Not a Job Killer

In your June 14 edition you featured an article called “Anti-Business Bills Moving Closer to OK.” One of my bills, AB 442, was identified as one of 20 “job killer” bills before the Legislature. I disagree with that characterization.

AB 442 is a simple bill that is consistent with a state policy adopted by the California Legislature in 1933. That policy states, among other things, “It is necessary that the individual workman have full freedom of association, self organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing to negotiate the terms and conditions of his employment…”

Despite this long-held public policy, the state has never placed a limitation on the use of state funds to suppress union organizing drives. Consequently, recipients of state funds sometimes use these monies to engage in anti-union organizing drives.

AB 442 simply prohibits recipients of state funds from using those funds to discourage their employees from unionizing. The state contracts with a company for specific goods and services. The money provided to the company to fulfill that contract should not be used for any purpose other than to build the school, care for the patients, supply the food or satisfy whatever the terms and conditions of the contract may be. To allow otherwise would ultimately cost taxpayers more and would be a breach of the state’s fiduciary responsibility.

Under AB 442, recipients of state funds would not be prohibited from using their own funds to fight unionization. It would just ensure that that our tax dollars would not be used to effect the determination of whether a group of workers organize.

GIL CEDILLO

Assemblyman, D-Los Angeles