CAAA: State's Labor Movement Has Its Hands Full

Friday, August 11, 2023 | 0

Hollywood on strike as artificial Intelligence threatens actual intelligence.

Teamsters facing autonomous driverless trucks.

Hotel owners cutting daily room cleaning to cut hotel housekeepers’ paychecks.

Farmworkers organizing under a new first-in-the-nation law. 

Fast food workers challenging McDonald's and Starbucks.

Change is faster. State government is slower.

Heat waves are killing more workers. Gig jobs are eroding Social Security. Paychecks can’t pay the rent. Five-dollar gas is “normal.” And decision-makers are out of touch.

But labor has a new leader, and she is CAAA’s old friend.

Lorena Gonzalez was elected to the Assembly 10 years ago. But when she resigned from the Assembly to take over the California Labor Federation, she faced a two-year legal ban on lobbying the Legislature. That ban will expire in a few months, and when it does, workers will have her back. 

Gonzalez was the only legislator to call out gender bias in workers’ comp. She was the only legislator to force most gig businesses to provide workers’ comp.

She was the only legislator to vote against the Department of Motor Vehicles' “plan” to allow driverless big rigs and buses on the road. She was the only legislator to win overtime pay for farmworkers, and sick pay for every worker.

Labor has its hands full today. But working people will soon have the extra hand we all need in the State Capitol.

This opinion by the California Applicants' Attorneys Association communications team is republished, with permission, from the CAAA website.