BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 1050 Page 1 CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS AB 1050 (Low) As Amended February 10, 2016 Majority vote -------------------------------------------------------------------- |ASSEMBLY: | |(May 26, 2015) |SENATE: |26-13 |(August 23, | | | | | | |2016) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- (vote not relevant) Original Committee Reference: A. & A.R. SUMMARY: Makes changes related to permanent variances to elevator safety orders. The Senate amendments delete the contents of the bill and instead: 1)Provide that if a request for a permanent variance pertains to a conveyance covered by the elevator safety orders, the applicant shall notify the union representing elevator workers in the region where the building is being constructed or modified and to those workers who will be performing the tasks pursuant to the proposed variance (or their authorized representative). AB 1050 Page 2 2)Provide that these workers, or their authorized representative, shall be granted party status upon request to the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (Standards Board). EXISTING LAW: 1)Permits employers to apply to the Standards Board for a permanent variance from an occupational safety health standard, order, or special order upon showing an alternate program, method, practice, means, device, or process which will provide equal or superior safety for the employees. 2)Provides that the Standards Board shall issue such a variance if it determines on the record, after opportunity for an investigation where appropriate and a hearing, that the proponent of the variance has demonstrated by a preponderance of evidence that the conditions, practices, means, methods, operations, or processes used or proposed to be used by an employer are as safe and healthful as those which would prevail under the standard. 3)States that the variance shall prescribe the conditions the employer must maintain and the practices, means, methods, operations, and processes which the employer must adopt and utilize to the extent they differ from the standard in question. 4)Authorizes the Standards Board to grant a variance from any standard or portion thereof where it determines a variance is necessary to permit an employer to participate in an approved experiment designed to demonstrate or validate new and improved techniques to safeguard the health or safety of workers. AB 1050 Page 3 5)Provides that a permanent variance may be modified or revoked upon application by an employer, employees, or the division, or by the Standards Board on its own motion, as specified. 6)Requires that the Standards Board conduct hearings on such requests for a permanent variance after employees or employee representatives are properly notified and given an opportunity to appear. FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Department of Industrial Relations indicates that it would incur first-year costs of $166,000 and ongoing costs of $160,000 to implement the provisions of this bill. COMMENTS: Under current law, the Standards Board has authority to consider variances to California/Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) standards when a building is being constructed, repaired, or updated - the vast majority of these variances are requests for conveyances such as elevators and escalators. Existing law provides that a variance may be considered by the Standards Board only after notice is given to employees. However, in practice 'employees' are considered to be the employees of the applicant who is seeking the variance, which may not be the employees that will actually work on the project. For example, in the installation of an elevator, the employees that will be impacted by a variance from a safety order will be the employees of the contractor or elevator manufacturer who are brought in to perform the work. The author argues that this lack of notification prevents workers who are actually doing the work from participating in the variance hearing or even be notified that a variance has been requested. This bill would help ensure that a permanent variance request pertaining to conveyances receives a thorough hearing by requiring that the applicant notify the union representing elevator workers in the region where the building is being constructed or modified and those workers who will be performing AB 1050 Page 4 the tasks, or their authorized representative, of the request for a variance. The bill would also grant these workers, or their authorized representative, party status upon request to the Standards Board. According to supporters, this bill seeks to correct an oversight in the Cal/OSHA Standards Board variance application process with respect to requests for an elevator, or other public conveyances variance. They argue that with these variance requests, the building owner is not required to notify those employees who will be installing the conveyance for which a variance application has been filed. They note that approximately 90% of all permanent variance applications are for elevators and other public conveyances, and approximately 95% of these installations are done by the men and women of the International Union of Elevator Constructors. This legislation, they argue, simply requires that the variance applicant provide notice to these workers, or their representatives, of the application for a safety order variance. The author and supporters believe that this bill will help guarantee that a variance request receives a thorough and fair hearing, while making certain that the Standards Board has all of the relevant facts before making a decision on a variance request. They argue that this bill ensures that those workers who will be the ones actually doing the work will be notified as part of the application process and will be allowed to participate in the variance hearing. Opponents of the measure are opposed unless amended arguing that this bill creates expansive new notification requirements for conveyance variance applicants. According to opponents, this bill is substantially similar to AB 578 (Low) of 2015, which Governor Brown vetoed, indicating that it was unclear which employees would be affected by the new notice requirements and questioned why the existing process was not sufficient to protect workers' rights. Opponents argue that like its predecessor, this bill creates a new expanded category of workers and their representatives to be notified by a conveyance AB 1050 Page 5 variance applicant and such an expansion creates a number of compliance and enforcement issues. Analysis Prepared by: Ben Ebbink / L. & E. / (916) 319-2091 FN: 0004009