California
California farm labor bill puts Gavin Newsom on the spot
Mom Jones illustration; Mandel Ngan/AP; Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Each day Information/Getty
Because of an epic organizing marketing campaign by the United Farm Employees (UFW), which started within the Nineteen Sixties and confronted violent opposition, California grew to become a farm labor paradise, comparatively talking. Its farmworkers have the appropriate to type unions with out overt meddling from bosses, and may count on time-and-a-half extra time pay—rights denied to friends in most states, because of racist exemptions to New Deal-era labor reforms. California can also be one of many few states that has enacted guidelines to guard outside staff from warmth stress—a possible lifesaver in an period of more and more frequent and brutal heatwaves.
Nonetheless, farm labor unionism is on the ropes even within the Sunshine State—the supply of greater than a 3rd of US-grown greens and three-quarters of America’s fruits and nuts. UFW membership peaked at about 70,000 a half-century in the past. Now, in a state with greater than 400,000 non-management agriculture staff through the excessive season, this storied labor union counts fewer than 7,000 energetic members—which is “statistically zero,” in keeping with the coverage journal CalMatters. So, regardless of the triumphs of the ’60s and ’70s, California’s farm workforce, which consists largely of undocumented immigrants, is basically feeding the nation with out union illustration.
UFW launched a profitable marketing campaign earlier this yr—together with a dramatic 335-mile march to Sacramento—to induce the State Meeting to move the Agricultural Labor Relations Voting Alternative Act (AB 2183), which the union says will make it simpler for farmworkers to arrange. Underneath a regulation enacted in 1975, farm union elections at present happen in particular person, on websites owned by the growers. This topics staff to intimidation, the union argues. Greater than 90 p.c of the farmworkers are immigrants, and practically 60 p.c are undocumented.
“It’s tantamount to holding a political election and forcing voters of shade to vote on the MAGA headquarters,” says Marc Grossman, the UFW’s longtime spokesman. “Farm staff have seen friends get deported once they [publicly] rise up for his or her rights. The established order doesn’t work, and hasn’t labored for some time.”
In instances the place growers agree to not oppose unionization—a situation often known as “labor peace”—AB 2183 would permit staff to unionize a worksite through mail-in ballots. When growers refuse to cooperate, the invoice lets staff type a union by submitting a petition “with proof of majority help” within the workforce, topic to certification by the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Voting by petition, additionally known as a “card test,” is a proper loved by California’s public-sector unions.
After passing the state legislature, AB 2183 now sits on the desk of Gavin Newsom, the state’s high-rolling Democratic governor, whose lately expanded Napa Valley vineyard, Plumpjack, depends on vineyard-tending farmworkers. (Newsom transferred his curiosity within the wine operation and associated companies to a blind belief on changing into governor in 2019.) The governor has till September 30 to signal or veto the invoice. If he does neither, it routinely turns into regulation.
However Newsom nixed an identical measure final yr, citing “numerous inconsistencies and procedural points associated to the gathering and evaluate of poll playing cards” in his official letter to the Meeting. The UFW responded by organizing a protest march to the ultra-fancy Napa Valley restaurant French Laundry, a favourite spot of Newsom’s, and on to his close by winery.
Gov @GavinNewsom vetoed #AB616, a invoice to present us extra decisions to vote in union elections. We’d prefer to lastly meet with him— we’ll be at The French Laundry quickly.
Supporters will be a part of us Saturday- if he’s not there, we’ll march to his Plump Jack vineyard.https://t.co/mBTk7MJu7C
— United Farm Employees (@UFWupdates) September 23, 2021
As they did in 2021, farming pursuits—together with the wine-grape trade—have lobbied arduous in opposition to the present invoice. In August, simply earlier than AB 2183 handed the Meeting, Newsom’s employees instructed the Sacramento Bee the governor “helps adjustments to state regulation to make it simpler for these staff to arrange,” however he couldn’t “help an untested mail-in election course of that lacks essential provisions to guard the integrity of the election.”
This month, in a uncommon occasion of a sitting president intervening in a state-level coverage matter, President Joe Biden urged Newsom to signal AB 2183, declaring that the invoice would “give California’s agricultural staff better alternative to arrange and collectively cut price for higher wages, advantages, and dealing situations.”
Biden’s assertion left Newsom “privately seething,” Politico reported, citing nameless sources. (Newsom’s press workplace declined to deal with his present intentions: “We usually don’t touch upon pending laws.”)
No matter he decides, farmworkers have been exhibiting an growing urge for food for labor actions previously couple of years. That’s in keeping with Lucas Zucker, coverage and communications director for Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Financial system, an economic-justice advocacy group primarily based in an space with a excessive density of labor-intensive grape, strawberry, and lettuce operations.
Zucker says the trajectory of farm labor organizing in California has has mirrored the broader plight of US private-sector unions. In 1970, roughly 29 p.c of private-sector staff belonged to a union—at the moment, that quantity is about 6 p.c. The rationale for the decline, in keeping with a 2019 research from the Financial Coverage Institute, was that employers dramatically ramped up anti-union efforts through the Seventies and used their political sway to tamp down pro-labor insurance policies.
These anti-labor efforts hit farmworkers more durable than most. “Immigration standing performs an enormous function, each in staff’ concern of deportation, but additionally as a result of they’re excluded from the protection internet,” Zucker says. “Should you can’t get unemployment advantages due to your immigration standing, you’re going to be much more afraid of dropping your job on account of on account of retaliation for making an attempt to type a union.”
He noticed issues start to alter through the pandemic, when staff who are inclined to stay, work, and journey to job websites at shut quarters have been notably susceptible. (See this wonderful 2021 piece on the subject by my colleague Julia Lurie.) Because the begin of the pandemic, Zucker instructed me, farmworkers on the Central Coast have launched six casual strikes for larger wages and higher Covid protections. A few of them received wage good points, however others “simply fizzled—they don’t have a union, they don’t have a strike fund, they’re typically getting retaliation, getting the sheriff known as on them, issues like that,” Zucker says. “They typically don’t have the form of institutional power to final past a few days, so they arrive and go.”
There’s nonetheless debate over whether or not AB 2183 would certainly impress a brand new wave of labor organizing. In a September New York Occasions op-ed, California journalist Miriam Pawal, writer of the 2009 guide The Union of Their Desires: Energy, Hope, and Battle in Cesar Chavez’s Farm Employee Motion, argued that the UFW “stopped organizing way back.” As an alternative it targeted on the “pomp and celebration of the marches” and lobbying the state Meeting. If it, or another main union “dedicated to the tough work of actual organizing” within the fields, no legislative overhaul of union voting legal guidelines would make a distinction, she concluded.
Grossman rejects the notion that the UFW has given up on organizing. “If staff come to the union and have grievances, the treatment is self-organization and collective bargaining—and this invoice would make that tremendously simpler, and would remove the abuse and intimidation that plagues the established order enforcement of farm labor regulation,” he says.
Within the meantime, insults to rank-and-file farmworkers are piling up. There are state guidelines mandating cool water, shade, and paid breaks throughout scorching climate, however Cal/OSHA, the company charged with imposing them, is woefully underfunded. In a state with as many 180,000 outside farmworkers through the excessive seasons, Cal/OSHA employs simply 35 Spanish-speaking inspectors, in keeping with a 2021 investigation by the California Newsroom. “Over the previous 10 years—throughout a interval when state regulators lowered temperature limits that set off office protections from 85 to 80 levels—practically 4 dozen California staff died from heatstroke and different heat-related diseases,” the report discovered. In 2022, California’s most intensive agricultural zone, the San Joaquin Valley, endured a sequence of brutal warmth waves.
And whereas California farmworkers command barely larger wages than their friends in most states, their pay doesn’t sustain with spiraling housing prices. In all three of California’s best valleys—San Joaquin, Imperial, and Salinas—farmworkers are inclined to stay in overcrowded, substandard housing, to which they need to dedicate an enormous portion of their earnings. In his excellent 2011 guide Trampling Out the Classic: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Employees, Frank Bardacke reported that by the mid-Seventies, UFW organizing had gotten so robust that wages on some extremely expert farmworker crews earned $12 per hour—”greater than 48 {dollars} in at the moment’s cash.” In 2022, the state’s farm staff have been making about $18.
No matter whether or not AB 2183 will spark a renaissance of farm-labor organizing, there’s a powerful argument that Newsom ought to signal it. As a September 8 editorial within the Sacramento Bee put it, if the UFW has misplaced its will to arrange, “then why the robust and stressed-out opposition from growers? In the event that they [UFW] are not related, what’s the governor afraid of?”
The invoice is definitely well timed. Out on the farm, “there’s plenty of vitality proper now amongst staff” to combat for higher situation, Zucker says. “The fields are sizzling.”
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom may exclude Tesla and other automakers from an electric vehicle (EV) rebate program if the incoming Trump administration scraps a federal tax credit for electric car purchases.
Newsom proposed creating a new version of the state’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program, which was phased out in 2023 after funding more than 594,000 vehicles and saving more than 456 million gallons of fuel, the governor’s office said in a news release on Monday.
“Consumers continue to prove the skeptics wrong – zero-emission vehicles are here to stay,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re not turning back on a clean transportation future – we’re going to make it more affordable for people to drive vehicles that don’t pollute.”
The proposed rebates would be funded with money from the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which is funded by polluters under the state’s cap-and-trade program, the governor’s office said. Officials did not say how much the program would cost or save consumers.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday proposed creating a new version of the state’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program if the incoming Trump administration scraps a federal tax credit for electric car purchases. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images, File / Getty Images)
They would also include changes to promote innovation and competition in the zero-emission vehicles market – changes that could prevent automakers like Tesla from qualifying for the rebates.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who relocated Tesla’s corporate headquarters from California to Texas in 2021, responded to the possibility of having Tesla EVs left out of the program.
Tesla and other automakers may not qualify for the proposed tax credits, according to the governor’s office. (Getty Images, File / Getty Images)
“Even though Tesla is the only company who manufactures their EVs in California! This is insane,” Musk wrote on X, which he also owns.
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Those buying or leasing Tesla vehicles accounted for about 42% of the state’s rebates, The Associated Press reported, citing data from the California Air Resources Board.
Newsom’s office told Fox Business Digital that the proposal is intended to foster market competition, and any potential market cap is subject to negotiation with the state Legislature.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TSLA | TESLA INC. | 338.59 | -13.97 | -3.96% |
“Under a potential market cap, and depending on what the cap is, there’s a possibility that Tesla and other automakers could be excluded,” the governor’s office said. “But that’s again subject to negotiations with the legislature.”
Newsom’s office noted that such market caps have been part of rebate programs since George W. Bush’s administration in 2005.
Newsom has pushed Californians to replace gas-powered vehicles with zero-emission vehicles. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Federal tax credits for EVs are currently worth up to $7,500 for new zero-emission vehicles. President-elect Trump has previously vowed to end the credit.
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California has surpassed 2 million zero-emission vehicles sold, according to the governor’s office. The state, however, could face a $2 billion budget deficit next year, Reuters reported, citing a non-partisan legislative estimate released last week.
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Along with most other Democratic politicians in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom still doesn’t seem to understand what happened in the 2024 election.
For years, Newsom, along with California cronies like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and, of course, Vice President Kamala Harris, bragged about their state being a “model for the nation.”
In one sense–not the one they intended, of course–that’s true. California became a model of what not to do.
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The terrible combination of elitism and extremism that has defined Democratic policymaking in my home state for at least the last decade has delivered failure on every front.
Despite having the highest taxes in the nation, despite the state’s budget nearly doubling in the last ten years (even as our population has been falling, in the exodus from blue state misrule), California has the highest rate of poverty in America. We have the highest housing costs, the lowest homeownership, highest gas and utility bills, and the worst business climate–ten years in a row.
This record of failure is exactly why Democrats lost so badly on November 5th. Voters had a clear choice: between more of the same Democrat policies that raised the cost of living and lowered their quality of life, or a return to the peace and prosperity of the Trump years.
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In many ways, the contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris represented a battle between the ‘blue state model’ championed by Gavin Newsom in California, and the ‘red state model’ that has driven people and businesses out of California and into the arms of more welcoming states like Texas, Tennessee and Florida.
Of course, the red state model won and the blue state model was roundly rejected.
You would think that would make blue state leaders like Newsom pause and reflect. But the exact opposite has happened. Gavin Newsom immediately called a “special session” of the California legislature to “Trump-proof” his state.
What California really needs is “Newsom-proofing.”
Instead, California Democrats are doubling down on the exact same agenda that was defeated across the country – including in California, which saw the biggest shift from Democrats to the GOP in decades.
Here are the five things California Democrats still don’t get:
1. People want results, not lectures
Democrats and their media sycophants can do all the self-righteous, sanctimonious bloviating they like about “our democracy” and “equity”, but in the end people want the basics of the American Dream: a good job that pays enough to raise your family in a home of your own in a safe neighborhood with a good school so your kids can have a better life than you. No amount of moral superiority from the people in charge will make up for that if they fail to provide it.
2. Enough with the ‘climate’ extremism
“Climate” has become a religion for Democrats, and you see that especially clearly in California. But when you look at the main reason life is so unaffordable for working people, whether that’s gas prices, utility bills or housing costs, extreme climate policies are to blame. Working-class Americans can’t afford these ‘luxury beliefs.’
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3. Who cares about Hollywood?
This election destroyed forever the myth that fancy celebrities can sway votes. Oprah, Beyonce, George Clooney, Taylor Swift…nobody cares! The new cultural powerhouses are the podcast hosts, comedians…the raw power of UFC is where it’s at, not the decadent Hollywood elite who won’t even turn up to support “their” candidate without a multimillion dollar paycheck.
Producer and actress Oprah Winfrey holds up Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ hand as she arrives onstage during a campaign rally on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 4, 2024. (Getty Images)
4. ‘Little tech’ beats Big Tech
Democrats may console themselves with the knowledge that California’s Big Tech monopolies are on their side. But in this election we saw the rise of what famed Silicon Valley investor Marc Andressen calls “little tech”, the upstarts and rebels who reject leftist groupthink. They got engaged in this election in a way we’ve never seen before. It’s a massive shift and will be a huge force for the future.
5. Working class beats the elite
Back in 2016, after the Brexit vote, and then Donald Trump’s victory here, shocked the world, I predicted that the Republican Party had the opportunity to become a “multiracial working class coalition.” Trump’s 2024 victory has delivered that — a revolutionary shift in our political landscape. The other part of my prediction? Democrats will be left as the party of the “rich, white and woke.”
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Unless Democrats come to terms with these realities and change course, they can expect to lose elections for years to come. The reaction in California – epicenter of today’s Democrat elite — shows that there is zero sign of this happening.
They just don’t get it.
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- Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to revive California’s EV rebate if Trump ends the federal tax credit.
- But Tesla, the largest maker of EVs, would be excluded under the proposal.
- Elon Musk criticized Tesla’s potential exclusion from the rebate.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is preparing to step in if President-elect Donald Trump fulfills his promise to axe the federal electric-vehicle tax credit — but one notable EV maker could be left out.
Newsom said Monday if the $7,500 federal tax credit is eliminated he would restart the state’s zero-emission vehicle rebate program, which was phased out in 2023.
“We will intervene if the Trump Administration eliminates the federal tax credit, doubling down on our commitment to clean air and green jobs in California,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re not turning back on a clean transportation future — we’re going to make it more affordable for people to drive vehicles that don’t pollute.”
The rebates for EV buyers would come from the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which is funded by polluters of greenhouse gases under a cap-and-trade program, according to the governor’s office.
But Tesla’s vehicles could be excluded under the proposal’s market-share limitations, Bloomberg News first reported.
The governor’s office confirmed to Business Insider that the rebate program could include a market-share cap which could in turn exclude Tesla or other EV makers. The office did not share details about what market-share limit could be proposed and also noted the proposal would be subject to negotiations in the state legislature.
A market-share cap would exclude companies whose sales account for a certain amount of total electric vehicle sales. For instance, Tesla accounted for nearly 55% off all new electric vehicles registered in California in the first three quarters of 2024, according to a report from the California New Car Dealers Association. By comparison, the companies with the next highest EV market share in California were Hyundai and BMW with 5.6% and 5% respectively.
Tesla sales in California, the US’s largest EV market, have recently declined even as overall EV sales in the state have grown. Though the company still accounted for a majority of EV sales in California this year as of September, its market share fell year-over-year from 64% to 55%.
The governor’s office said the market-share cap would be aimed at promoting competition and innovation in the industry.
Elon Musk, who has expressed support for ending the federal tax credit, said in an X post it was “insane” for the California proposal exclude Tesla.
The federal electric vehicle tax credit, which was passed as part of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, provides a $7,500 tax credit to some EV buyers.
Musk, who is working closely with the incoming Trump administration, has expressed support for ending the tax credit. He’s set to co-lead an advisory commission, the Department of Government Efficiency, which is aimed at slashing federal spending.
The Tesla CEO said on an earnings call in July that ending the federal tax credit might actually benefit the company.
“I think it would be devastating for our competitors and for Tesla slightly,” Musk said. “But long-term probably actually helps Tesla, would be my guess.”
BI’s Graham Rapier previously reported that ending the tax credit could help Tesla maintain its strong standing in the EV market by slowing its competitors growth.
Prior to the EV rebate proposal, Newsom has already positioned himself as a foil to the incoming Trump administration. Following Trump’s election win the governor called on California lawmakers to convene for a special session to discuss protecting the state from Trump’s second term.
“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom said in a statement at the time.
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