BILL ANALYSIS Ó
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de León, Chair
SB 666 (Steinberg) - Employment: Retaliation Registration
Amended: May 7, 2013 Policy Vote: L&IR 4-0, Judiciary
6-1
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: May 20, 2013 Consultant: Robert Ingenito
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: SB 666 would suspend or revoke an employer's
business license for threatening to retaliate or retaliating
against an employee based citizenship or immigration status.
This bill would also provide for the suspension, disbarment, or
other discipline of an attorney who threatens to report the
immigration status of a witness or party to a civil or
administrative action because the witness or party exercises or
has exercised a right related to his or her employment. The
bill also would establish a civil penalty up to $10,000 for
violations of its provisions.
Fiscal Impact: The Department of Industrial Relations (DIR)
estimates that it would incur costs of $665,000 (special funds)
ongoing to implement the provisions of the bill.
Background: Employees are entitled to protections under current
law regardless of their immigration status. Nevertheless, cases
exist where such workers seek to exercise their employment
rights (e.g. receiving minimum wage, or being paid for the hours
they work, a sexual harassment-free work environment, etc.),
with the employer responding by threatening to report them
and/or their family to immigration or law enforcement officials
(or actually doing so). Additional instances exist where such
employers have utilized attorneys who have used similar threats
to dissuade people from testifying or participating in
depositions in support of workers seeking to enforce their
employment rights.
Proposed Law: This bill would add to labor law protections
against threats and intimidation by employers, or any person
acting on behalf of the employer, for employees who engage in
protected activity. Specifically, this bill would, among other
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things, do the following:
Prohibit any person acting on behalf of the employer
from making, adopting, or enforcing any rule, regulation,
or policy preventing an employee from disclosing
information to a government or law enforcement agency.
Current law already contains these prohibitions with
respect to the employer.
Prohibit an employer or any person acting on behalf of
the employer from preventing, or retaliating against, an
employee for providing information to [or testifying
before] any public body conducting an investigation,
hearing, or inquiry.
Prohibit an employer from retaliating or taking adverse
action against [current law protects against discharge or
discrimination] any employee or applicant for employment
because he/she has engaged in protected conduct (such as
rights under the jurisdiction of the Labor Commissioner).
o The bill would expand the protected conduct to
include a written or oral complaint by an employee
that he or she is owed unpaid wages.
o The bill would subject an employer that is a
corporation or limited liability company to a civil
penalty of up to $10,000 per violation of these
provisions.
Make it a cause for suspension, disbarment, or other
discipline for any member of the State Bar to report, or
threaten to report, the immigration status of a witness or
party to a civil or administrative action -or his or her
family member- to a federal, state, or local agency because
the witness or party exercises a right related to his or
her employment.
Specify that a business license is subject to suspension
or revocation if a current, former, or prospective employee
of the licensee attempts to exercise a right related to
his/her employment or any terms, conditions, or benefits
protected by state law and, in reaction, the licensee
threatens to retaliate or retaliates based on the
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employee's citizenship or immigration status.
Provide that it is not necessary for an individual to
exhaust administrative remedies or procedures in order to
bring a civil action under Labor Code, unless the code
section under which the action is brought expressly
requires exhaustion.
Specify that reporting (or threatening to report) an
employee's, former employee's, or prospective employee's
citizenship or immigration status, or that of his/her
family member, to a federal, state, or local agency because
he/she exercises a protected right would constitute an
adverse action for purposes of establishing a violation of
the designated right.
Staff Comments: This bill addresses employer retaliation against
employees who assert rights under the Labor Code and reinforces
protections available to all employees regardless of citizenship
or immigration status. The bill's provisions pertaining to the
Labor Code would fall under DIR's Retaliation Complaint
Investigation unit (RCI) which investigates and files actions
pursuant to Labor Code 98.7 based upon discrimination and
retaliation complaints filed by employees.
The State's workforce is currently 18.6 million persons. DIR
uses a reported statistic that one in ten workers is
undocumented to develop a population of about 1.86 million
undocumented workers in the State. Beginning with this starting
figure, and incorporating various assumptions, DIR estimates the
need for five new positions and one partial-year position to
investigate additional complaints under the bill's provisions.