Senator Aisha Wahab’s Workforce Equity and Training Bills Head to Appropriations

Sacramento, CA — Senator Aisha Wahab’s (D-Silicon Valley) has a trio of labor-related bills which have all passed Senate Labor Committee and are heading to Appropriations.

SB 1316 is an equity-driven bill to ensure all staff and administrators at the California School for the Deaf (with campuses in Fremont and Riverside) and the California School for the Blind (located in Fremont), are paid salaries on par with equivalently qualified employees in the local school districts.

“The staff and administrators at the School for the Deaf and School for the Blind are directly employed by the State, and the State has a duty to set an example that sensory impaired individuals deserve equal pay for equal work,” said Senator Wahab.

SB 1316 passed Senate Labor Committee last week with unanimous bipartisan support.

SB 984, PLA, identifies four state agencies that must select at least three major state construction projects for a project labor agreement, and passed Senate Labor Committee on Wednesday with unanimous bipartisan support.

SB 1321, Employee Training Panel, updates labor standards on Employment Training Panel funds, prioritizing high-quality programs, requiring plans for diverse recruitment, and increasing data transparency from the Employment Training Panel. SB 1321 passed Senate Labor Committee on Wednesday 4-1.

All three bills will now head to Senate Appropriations, where they will likely go to the suspense file.