Posts Tagged: Western States Council

In February, the UFCW Western States Council and the Western Center on Law and Poverty launched a statewide push for fair schedules in retail, called Schedule Fairness. The campaign supports the Fair Scheduling Act, or AB 357, which aims to help improve workers’ quality of life by providing more stability and certainty in their work scheduling.  Specifically, the law requires employers who have 500 or more workers in the food and general retail industries in California to provide a two-week scheduling notice for workers and additional pay for last-minute changes to the schedule.

The legislation is authored by State Assembly Members David Chiu and Dr. Shirley Weber – coauthored by State Senator Connie Leyva and State Assembly Member Rob Bonta, Kansen Chu and Roger Hernandez. Numerous organizations also support the campaign and legislation; including, the Child Care Law Center, Parent Voices of California, Hunger action Los Angeles, River City Food Bank, San Francisco Living Wage Coalition, St. Anthony’s Foundation, California Black Health Network, National Association of Social Workers, CA Chapter and many more.

The issue and campaign continue to gain support and attention. As recently as May 18^th, The Women’s and Labor Caucuses unanimously approved a resolution to support the Fair Scheduling Act.

Members can support this campaign by visiting http://www.schedulefairness.com/ and following the campaign via social media.

UFCW Locals from the Western States Council held a successful lobby day in California that saw five UFCW-sponsored bills pass through their houses.

Last week, members and staff from UFCW Western States Council, Locals 5, 8, 648, 1167, 1442 and worker activists from OUR Walmart traveled to the California State Capitol to lobby for issues and legislation important to workers and working families.

The week began with a reception held at the Capitol and provided an opportunity for members to meet and speak with lawmakers. Members and staff began lobbying at the Capitol the next day and visiting 80 Assembly members’ offices. During their time there, five UFCW-sponsored bills passed their houses and will be moving forward through the legislative process.

The bills that passed are:

• AB1792, the Public Benefit Report, would require that an annual report be done on private and public employers who have 25 or more employees on the state’s public assistance programs such as Medi-Cal and CalFresh.
• AB1897, the Accountability for Labor Contractors bill, addresses the abuse of third-party labor contractors violating labor laws.
• SB945, the Minimum Wage Fairness Act, authored by Senator Mark Leno, would increase the minimum wage in consecutive years from 2015 thru 2017 to $11, $12, and $13 dollars per hour, and begin to align workers’ worth with the immense rate of productivity that workers have delivered to companies across industries in the state.
• SB270, the bill that would eliminate single -use carryout plastic bags statewide.
• AB2418, the Improving of Patient Medication Adherence bill.