The Federation will continue to oppose employer attempts to re-classify workers as independent contractors in order to deny benefits like unemployment insurance, disability insurance and workers' compensation. In 1999, the Employment Development Department found that 66,534 employees were misclassified as independent contractors for state benefit purposes and just a little over one in three workers qualified for unemployment insurance benefits. While we will continue to oppose any legislation which weakens the current standard for determination of employee status, we will also consider ways to tighten the standard so that employers cannot exploit technicalities and loopholes. Legislation passed by the Federation and member unions in 1999 has directly benefited economic actions by workers and their unions. More than almost any other industry, the California garment industry with 6,000 employers and 160,000 employees operates primarily in the underground economy.
Sweatshops abound and minimum wage and overtime violations are rampant.
In 1999, Governor Davis signed the country's first garment manufacturers' joint liability law which gets to the root of the sweatshop crisis. The bill explicitly recognizes that manufacturers are responsible for ensuring that the workers who sew their clothes get paid, even if they don't work directly for the manufacturer. The toughest garment bill in the nation imposes a wage guarantee in the garment industry so that manufacturers and retailers who engage in the manufacturing of private label clothing ensure that the garment workers of subcontractors are paid according to the minimum wage and overtime laws. Joint liability must be extended to other industries that profit by using middlemen to accomplish work in our agricultural, construction and janitorial industries. The Federation supports the current efforts by the United Farm Workers and California Rural Legal Assistance to establish that every farm operator is jointly and severally liable for violations of housing, transportation, wage and hour and health and safety laws as they relate to agricultural workers.