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Wage War: State budget reboots labor commission

Jeanne Kuang

Jul 10, 2023

Wage War: State budget reboots labor commission

Folded into California’s $310 billion budget agreement is a relatively small line item: $3 million to resurrect an obscure old state commission that once regulated industries from factories to farms to laundries—and even had the power to set the minimum wage.

The budget deal between the legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom would reconvene the Industrial Welfare Commission, dormant since 2004, to issue new rules on wages and working conditions for specific industries.

If that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s similar to what labor groups tried to institute for California fast food workers last year, with the passage of a law to create a state-run council governing the industry.

Business groups quickly put that law on hold, pouring millions into a referendum campaign shortly after Newsom signed it last fall. Whether the state convenes a new fast food council—which would be empowered to raise the minimum wage in fast food to as much as $22 an hour—is now up to the voters in November 2024.

But using a state-appointed board to issue industry-specific labor regulations was no new idea in California. The state’s Industrial Welfare Commission did just that for most of the 20th century, before it was defunded in 2004. Without funding, the commission hasn’t met or operated, but it’s still a part of state law. The new, tentative budget deal would bring it back.

Business groups were quick to criticize this funding proposal in June, calling it a “backdoor” way for the state to start issuing rules for fast food despite the pending referendum.

“This budget bill is undemocratic and a shameful attempt to silence California voters,” said International Franchise Association CEO Matthew Haller in a statement.

The budget bill doesn’t specify an industry for the new Industrial Welfare Commission to focus on, but does direct it to prioritize industries in which 10% or more workers live below the federal poverty line—for which fast food likely qualifies.

Asked for comment, Service Employees International Union, which pushed for the fast food law, did not say whether they want a new commission to convene specifically for fast food. In a statement, SEIU California president David Huerta praised Newsom and lawmakers for “listening to workers and taking the bold action needed to make progress against a growing tide of inequality and poverty experienced by low-wage workers and people of color.”

The union’s close ally, Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles politician who leads a budget subcommittee on labor, said lawmakers have heard workers across industries testify that they can’t afford the basics despite working full time or more.

“Some of these industries already have wage orders,” Durazo said. “It’s just a matter of looking at them (again) … It’s not just fast food.”

Newsom administration officials did not respond to a request for comment.

The bill only allows about 10 months—right up to about a week before next November’s election—to issue new rules on wages and working conditions. Longtime Capitol lobbyist Chris Micheli said given that tight timeframe, a new commission could only focus on a few industries that fit the poverty description, with fast food being likely.

In the current budget bills, the new Industrial Welfare Commission would not be allowed to issue labor rules that are less protective of workers than current law.

That raised the ire of business groups. In a statement last week, the California Chamber of Commerce, state Restaurant Association and other groups denounced the limitation, saying it “will only create unnecessary confusion, create layered burdens on employers, and subject businesses to more frivolous litigation.”

Ironically, it was labor groups that pushed to disband the commission nearly two decades ago.

Created in 1913, the Industrial Welfare Commission was California’s version of “wage boards” that were common methods of setting labor standards across several Northern states during the Progressive Era. The commission was initially tasked with regulating labor in industries employing many women and children, the marginalized workers of that era who had neither union representation nor the ability to vote for stronger labor protections on their own.

The commission includes five members appointed by the governor: two representing employers’ interests, two representing labor’s interests and one representing the “general public.” It met in public, received comments and issued rules by industry in the form of wage orders.

In later decades, it expanded in scope to cover virtually every occupation.

The commission’s wage orders covered industries such as manufacturing, timber, agriculture, motion picture production, canneries, transportation and personal services. They regulated such working conditions as the length of breaks, overtime pay, the provision of seating and water for workers and whether employers had to provide uniforms if they were required.

Setting the statewide minimum wage was the commission’s most high-profile responsibility. One of its most famous moves was to grant farm workers the right to overtime pay in the 1970s.

It was as susceptible as any Sacramento body to political influence. In the 1990s, then-Gov. Pete Wilson appointed labor representatives to the commission that labor groups opposed, said Catherine Fisk, a UC Berkeley labor law professor.

The commission made the controversial move to roll back daily overtime rules—the requirement that employers pay extra for more than eight hours of work per day. Lawmakers later reinstated the overtime rules on their own.

Dormant

Labor groups ultimately decided the commission wasn’t serving workers. At the urging of the California Labor Federation, lawmakers in 2004 zeroed out the commission’s funding, according to news reports.

Since then, the commission has lain dormant—other than a brief revival in 2006 under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was deadlocked at the time with the Democratic-led legislature over how much to hike the minimum wage.

The state labor commissioner still enforces the commission’s old wage orders. The legislature has become the primary body for writing new labor rules. Fisk said that’s not the best set-up for workers or the economy.

“It might be that the minimum wage should be $24 an hour in some occupations, but in others, that’s too high and it would cause harm,” she said. “That’s an empirical question that should be studied based on sociological and economic analysis, which the legislature is not set up to do as well as an expert body.”

Whether a resurrected Industrial Welfare Commission focuses on fast food or another industry, UC Santa Barbara labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein said it makes sense for the board to return.

The conditions and diminished clout of low-wage workers today, he said, in some ways mirror those of the women and children laboring in canneries and garment factories in the 1910s.

“Labor law is pretty ineffectual; labor organization is very very low,” Lichtenstein said. “You have (workers) who are only semi-citizens, whether they’re undocumented or marginalized. So we’ve sort of returned to the sociology of the Progressive Era.”

(Un)welcoming Waters: Sea otters poised for comeback to Marin and Sonoma counties

Nikki Silverstein

Jul 7, 2023

(Un)welcoming Waters: Sea otters poised for comeback to Marin and Sonoma counties

Flippers down, sea otters win the blue ribbon in the cutest critters contest. And to think, in the 18th and 19th centuries, man hunted sea otters to near extinction for their luxurious fur, which contains more hairs per square inch than any other mammal.

The sea otter slaughter lasted about 150 years. By 1911, when the animals became protected under an international fur treaty, less than 2,000 remained, down from an estimated population of 150,000 to 300,000.

Although the sea otter, Enhydra lutris, holds a place on many endangered lists in the United States and other countries, the population never recovered in a significant portion of their historical range, which once ran from the northern islands of Japan to Baja California, Mexico. The largest gap is from the San Francisco Bay to Oregon, where no sea otters remain.

However, the sea otter population in Northern California and Oregon could be on the brink of a comeback. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently completed a feasibility study on reintroducing the sea otter into these areas. Indeed, not only did the agency conclude it is feasible, but they also determined there would be significant benefits to reestablishing the animals, including improving the genetic diversity of the species and helping to maintain the ecosystem of their habitats.

Overall, the species possesses very low genetic diversity, with the southern sea otter, Enhydra lutris nereis, having the lowest of the three subspecies. By the early 1900s, it was generally believed that the southern sea otter was extinct. However, in 1911, the California Department of Fish and Game discovered 30 to 50 living off the coast of Big Sur.

Two years later, California made it a misdemeanor to kill or possess a sea otter.

“What the state did was extremely important to preserve that population,” said Lilian Carswell, the southern sea otter recovery and marine conservation coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The conservation laws are working. In fact, the current population of 3,000 southern sea otters descended from the Big Sur stock. Slowly, they’ve expanded their range, occasionally with the help of relocation projects conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. Southern sea otters presently inhabit the coastline from San Mateo County to Santa Barbara County and near San Nicolas Island, about 60 miles from the coast of Ventura County.

Now, if only sharks could read.

“One of the main problems for southern sea otters in California is the high level of shark bite mortality that they’re suffering,” said Carswell. “It’s always been quite high at the northern end of their range, which is San Mateo County, and it’s really ramped up in the southern portion of the Central California range, as well. This has prevented southern sea otters from having any net range expansion in about 20 years.”

Bringing the southern sea otter closer to the range of northern sea otters, found off the coasts of Washington and Alaska, could greatly benefit both subspecies. Interbreeding would certainly increase the genetic diversity in the southern sea otter. With climate change bringing warmer weather northward, the northern sea otter could also gain an advantage from interbreeding, perhaps enabling them to better adapt to new environmental conditions.

Another important consideration in reintroducing the sea otter is its critical role as a keystone species. Sea otters, known as voracious eaters, maintain their ecosystem by controlling the population of their prey. For example, sea otters eat sea urchins. Left unchecked, sea urchins can decimate kelp forests, which provide food and shelter for a large variety of plants and animals.

And kelp forests are currently being depleted by an out-of-control purple sea urchin population. The sea star, another main predator of the purple sea urchin, suffered a devastating population decrease from disease. Sending sea otters back to their historic habitats could help restore the kelp forests.

Slam dunk. Who would oppose the reintroduction of adorable creatures that keep their ecosystems healthy?

For starters, objections may come from the commercial fishermen who will compete with sea otters for crabs, clams, abalone and mussels. It may not be much of a competition either. While sea otters are the smallest marine mammals, measuring about four feet in length and weighing from 50 to 100 pounds, they have high caloric requirements.

On a daily basis, sea otters consume 25% of their body weight in food. Hence, there are very real concerns by the fishermen who make their living hauling in Dungeness crabs and the other invertebrates that sea otters devour. Reestablishing sea otters could disrupt an entire industry right here in Marin and Sonoma counties and beyond.

Dick Ogg, a Sonoma County resident for 62 years, has been fishing most of his life. For the last 25 years, he’s been a commercial fisherman, with his income relying heavily on crabbing. The soft-spoken Ogg is a philosophical enigma. While he believes the ocean resources belong to all, and he’s happy to bring seafood to many a dinner table, as a vegetarian, he won’t partake.

But Ogg is an important voice, representing the fishing community on more than a dozen state and federal committees. He’s worried—extremely so—about the possibility of reintroducing sea otters to the area. The Dungeness crab fishing season has already been substantially shortened due to migrating humpback whales becoming entangled in the fishing gear.

“When you think about what has happened to our industry in the last five or six years, we’re already down to the point where we basically cannot make a living,” Ogg said. “They’re cute, the sea otters, but they are going to eat whatever they can get their hands on. Everybody knows bringing them back is going to affect the crab industry.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is quick to say that there is no plan at the present time to reintroduce sea otters to Northern California and Oregon. The agency is still assessing.

“We’re gathering feedback from people up and down the coast right now,” Carswell said. “We’re trying to understand some of the nuances, like exactly where people are fishing, what depths they’re fishing at and what they’re fishing for. No particular sites have been identified yet, so I can’t actually speak to what the effects would be. I will say that past experience has shown us that reintroductions always start small and grow slowly over time. If a sea otter population became established, it would probably take decades.”

Ogg isn’t convinced that sea otter reintroduction should even be considered. It’s his belief that the intervention of man never works out for the betterment of the environment.

“I know the perspective is that the sea otters were here and man wiped them out,” Ogg said. “And that’s absolutely true. But I also understand that it happened 150 years ago, and the crucial environment is nothing like it was back then. It’s very important that we’re sure we’re not making a mistake, because once we’ve done this, there’s no turning back if things begin to get out of control.”