Year after year, the politicians in Sacramento introduce dozens of job-killer bills for their special interest friends. From higher taxes and more regulations to shakedown lawsuits and costly workplace mandates, these job killers are destroying our economy.
These bills put thousands of good-paying jobs at risk – jobs that Californians depend on to support their families and to keep our state’s economic engine running.
CA Job Killers, a program of CalChamber, fights job killer bills that have a negative impact on California’s jobs climate and economic recovery. We’ve defeated nearly a dozen job killers so far this legislative session. But the threat is far from over. There’s still work to be done and plenty of these damaging bills to fight to protect jobs and California’s competitiveness.
Some examples of past and current job killers include:
The Illegal Billion Dollar Energy Tax
- Imposes a new and illegal billion dollar energy tax on California businesses and families, costing thousands of jobs and increasing gas and electricity prices for hardworking Californians (AB 1186, AB 1532, SB 1572 and SB 535).
Business Tax
- Harms small businesses and start-ups by repealing a lifeline that helps employers stay afloat, keep employees and continue investing in their businesses in an economic downturn (AB 2408).
Trial Lawyer Billing Bonanza Act
- Artificially inflates medical damage awards in personal injury cases by allowing an injured party to recover expenses never actually incurred – ultimately increasing not only legal costs, but also insurance rates for California consumers and businesses (SB 1528).
The Takeout Takeaway
- Bans polystyrene foam food containers, kills thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs and drives up costs for restaurants, caterers and delis of all sizes (SB 568).
The California-only Leave Act
- Increases the cost of doing business in California by creating a new burdensome, California–only mandated benefit for a leave of absence (AB 2039).
The Harvest of New Regulations
- Increases the price Californians pay at the grocery store and ignites a flurry of lawsuits by imposing unnecessary and burdensome regulations and mandates on farmers – that ultimately may force them to move jobs out of state (AB 2346 and AB 1313).
Mandate Mayhem
- Opens the floodgates for discrimination lawsuits against businesses by creating a new protected classification for a broadly-defined “family caregiver” – making it even more difficult for cash-strapped businesses to manage their employees (AB 1999).
To read the full list of the 2012 job killers, including those that have already been defeated this legislative session, please click here.