Legislators are beginning to add more specifics to spot bills as the legislative session gets underway in earnest. One bill now includes a broad notification provision that employers will have to comply with if it becomes law, while another amended bill carves out a class of workers who would be exempt from California’s ABC test. …
Bill hearing season is underway in the state capitol. The Senate Labor, Public Employment, and Retirement Committee will begin reviewing bills this morning, including measures to expand 4850 leave, expand workers’ comp presumptions, and continue certain death benefits for a longer period. The Assembly Insurance Committee set a hearing for next week. The agenda is …
California legislators submitted proposed legislation up to the deadline for introducing bills for the first year of this two-year session. Among the final workers’ comp bills introduced for the year are proposals affecting the state’s legal cannabis industry, expanding financial disclosure requirements, improving contract transparency and cracking down on uninsured employers. Additional “spot bills” are …
Legislators introduced a pair of bills that revive ideas that had been killed off in past sessions. One bill brings back a proposal for a state-run medical provider network (MPN), while the other revives a heat illness presumption for privately employed farmworkers that was vetoed last year. Assemblyman Esmeralda Soria (D-Merced) is carrying AB 1498 …
Assemblyman Michelle Rodriguez (D-Ontario) is carrying a bill to eliminate the requirement that applicants for a broker’s license must have undergone 20 hours of pre-licensing. The 20-hour requirement currently applies to each line of insurance for which a license is sought. The bill would leave intact the requirement that applicants complete 12 hours of study …
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) completed the committee assignments for the new session. He brought back Assemblyman Lisa Calderon (D-Whittier) to chair the Assembly Insurance Committee, which Calderon has led for the past two years. Assembly Insurance is the primary committee in the lower house that has jurisdiction over bills impacting the state’s workers’ comp …
Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected a proposal to give the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board a role in overseeing employers’ compliance with California’s workplace health and safety laws. The Governor also rejected measures to boost salaries for California Department of Insurance investigators, another to expand 4850 leave to more public employees, and proposed changes to the California …
California employers and insurance companies face new laws impacting the state’s workers’ comp system operations in 2025 and beyond. Some bills were signed earlier in the session, but the fate of others wasn’t decided until the final days of the session. The most troublesome measures fell to Governor Gavin Newsom’s veto pen (see related story). …