HOWARD FINE

Staff Reporter

Halfway through this year’s session of the state Legislature, Democrats and their labor and trial-lawyer allies have pushed through dozens of bills aimed at California workplaces over the objections of Republicans and statewide business groups.

The bills, which range from reinstating daily overtime to a major increase in workers’ compensation benefits and a crackdown on workplace safety violations, have all cleared one of the Legislature’s two houses on their way to a final showdown later this summer. And with Democrats in solid control, business groups have been unable to stop the flow of legislation.

“Our members are very concerned about the direction this session has taken,” said Gavin McHugh, senior vice president of the California Manufacturers Association. “A number of bills that we were opposed to passed. Many of these bills would have significant impacts on employers. But it’s the cumulative impact of these bills that could be devastating to the state’s economy.”

Labor interests, by contrast, are upbeat as they see more favorable odds for enacting many of their key initiatives, which had been stalled by 16 years of Republican governors.

“These bills will provide essential workplace protections for the people who go to work every day and make this economy work,” said Sharon Cornu, director of communications for the California Federation of Labor.

Ultimately, business groups are pinning their hopes on Gov. Gray Davis to veto the most sweeping legislation; Davis campaigned on a theme of moderation and promised not to enact measures that would cause significant harm to the state’s economy.

But so far, Davis has said little. His press office did not return calls last week.

“We’ve not had any indicators from the governor,” said Martyn Hopper, state director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

At the top of labor’s agenda:

? AB 60, by Assemblyman Wally Knox, D-Los Angeles, which reinstates daily overtime pay;

? AB 1127, by Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, which cracks down on employers who send work out to contractors that don’t follow wage and hour laws; and

? AB 442, by Assemblyman Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, which prohibits companies from using public funds to hinder unionization efforts among their employees.

Other key bills include SB 320 and SB 546 both by Sen. Hilda Solis, D-El Monte which significantly boost workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance benefits. Another bill, SB 1149, by Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Daly City, expands family care and medical leave benefits to apply to employers with at least 25 employees (the current federal threshold is 50).

All these measures cleared their house of origin in the last few weeks and will be taken up by the opposite house in July after the state budget passes.

The California Chamber of Commerce has included them in its list of two dozen “job-killer bills.” The chamber and other business groups are preparing an intense lobbying campaign for the end of the legislative session, targeting fiscally conservative Democrats in both houses.

“We expected that Democrats would be more concerned about the impacts of these proposals on jobs and the economy,” said McHugh. “It may be that the lessons learned from the recession have been forgotten because the economy is doing quite well.”

But labor leaders take issue with the chamber’s description of these bills as “job killers.”

“Independent polling on these bills says 66 percent of those polled reject the ‘job-killer’ label and believe these are good pieces of legislation,” Cornu said.

The workplace-related bills that cleared major hurdles this month are not limited to labor, per se. Trial attorneys and consumer advocates have also been pushing legislation aimed at reining in health maintenance organizations and making it easier to sue corporations.

On the HMO-reform front, dozens of bills have cleared at least one house, including one by Solis, SB 21, that would allow patients who work for private-sector employers to sue their HMOs.

Trial attorneys also pushed through bills that would raise the malpractice damages cap for physicians and prohibit employers from requiring employees to agree that disputes will be settled through arbitration, rather than trials. Despite the opposition of HMOs and other businesses to these bills, trial attorney lobbyists say they actually took a more moderate tack this year than in the past.

“Each of our bills has been modified to include objections raised by insurance or business groups,” said Mark Robinson Jr., president of the Consumer Attorneys of California and a partner in Robinson, Calcagnie, and Robinson of Newport Beach. “We were told to be reasonable by both Gov. Davis and (Senate President-pro-tempore John) Burton.”

Meanwhile, environmental groups are backing another Solis bill, SB 115, that would change the California Environmental Quality Act to require developers to identify and mitigate impacts of their projects on minority and low-income communities.

Not all the news is bad for business groups. They did succeed in stopping some efforts they claimed would have imposed significant costs on employers. These included a measure that would have required insurance companies to invest some of their assets into low-income and disadvantaged communities and a bill that would have created a more stringent state version of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

And some legislation aimed at helping businesses did make it through at least one house. One such bill, by Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, D-Los Angeles, gives state tax credits to film and television production companies; it is aimed at slowing the exodus of filming to out-of-state locations, like Canada.