Employer groups that launched the California Fair Pay and Employer Accountability Act of 2022 have been successful in gathering the requisite number of signatures.
The coalition collected some 960,000 signatures when only 625,000 are required by the Secretary of State to launch a ballot initiative.
“The counties are doing what's called a random sample check right now and they have until July 22 to complete that process,” said Brian Maas, president of the California New Car Dealers Association. “Once enough counties have done the random sample check that indicates that we have one hundred percent of the required signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, the measure will be certified by the Secretary of State as eligible for the ballot in 2024.”
As previously reported in the Southern California Record, the California Fair Pay and Employer Accountability Act of 2022 sets out to reform the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) of 2004.
“Members of the coalition and lots of other employers who have contributed to our campaign or have provided support to us have indicated that PAGA isn't working for them, and they would like to see a change to PAGA,” Maas said. “They think our change is the most likely to really put employees and employers in a better position.”
In addition to the California New Car Dealers, coalition members include the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Grocers Association, the Western Growers Association, the California Restaurant Association, and the California Manufacturers and Technology Association.
"Originally, when PAGA was adopted in 2003 and took effect in 2004, the idea was that the labor commissioner didn't have enough resources and we needed to empower employees to file lawsuits against employers in order to get redress and what we found over nearly 20 years is employees get less money," Maas told the Southern California Record. “Our coalition, after considerable review, discussion and drafting, came up with this proposal to try and fix it for employees and employers."
If approved by voters in 2024, the ballot initiative would no longer allow workers to invoke PAGA to file labor code claims against their employers.
“They could certainly file a traditional lawsuit,” Maas added. “They could file an unfair competition law claim. They could file a class action claim. They could file an administrative action against their employer. Our ballot measure incentivizes employees to do that by increasing the penalties. Right now, under PAGA, 75% of the penalties go to the state while we provide that one hundred percent of the penalties go to the employee.”