Proponents for an initiative that would replace the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) with a system designed to improve relief for workers have been approved to start gathering signatures to qualify the measure for the November 2022 election ballot.
The measure will strengthen the ability of employees to seek redress, Brian Maas, who filed the initiative and is president of the California New Car Dealers Association, told the Northern California Record.
“We want to make sure that employees who are aggrieved can get a recovery, but they should get it in a system that works for them and gives them what they are owed in an expeditious manner,” Maas said. “The measure was carefully crafted to balance the needs of employers and employees, and to eliminate the potential for abuse by certain members of the trial bar.”
As part of the qualification process, signature gathering will be concurrent with a voter education drive.
“We're going to have a robust strategy to start communicating with voters and people in California about what the problem is with PAGA, and why we think it needs to be addressed,” Maas said.
When enacted in 2004, the Labor Commissioner was under resourced and the thought was if private attorneys could go after employers, then employees would be properly compensated when the employer makes a mistake.
“What's happened in practice, though, is it's really just an opportunity for the trial bar to make a bunch of money at the expense of employers – and employees don't receive much recovery, in some cases 10s of dollars per employee, rather than a robust recovery that you might get through a different process,” Maas said.
State data shows that the pandemic has not slowed the pace of firms like the Law Offices of Ramin R. Younessi, which since March 4, 2020, has filed 175 PAGA cases.
The initiative seeks to redress the imbalance, by providing a path for employees to go directly to Labor Commissioner hearings, where they get paid what they are owed in an expeditious manner.
If willful violations occur, penalties increase.
“The whole idea is that we want employees who are aggrieved to get recovery in a meaningful time period,” Maas said.
A recent PAGA study shows cases handled by the Labor Commissioner result in faster resolution and higher award amounts for workers.
Maas noted that inflation, homelessness, drought, and the coronavirus are top concerns for California voters.
“That being said, though, when we explain to them how the process is supposed to work – and the fact that it doesn't work – they recognize it’s something that should be fixed and it's going to be our job in the campaign to remind them of that and convince them to vote for our measure,” Maas said.
The first order of business will be getting the roughly 620,000 signatures necessary to qualify it for the ballot.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 15 announced it will be reviewing Moriana v. Viking River Cruises, an arbitration case involving PAGA.