Unions ask California to lead fight for workers at the state level
Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!
UNIONS UNITED
Unions are pushing for “a real right to unionize” in California — urging senators to pass a bill letting the state resolve labor law and union disputes if the National Labor Relations Board fails to provide timely resolutions.
AB 288 had its first hearing in the Senate on Wednesday morning, where over 100 people shared their support of the bill. Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, D-Hawthorne, the bill’s author, said companies often use slow NLRB processing to their advantage and are trying to further strip the organization’s power through lawsuits.
“Even when California workers are successful in unionizing — despite the obstacles that are put in their way — they are often forced to wait for years to have their rights to meet their employer at the bargaining table vindicated,” McKinnor said.
California Chamber of Commerce was the only group that spoke in opposition to the bill. It argued the bill is preempted by the Garmon doctrine, which stops state and local governments from regulating activities protected or prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act. But, preemption, McKinnor said, was designed to create consistent protection for workers, not to shield companies from the consequences of breaking the law.
Union leaders and members from California Teamsters, Boilermakers, SEIU and California Nurses Association all gathered on the west steps of the Capitol in the afternoon for a press conference. Proponents of the bill asked California to lead the nation in the effort to protect workers’ rights.
Vanessa Valdez, an Amazon driver with Teamsters Local 396, told the crowd she spoke on behalf of workers across California being punished for exercising their rights. Workers, she said, have done their part, following the law and getting majority support for their unions.
“Now it’s time for our state to do their part in protecting our rights,” Valdez said. “When the federal government cannot or will not.”
CONGRESS CALLS THE SHOTS
Via David Lightman…
Sen. Adam Schiff wants Congress involved in any decision to be “engaging in hostilities” in Iran, he told CNN Wednesday.
The California Democrat, who as a House member had headed the Intelligence Committee from 2019 to 2023, said he supported Israel’s actions against Iran, as well as “whatever intelligence support and defensive support we can provide Israel.”
But, he said, “I think it in terms of engaging in active hostilities ourselves, and I would think bombing Fordow would certainly qualify as our engaging in hostilities -- that requires congressional approval.” Fordow is a nuclear facility in Iran.
He would want a briefing from the Trump administration, including what intelligence it has.
“I’ve only received the most preliminary of briefings on the subject before I could ever make a decision to approve the use of force like this with the risk to tens of thousands of American troops in the region and the risk of getting engaged in another protracted conflict in the region,” Schiff said.
The senator, who served in the House from 2001 until being elected to the Senate last year, had voted to authorize the use of U.S. force in Iraq in 2002, a decision he later said he regretted. Eighty other House Democrats also voted to give President George W. Bush that authority and 126 voted no.
A REPUBLICAN REACTION
Via David Lightman...
Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, spoke out Wednesday about how Sen. Alex Padilla was roughed up by law enforcement officials last week, calling the incident “disgusting.”
But, he said, “Why don’t both sides own up to the fact that they both own some responsibility for what happened there?
Few Republicans have come forward to publicly criticize law enforcement officials since Padilla, D-Calif., was forcibly removed from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference last week.
Wednesday, Tillis said in a Senate floor speech that “Sen. Padilla should have found a better way to elevate his concerns to the secretary of Homeland Security, rather than going in there and having that dust up.”
Padilla was in the west Los Angeles federal building for a meeting but when he heard Noem was speaking, went there and sought to ask her a question.
Tillis noted “there were clearly people in that building that knew he was a U.S. senator, so the minute he was removed from that situation in that briefing room, then they should have treated him with respect, and allowed him to disburse.
“It was disgusting to me to see somebody wrestled to the floor, anybody, but particularly a U.S. senator that’s in a federal building,” Tillis said.
If someone has a point to make, he told colleagues, “Come to the Senate floor and try to figure out how to get policies through. That’s how this should work.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“America cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. We must not allow Prime Minister Netanyahu to sucker us into another endless Middle East war. We must deescalate and return to the negotiating table to achieve what we all want: an Iran that never obtains a nuclear weapon.”
— U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, in a press release
Best of The Bee:
- As California cuts funding, can churches support Sacramento’s homeless? Via Jack Rodriquez-Vars
- California’s economy expected to slow as unemployment rate rises, via David Lightman
- TikTok and Sabrina Carpenter: Inside Gov. Gavin Newsom’s social media strategy, via Lia Russell
This story was originally published June 19, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
