After Jerry Brown’s second set of 8 years in office (1975-83 and 2011-19), employers now look to Governor-Elect Gavin Newsom for what’s in store for them in the Golden State.  (Although Jerry Brown wasn’t a particularly good friend of employers, he often was the only friend they had in Sacramento, vetoing some of the more radical anti-employer measures that the California legislature routinely passed and sent to him for signature.)   A former mayor of San Francisco and state lieutenant governor, Newsom is unlikely to change the course of California’s decidedly pro-employee, pro-union laws and regulations anytime soon.  That said, California employers should keep a watchful eye on the following moving targets: 

The #MeToo Movement and Arbitration

Newsom is an ardent supporter of the #MeToo movement and vows to “strengthen workplace protections such as creating hotlines for victims, transparent, independent, swift investigations, and real consequences for abusers and harassers.” Leading companies like Google, Microsoft, and Uber have recently decided to end mandatory arbitration of employee sexual harassment claims, leaving their employees free to sue them in state or federal court. One can wonder whether this is the sort of transparency that Newsom would embrace as part of his support of the #MeToo movement.

Gov. Brown repeatedly vetoed recently passed bills that prohibited mandatory arbitration in employment agreements on the perfectly reasonable ground that such legislation unquestionably conflicts with and is preempted by federal law. (Gov. Brown’s veto message.) However, it’s anyone’s guess whether Newsom will part ways with Brown and sign such legislation the next time the legislature passes it (i.e., presumably next term).

“The Future of Work”

Newsom dedicates a portion of his website statements about the economy to what he calls “the future of work.Although amorphous, many of his ideas on “the future of work” would significantly impact employers. For example, Newsom highlights wage insurance to those who lose their jobs to automation, portable benefits to transfer between jobs in the gig economy, and an expansion of the earned income tax credit as areas that need to be addressed.

Newsom, whose campaign for governor was largely funded by contributions from labor unions, has, not surprisingly, expressed his commitment to those same unions – especially in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Janus v. AFSCME, which eliminated mandatory union dues for government employees.  California already has taken numerous steps to limit the rights of government employees who decline to join or wish to leave a union.  Newsom presumably will be very receptive to even more union-friendly legislation in California.

With an expansive pro-employee, pro-union majority (which may in fact turn out to be a “supermajority) in both houses of the California legislature, Gov. Newsom is unlikely to provide much relief to employers (even if he wanted to) and in fact he may make things even more challenging once he starts signing legislation that Gov. Brown may have vetoed.

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Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily JournalThe Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is “brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up.” Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as “outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a “phenomenal strategist” and “one of the top employment litigators in the country.”

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law JournalBloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.

Photo of Cole Lewis Cole Lewis

Cole Lewis is an associate in the Labor & Employment Department.

Cole graduated from UCLA School of Law, where he worked as a law clerk for Public Counsel of Los Angeles and advocated for benefit recipients in the Department of Public Social Services.

Cole Lewis is an associate in the Labor & Employment Department.

Cole graduated from UCLA School of Law, where he worked as a law clerk for Public Counsel of Los Angeles and advocated for benefit recipients in the Department of Public Social Services. He has also previously worked as a summer associate in Proskauer’s Labor & Employment Department.

Prior to law school, Cole received his Bachelor’s degree in Journalism at Indiana University, where he graduated cum laude.