Kevin Kiley says Julie Su would bring California’s labor chaos to the nation

Julie Su’s ascension to U.S. labor secretary would be the “final front” in imposing failing, harmful California labor law on an unwilling nation, Rep. Kevin Kiley warned Wednesday.

The Rocklin Republican chaired a hearing of his workforce protections subcommittee and stressed how the state’s 3-year-old employee rights law, referred to as Assembly Bill 5, have badly hurt independent contractors’ ability to find work.

Su is scheduled to appear Thursday for her confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. The former state Secretary of Labor and the Workforce needs Democratic help to be confirmed, and at least two of the party’s senators are undecided.

There is no independent data at the moment showing that AB5 was unduly harmful to large segments of workers. Experts, though, have said the law is too new to reliably assess, and could have a big impact on state workers.

Kiley opened the hearing by issuing a sharp warning.

“This is the final front: the nomination of AB 5’s architect and lead enforcer, former California Labor Secretary Julie Su, to the highest Labor position in America,” Kiley told the hearing. “It is a direct and literal transfer of California failures to Washington.”

Ridiculous, repled Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside.

“I find it perplexing but not surprising,” he said, “that the committee Republicans’ first workforce subcommittee hearing is conveniently scheduled to take place one day before the Senate confirmation hearing of Julie Su.”

He explained why Su is qualified for the job.

“They’re wrong about Julie Su,” Takano said of Republicans. “They’re unfairly smearing her in this committee.”

Kiley later told The Bee, “I don’t know if it’s a coincidence so much as this is just a very big issue right now and it’s all related. So of course, this is the time to talk about this.”

Kiley’s warnings

The subcommittee heard from witnesses who outlined what they said were grave problems with AB5. It generally gives independent contractors certain worker rights, such as minimum wages.

Kiley and the witnesses all are concerned that Biden administration proposals would have a similar impact on workers across the nation.

One of their fears involves Congress’ Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize workers. It would not have a direct impact on employee benefits. While the Democratic-run House passed the measure two years ago, it went nowhere in the Senate and is apparently headed nowhere again.

More worrisome to many business interests at the moment is a Biden administration proposed rule aiming to clarify who is or is not considered an employee.

A difference with the California law is that workers who run their own business are not employees. The designation of employee would include those who are “dependent on finding work in the business of another.”

Su has been an enthusiastic advocate for AB5. After the law passed in 2019, she told CalMatters in an interview, “AB 5 is meant to address that kind of misclassification so that we can bring more people who should be under the protection of our labor laws back on that floor.”

Labor danger ahead?

Kiley and friendly witnesses Wednesday warned of danger ahead if the administration’s views become rules or law.

“In its current condition, California is the last place that should be a bellwether for political change in America,” Kiley said. “Yet that is exactly how President Biden seems to see it, as his Administration attempts to nationalize California’s most damaging policies, exporting our state’s failures to every state in the union.”

Democrats saw such talk as nonsense.

“Republicans appear intent on kicking up as much dust as they can and trying their hardest to undermine acting secretary’s Su’s nomination as secretary of labor,” said Rep. Alma Adams of North Carolina, the subcommittee’s top Democrat.

Witnesses tended to side with Kiley.

Karen Anderson, the Dana Point-based founder of Freelancers Against AB5, said there were at least 600 categories of professions affected by the law, including community theaters, speech therapists, fly fishing guides, youth coaches, wedding planners and more.

Despite some exemptions, she said, “the law continues to wreak havoc on legitimate independent contractors and small-business owners.”

The Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee will hold Su’s confirmation hearing Thursday, starting at 10 a.m. EDT. Su is listed as the only witness .

She needs 50 Senate votes for confirmation, assuming Vice President Kamala Harris would break the tie. Democrats control 51 of the 100 seats. But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has been battling health issues and has not voted since mid-February, and there’s no word on when she will return.

Su would be one of three Asian Americans to head a Cabinet-level department, but heading the Labor Department is seen as a more prominent post. Currently Katherine Tai is U.S. trade representative and Arati Prabhakar is director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy,

Sens. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, and Jon Tester, D-Montana, are undecided. Since all 49 Republicans are expected to oppose Su, a defection by one Democrat could sink the nomination.