1. Protecting Families from Foreclosures. This year, California became the first state to enact reforms that ban the practice of foreclosing on a family seeking a loan modification (AB278, SB900). These bills also increased penalties for “robo-signing,” or the filing of false mortgage documents, and required banks to create a single point of contact for those seeking a loan modification.
2. Winning improvements for injured workers. California’s injured workers have suffered under slashed benefits and delayed medical treatment under Schwarzenegger reforms. Comprehensive workers compensation reform enacted this year (1) increases benefits for injured workers system-wide by $860 million or 30 percent, (2) cuts down delays in medical treatment, and (3) stabilizes the insurance market by removing inefficiencies and excess profiteering from the system. SB 863 earned strong bipartisan support and was based on Labor-management negotiations.
5. Cracking Down on the Underground Economy. The 2012 budget contained a $2 million dollar augmentation for the Labor Commissioner for misclassification enforcement as well as new funding to enforce prevailing wage laws. Governor Brown signed AB 1744 which helps protect temporary workers by requiring that their paystubs break down wage rate and hours worked by assignment and giving them client names and addresses. He also signed AB 1675, which establishes new civil penalties for unlicensed farm labor contractors, and AB 1794, which targets construction contractors who underreport workers to cheat on workers compensation coverage.This post first appeared on CalLaborFed and is republished with permission.
