A Senate budget subcommittee on state labor issues challenged the Department of Industrial Relations’ approach to cutting vacant positions to comply with the 2025 Budget Act. Last year’s budget agreement sought to eliminate over 6,000 vacant positions across all branches of state government, but a joint legislative budget committee questioned 650 of the cuts – …
A legislative proposal to create a licensing system for temporary staffing agencies is moving forward, despite opposition, in line with the author’s promise to work with parties to draft a workable definition of the staffing operations covered by the bill. SB 1032 by Sen. Eloise Gomez Reyes (D-San Bernardino) cleared the Senate Labor, Public Employment …
The Division of Workers’ Compensation’s annual educational forum opened last week under the direction of a new leadership team at the Division and the Department of Industrial Relations. DIR Director Jennifer Osborn noted that she is still months away from her first anniversary in the position, and acting DWC Administrative Director Nicole Richardson has been …
Sen. Ben Allen (D-El Segundo) is carrying SB 1209 to give the Insurance Commissioner the authority to penalize carriers that do not correct identified violations within an agreed-upon timeframe. Senator Allen is currently the favorite to be the next elected insurance commissioner. His bill is designed to give the Commissioner greater authority to require carriers …
Senator Anna Caballero’s (D-Fresno) decision to drop a provision for an annual cost-of-living adjustment to workers’ comp permanent partial disability (PPD) benefits allowed her bill, SB 555, to advance out of Senate Appropriations and ultimately the Senate. Instead of an annual COLA adjustment, the bill is advancing with an unspecified increase in average weekly PPD …
Gov. Gavin Newsom closed out the legislative session with a couple of key vetoes. One of the bills would have created the only workers’ compensation presumption that applies to private sector workplaces, but otherwise gave his approval to a host of workers’ comp measures. Included among the new laws were bills to crack down on …
Gov. Gavin Newsom is working through the stacks of bills legislators passed this session and vetoed a bill aiming to reform the Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund (SIBTF) while signing measures to improve the med-legal process and extend a heart presumption to more peace officers. The SIBTF bill promised to cut costs in the runaway …
The Governor has until October 12th to take action on the bills passed this session, including over a dozen that impact the California workers’ compensation system. High-profile bills that passed in the closing days of the session include proposed changes to create a new private sector presumption – a heat illness presumption for farmworkers, amend …