Brothers and Sisters:

Please be informed of the bills that have passed:

Legislative package for the 2023 session. I’m happy to report that over the last couple of weeks, our sponsored bills have made it out of their respective houses (State Assembly or State Senate) relatively unscathed with majority votes of support. The bills in our package improve jobsite safety, lift up women seeking opportunities in the trades, create new and exciting industry connections for our current and future members, level the playing field for our contractors, and close loopholes that have been used against us and our partners in the construction industry.

Your help, and the help of the local Building Trades Councils and the statewide associations you participate in, has helped us get to where we are on these bills. For that, you have my sincere gratitude. The diligent work of our legislative team, office staff, and other team members certainly helped drive this as well. I am proud of the team we have at the State Building Trades and know they strive daily to deliver results for our members.

The success of our platform at this stage of the legislative session is great, but we still have work to do. We will need your continued support to ensure these bills get through the rest of the session and make their way to the Governor’s desk. When we reach that point, we’ll need your help to make sure Governor Newsom signs these bills into law!

While we are still working to kill the bad bills left in the building, I wanted to make sure you knew how much we appreciate your efforts to help push our sponsored bills. Other bills we have supported, as well as bills we’ve partnered with affiliates on, have also successfully left their house of origin. We will send a detailed list of those bills, plus the list of bad bills still alive in the building, in a separate email next week.

Below is a list of our sponsored bills and the results of their floor votes for your review. If you have questions about any of these bills, please do not hesitate to reach out to our office.

SB 416 (Laird) – LEED BUILDING REQUIREMENTS

Requires LEED Gold or Platinum Certification for New State-Owned/Retrofitted Buildings. 

APPROVED ON THE SENATE FLOOR BY A VOTE OF 36-0

SB 740 (Cortese) – EXPANSION OF SKILLED & TRAINED

Requires Skilled and Trained Workforce on Hydrogen, BioFuels,  Carbon Capture, and Chemical Manufacturing. (Lithium was removed from the bill prior to a hearing in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee)

APPROVED ON THE SENATE FLOOR BY A VOTE OF 36-2

SB 584 (Limon) – LABORFORCE HOUSING BILL

Places an assessment on ‘short-term vacation rentals’ (like AirBnB and Vrbo) to fund affordable housing projects built by skilled and trained workers.

APPROVED ON THE SENATE FLOOR BY A VOTE OF 27-11 (NEEDED 2/3 SUPPORT TO GET OUT, WHICH IS EXACTLY THE 27 VOTES WE GOT)

AB 372 (Nguyen) – CHILDCARE ACCESS FOR APPRENTICES & PRE-APPRENTICES

Creates pathways for apprentices and pre-apprentices to access the CalWorks program, allowing them to access things like subsidized childcare. We believe this bill will break down barriers for women entering the trades.

APPROVED ON THE ASSEMBLY FLOOR BY A VOTE OF 76-0

AB 752 (Rubio) – HIGHWAY WORKER SAFETY BILL

Requires positive protection for workers on highway projects, placing physical barriers between workers and the flow of traffic. Our goal is to substantially decrease the threat of vehicular intrusions into construction zones.

APPROVED ON THE ASSEMBLY FLOOR BY A VOTE OF 80-0

AB 1204 (Holden) – LIMITS ON SUBCONTRACTING

Closes a loophole that allows contractors to subcontract work in their own craft to other contractors. This loophole has been used to circumvent prevailing wage, apprenticeship requirements, and other labor standards.

APPROVED ON ASSEMBLY FLOOR BY A VOTE OF 71-2