California Governor Gavin Newsom on Sunday vetoed a bill that would have extended the notice period for impending layoffs that companies must give workers, expanding those rules to include contract workers.

Including contract labor under the California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act, “risks imposing liability” on employers who “cannot reasonably be expected to know whether their actions will cause job losses for employees of their subcontractors” , Newsom said in his article. veto statement.

The legislation was authored by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) in response to the wave of layoffs that swept the tech industry last year, especially Twitter, now known as X.

The social media company acquired by Elon Musk has reportedly laid off around 4,400 people

theirs

5,500 contract workers without notice or dismissal, after about 3,700 of the full-time employees had already been laid off. The company is embroiled in an ongoing legal battle over its failure to cooperate in arbitration cases with former employees who say the company failed to pay them severance.

The big

number

The number of contract workers in the tech industry is expected to increase in the coming years, especially those who work with artificial intelligence programs that can create images and other content.

In the wake of mass layoffs, tech workers are reconsidering their future

If we want to keep our workforce here in California, we need to make sure that all employees, from the software engineers to the janitors and cafeteria workers, are given adequate notice when a company downsizes, rather than moving them from one job to the next. throw it out the other day,” Haney said in a speech.

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Edition.

Samantha Gordon, chief program officer at TechEquity Collaborative, which sponsored the bill, called expanding protections for contract workers a “simple change that addresses the way work happens today.”

Employers contract with agencies with a “rough idea” of the work they are paying for, Gordon said, and when contract workers are fired, it typically means the employer has notified the agency

they did it

can no longer afford to pay these workers.

“It is reasonable that everyone who works at that company has the right to be informed of a potential job loss due to a mass layoff,” Gordon said.

The bill would have extended WARN’s required notice period for impending layoffs, closure or relocation, which applies to companies of a certain size, from 60 to 75 days. For the rules to apply to contract workers, they would have to work for at least six months out of 12 months and at least 60 hours prior to the date on which a mass layoff is required. Contractor employees who completed a temporary project with a specified completion date would be exempt.

Newsom is also asking questions

ed

expanding the types of businesses that would be covered by the WARN Act

what types of businesses are covered by the WARN Act

to include chain companies, even if that is the case

That

The layoffs may be geographically far apart and unrelated.

Housekeepers in California will receive no job safety protections after another veto from Newsom

‘It is not clear whether this change is consistent with the purpose of [the WARN Act] to protect local communities and enable a rapid response to a potential shock to the local economy and workforce,” Newsom said.

Haney said he plans to return

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introduce the bill next year and work with Newsom to address his concerns. The bill was sponsored by several labor and union groups in the state, such as the California Labor Federation, the National Employment Law Project and Alphabet Workers Union, which represents Google employees.