the California Nurses Association in strong support

David Bolag not speaking on behalf of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, but as a member I am in support.

good morning good morning i'm andrea lynch on behalf of the california chamber of commerce and respectful opposition to ab 1883 we appreciate the author taking amendments on the bill and want to raise two outstanding concerns. First, AB 1883 defines worker to include independent contractors. I want to again reemphasize that independent contractors are not employees. They are not part of the employer's workforce in the way this bill assumes, and applying employee-style surveillance restrictions to a contractual, arm's-length business relationship creates confusion about who owes what duty to whom. This rewrites the terms of private contracts the legislature was never a party to, relationships parties freely entered and freely negotiated. Second, consider what this bill actually bans in practice. Under SB 553, employers are required to have effective means to alert employees to a threat in real time. Many use AI-enabled security systems that detect raised voices, distress, escalating aggression, or facial recognition in workplaces or parking lots. This is to be able to trigger an alert before a situation turns violent. This is precisely the kind of emotional inference AB 1883 prohibits. This bill would ban the exact safety mechanism SB 553 requires employers to have. For these and other reasons, we respectfully urge your no vote. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair. Chris McKaley here on behalf of the Civil Justice Association of California. Apologies for having my back to the author. Sorry, CJAC shares the concerns that the California Chamber has expressed. I wanted to raise two additional issues, which we have previously with the author and sponsor. The first is in Section 1582, what is now in C, which is the private right of action that also includes the potential for punitive damages to be awarded. In Subdivision A of 1582, we have Labor Commissioner Enforcement, and CJAC would prefer to have public enforcement of this provision of law rather than a private right of action. The second issue we raise is in what is 1582G, allowing additional local ordinances. We believe, as we do with several of these artificial intelligence-related bills, that if we adopt this as a statewide standard, that should be applied across the board. And therefore, we believe that we should have statewide preemption and not allow differing local ordinances. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Marlon Lahr with the California Restaurant Association in opposition. Thank you. Taylor Criddle with the Electronic Security Association, respectfully in opposition. Margaret Gladstein on behalf of the Security Industry Association in respectful opposition. Ryan Elaine on behalf of the California Retailers Association in opposition. Thank you. Elizabeth Esquivel with the California Manufacturers and Technology Association in opposition. Thank you. Good morning. Eric Lair on behalf of the California State Association of Counties. A post to the bill in print. Still are being amendments. Appreciate it. Thank you. Sarah Diket on behalf of the Rural County Representatives of California and Opposition. Jean Hurst on behalf of the Urban Counties of California as well as my colleagues at the County Health Executives Association of California and also a post. Good morning, Madam Chair. Erin Avery, California Special Districts Association. Respectfully opposed. Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Senator. Carlos Gutierrez here on behalf of the California Grocers Association in opposition. Good morning, Michelle on behalf of California Association of School Business Officials in opposition. Good morning, Melissa Koslachuk with Western Growers in opposition. Thank you. Dorothy Johnson with the Association of California School Administrators, respectfully opposed. And Megan Loper on behalf of the California Distributors Association in opposition.

Motion. Thank you, Senator Strickland. And I just want to say thank you to the author for bringing this bill. We have had many bills attempting to do what your bill is doing, to put some guardrails on AI tools, including a bill of mine that didn't make it past assembly privacy. And I wanted to say that employers we know are increasingly finding ways to cut costs, to integrate this technology, to oftentimes displace workers. And it really is important that we have some guardrails in place that don't allow them to completely get away with this. I think we have seen the governor's recent announcement about Anthropic, and the state is moving toward its 50% discount with Claude, which, you know, we understand, but at what cost? And at what point do we put the privacy of our workers in the same proximity as the importance of integrating this innovation? I want to say this is an important bill. It's unacceptable that this is the only bill really that is getting out on this topic this year So I want to make sure that we make it Successful in this committee and to move it forward. I just wanted to confirm though that you are going to take the amendments That yes, ma'am. Okay, so these are members that you agreed to in the previous

I want to thank the senator for his courtesy motion fantastic gentlemen we're also happy to have you as a principal co-author if you'd like to join us in this fight on this sign me up sign me up um i had a witness earlier this week who came and testified and told the story of how her natural voice the way that she was born and the way that she speaks gets detected while she's at work on a regular basis and suggested that she speak with kind of a lighter tone and it nudges her to speak in a different way than she was born. Knowing that she provides fantastic customer service and has for many, many years at her place of employment. And she spoke to the kind of emotional weight that that has on you, being corrected in that way by an immutable characteristic These tools are not yet perfected And some of them are more than just invasive And I think any of the security concerns are outweighed in my mind by the personal liberty and the privacy concerns, which is why we need to do this kind of legislation now before it's too late to turn back. And so I respectfully ask for your aye vote, and I appreciate you, Madam Chair. Thank you.

On behalf of Assemblymember Haney, I'm here to present AB 2150. AB2150 requires employees who are already CPR certified as part of their job to complete a brief naloxone training module which will equip them to respond effectively to an opioid crisis. By ensuring that CPR certified staff are also trained to administer naloxone, AB2150 strengthens our frontline response and helps us save lives. With me to testify in support is Rob Lane from the California Association of Alcohol and Drug Program Executives and Wesley Saver from HealthRite 360. We each have two minutes.

Me Too's in support of this bill. Please step to the mic. State your name, position, and affiliation.

Thank you. Are there any opposition witnesses in the audience? Seeing none, any opposition Me Too's in the audience? Seeing none, we will move the bill. Thank you. We have a motion from Senator Strickland. You may close.

Thank you. We have a motion from Senator Strickland. Please call the roll. The motion is due passed to the Senate Committee on Appropriations. Senator Simón Cuevas. Aye. Simón Cuevas, aye. Senator Strickland? Aye. Strickland, aye. Senator Cortese? Senator Durazo? Senator Laird? We have a vote of 2-0 on that bill. We'll take it up when members return. Thank you. All right. Assembly members are brr. Last one, best one. That is AB 2634. Yes, you will be. And if you have witnesses, they're welcome to have a seat at the table. Thank you, Madam Chair.

committee members. My name is Luis Sandoval. I'm the Secretary of Building and Sales Partnership. I'm here today to speak for strong support of Assembly Bill 2634 introduced by Assembly Member Sabir. BSP is a statewide workforce development organization that advances economic mobility for property service workers and low-witch industries. We do this through a unique labor management partnership model working closely with the SEIU, United Service Workers West, more than 90 employers, and 60 commercial building owners across California. Together, we address the needs of workers, industry, and labor by transforming workplaces into learning environments where workers can access training directly at or near their jobs. As a trusted messenger in the industry and workforce, BSP has significantly expanded its reach, training thousands of essential workers annually. Our labor management approach has always centered on high road training partnerships, delivering programs that strengthen worker skills, improve job quality, and support business competitiveness. BSP offers a range of workforce development trainings that that not only meet the needs of immigrant and frontline workers, but are also industry-recognized. Our training programs include vocational ESL, digital literacy, green building practices, occupational health and safety, technical certifications, leadership development, and career advancement such as our supervisor training program. By centering janitors, security officers, airport passenger service workers, and providing training and upskillings, we keep California running. AB 26 reforges critical investment in the long-term stability of sectors important to California's economy. Central to these efforts is the prioritization of bona fide labor management partnerships. By bringing employers and workers to the table together, we guarantee that training programs are in line with real industry needs and that public dollars seal the actual career pathways with economic mobility. This bill is urgent. Unfortunately, workforce funding has plummeted. Meanwhile, California is on the global stage, And as you may see on TV, with the global events in L.A., such as the World Cup, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, which are approaching, that's driving an immediate demand for reskilling and training. California has an opportunity to demonstrate that when we invest in partnerships driven by workforce systems rooted in shared responsibility between labor and management, we can strengthen entire industries. oh thank you madam chair sorry I had a problem with the button there I'll go real quick I know where the last bill Renee by Ardo representing SCIU California high road means quality jobs this program has really worked but we've seen a shift away from that in recent years and this bill is really bringing it back into alignment, which is making sure when the state invests, we're really getting quality for that investment. So we thank Assembly members there for bringing this important bill and ask for your aye vote today. Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Armando Loza with the Miguel Contreras Foundation in support. Hello, Madam Chair. Yvonne Fernandez on behalf of the California Federation of Labor Unions in support. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Ashley De La Rosa. I'm with Building Skills Partnerships on behalf of Working Partnerships USA in support. Krista Ramos with the California Immigrant Policy Center in strong support.

So first of all, I want to thank you all for being here. I want to thank the bill sponsors and the supporters of the bill. Senator, you may have been to the Hospitality Training Academy that is maybe in your district or in Senator DeRosa's district. I'm not quite sure. It's just outside my district, but it's an incredibly important program. I think many of us have seen tours of that facility, and those are the kinds of funding that this bill supports. So with that, I just want to ask for your aye vote at the appropriate time.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair and colleagues and colleagues that do all the work that make us look good so that we can be prepared the best that we can. Everyone who makes these meetings so successful. And I'll just never forget one of the first meetings, as you mentioned, where the garment workers coming in. And I thought, wow, you know, as long as I can, we have to make sure that no matter where you were born, no matter how poor you are, how wealthy you are, this is your house. And we have to make sure that they feel comfortable coming here, testifying, sitting here, and treated like anybody else. So that was one of my major goals of making sure that happened. And then let's just continue to make sure everybody feels comfortable in bringing their experiences into the Capitol and not just the Capitol going, you know, ignoring them. So thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for all the great things we did.