BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 585
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 585 (Fong)
As Amended August 24, 2011
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |78-0 |(May 19, 2011) |SENATE: |32-3 |(August 30, |
| | | | | |2011) |
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Original Committee Reference: H. & C.D.
SUMMARY : Provides that certain workers who serve as
firefighters at facilities of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) shall receive the benefit that other
firefighters have that establishes a rebuttable presumption that
cancer was contracted on the job.
The Senate amendments:
1)Delete the Assembly version of the bill, and instead add
employees who serve as active firefighting members of a fire
department that serves NASA installations, and who receive the
same training required of firefighters in California, to the
list of employees for whom cancer is rebuttably presumed to be
work related.
2)Add co-authors.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Provides for a comprehensive system of workers' compensation
benefits for injuries to employees arising out of or in the
course of employment.
2)Provides that for defined firefighter employees cancer is
rebuttably presumed to have arisen out of or in the course of
employment.
3)Provides that, as a matter of federal law, federal employees
are not subject to state workers' compensation laws.
4)Includes defined firefighter employees who are employed by a
California business that contracts with the Department of
Defense to provide firefighter services on military
AB 585
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installations in the statute defining the presumption noted
above.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill would have required the
Department of Housing and Community Development to provide
specified information relating to manufactured housing to county
assessors.
FISCAL EFFECT : This bill applies to employees of a private
sector business, and therefore there are no fiscal implications
to state or local governments.
COMMENTS :
1)According to the proponents, the firefighter employees who
would be affected by the bill are not federal government
employees, and are therefore subject to all of the labor laws
of California. In this light, it is argued that these
firefighters should be treated just like any other firefighter
employed in California and subject to California labor law.
2)The case for the cancer presumption for firefighters was made
initially in AB 3011 (Torres, et. al,), Chapter 1568, Statutes
1982. Subsequent studies have established that firefighters
suffer a higher incidence of a number of cancers than the
population as a whole. The basic presumption law adopted in
1982 was recently modified by AB 2253 (Coto), Chapter 672,
Statutes of 2010, by extending the statute of limitations for
filing a cancer presumption claim. This extension was based
on research that showed the latency period of many of the
cancers suffered by firefighters extended beyond the previous
time frame within which the claim needed to be filed.
3)In 2008, SB 1271 (Cedillo), Chapter 747, Statutes of 2008,
extended the presumption, which previously applied only to
public sector employees, to the contract firefighters working
on military installations. This bill would further extend the
presumption to an additional class of firefighters serving on
federal installations as employees of a California business
that employs the firefighters and contracts with NASA. The
argument is that these firefighters should be treated just
like the other, similarly situated firefighters. It should be
noted that, just like the military installation firefighters,
if these firefighters were federal employees, as opposed to
private sector employees of a federal contractor, they would
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not receive the benefit of the presumption, as federal
government-employed firefighters do not receive the benefit of
this presumption.
Analysis prepared by : Mark Rakich / INS. / (916) 319-2086
FN: 0002903