Employment: rehiring and retention: displaced workers.

Assembly Member Lee, with principal coauthor Senator Durazo, advances a measure that extends California’s displaced workers recall framework while widening its reach to a broader set of workplaces. The core provision maintains the recall-and-preference process for laid-off employees but pushes the operative window to January 1, 2027, with enforcement rights for violations available through December 31, 2026. It also broadens the universe of enterprises and workers covered by the recall requirements, adding airport hospitality operations, airport service providers, building services, hotels, event centers, and private clubs to the defined enterprise category.

Under the measure, within five business days of establishing a position, an employer must offer all newly available roles to qualified laid-off employees in writing and by the employee’s last known address, email, or text where available. If multiple laid-off workers are eligible for a given position, the offer is made to the one with the greatest length of service. The employee has at least five business days to accept or decline; simultaneous or conditional offers may be made, with the final offer conditioned on applying the preference rules. Employers must retain specified records for at least three years, including contact information and copies of layoff notices and recall communications. If recall is declined in favor of hiring another worker, the employer must provide a 30‑day written notice detailing the length of service of those hired and the reasons for the decision. The measure also extends recall applicability to scenarios such as ownership changes, organizational form changes, substantial asset acquisitions, or relocation of operations.

Enforcement remains with the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, with remedies including frontpay or backpay calculated using relevant pay rates, the value of benefits, and civil penalties per affected employee and per day of ongoing violation, deposited into the Labor and Workforce Development Fund. The measure preserves injunctive relief and interest on amounts due, and confirms that remedies are cumulative. Local governments may impose stricter standards, and waivers are allowed only through explicit terms in a valid collective bargaining agreement. The sunset arrangement sets the operative provisions to January 1, 2027, while permitting enforcement of violations occurring through December 31, 2026. There is no new statewide appropriation attached to the measure, with fiscal considerations resting on the existing DLSE budget and process.

For employers, the measure requires mapping expanded definitions to their operations, updating recall protocols, and establishing processes to identify qualified positions and communicate with laid-off workers through multiple channels. It also imposes documentation practices and training to ensure adherence to the five-day recall window and the three-year record retention. Ambiguities noted in the text include how “establishing a position” is interpreted, how “same or similar” roles are defined, and how electronic contact aligns with “last known address.” The policy context centers on maintaining COVID-era protections through the extended period while broadening coverage to hospitality, airport, and building-service sectors and relying on administrative enforcement rather than criminal penalties.