Media Contact: Shubhangi Domokos, shubhangi@nullcalaborfed.org

Billionaires want to take away workers’ right to organize. AB 288 protects it.  

California bill would create a state right to organize when the federal agency is unable to act to protect workers’ rights.  

Sacramento, CA – (Wednesday, April 2, 2025) –  Today, California lawmakers took the first step toward a state right to organize in direct defiance of the corporate attack on workers’ rights. While many of the wealthiest corporations in the world like Amazon, SpaceX, Starbucks and Trader Joes have challenged the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act, the Assembly Public Employment Relations Committee passed Assembly Bill 288 with bipartisan support and no opposition, to allow workers who are not able to get a timely remedy at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to seek justice from a state labor agency.

“More than a century ago, American workers fought and died to win the right to organize and collectively bargain. Today, more workers than ever say they want to be part of a union. Yet workers who try to organize are routinely intimidated and fired while they attempt to unionize and face corporations unwilling to bargain even once the union is established,” said Lorena Gonzalez, President of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, sponsor of the legislation. “This bill ensures that workers can enforce their right to organize and build a better life as federal labor law was intended to do.”

AB 288, by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), reinforces the right to organize by allowing workers to vindicate their inalienable rights to freedom of assembly, to collectively bargain, and to engage in concerted activity absent the protection of the federal National Labor Relations Act when the NLRB cannot do so. It would allow workers who have attempted to use the NLRB, but have not received a timely remedy, to seek relief from California’s Public Employment Relations Board to protect these fundamental rights.

“This is not a time to sit quietly while the hard-fought rights of working Americans are being systematically taken away by this federal government and their billionaire oligarch friends. This is a time to stand up for workers that build, serve and inspire us all,” said Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), author of AB 288. “My AB 288 affirms California’s role as the standard bearer of worker rights with a simple premise: if this federal government won’t respect a worker’s right to join a union – California will.”

Existing California Labor Code Section 923 states that “In dealing with such employers, the individual unorganized worker is helpless to exercise actual liberty of contract and to protect his freedom of labor, and thereby to obtain acceptable terms and conditions of employment. Therefore it is necessary that the individual workman have full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of his own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of his employment, and that he shall be free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers of labor…” This bill adds that workers subject to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) as of Jan. 1, 2025, who are unable to freely exercise the right to organize and collectively bargain because they have not received a response or remedy from the NLRB within the specified statutory time limit, to petition the state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) instead.

“Corporations have no shame in using every tool at their disposal to discourage and prevent workers from organizing. It’s time that working people use the tools at our disposal to ensure our rights are respected,” said Peter Finn, President of Teamsters Joint Council 7 and Teamsters Local 856. “California owes it to the working people who make our economy run to protect their most basic rights to come together as a union and collectively bargain over wages and working conditions.”

PERB already guarantees that the majority of California’s public sector workers have the right to organize, and it also has limited jurisdiction in the private sector, including overseeing the right of childcare providers to organize and providing mediation for private sector labor relations disputes where federal mediators are unavailable.

AB 288 protects workers who, previously covered by the NLRA, have that coverage repealed or narrowed to exclude them. It also gives remedy to workers who have been deprived of a timely response from the NLRB or legal challenges to its authority.

“Amazon thinks that the Constitution doesn’t apply in its warehouses. We exercised our First Amendment right and organized a union in October. But at every turn, Amazon has ignored the law and refused to come to the table and negotiate over the low pay and the dangerous working conditions,” said Brian Weston, Amazon Teamster from San Francisco. “This law will ensure that when California workers unionize, the state will be a backstop to protect our Constitutional rights. Never again should our hopes and dreams as working people be cut short by greedy companies like Amazon.”

“In October, we won our union and we are now Teamsters. We were the first unionized Amazon warehouse in California. But Amazon thinks that it can pretend like it never happened and no one will hold them accountable. We need to prove that wrong,” said Janeé Roberts, Amazon delivery station worker from San Francisco. “That’s why we need to take action and defend the rights of working people in California and pass this bill. It will give our state the power to force companies like Amazon to negotiate a union contract, if the NLRB has failed to protect our rights.”

AB 288 gives California workers the right to petition PERB for recognition, to bargain a first contract, if they are terminated and have filed an unfair labor practice charge, or if they experience any other unfair labor practice should the NLRB fail to meet statutory deadlines for relief.

A recent report found corporations spend $340 million a year on union-busting firms who often engage in practices that interfere with workers trying to exercise protected rights. Amazon has several dozen cases, with hundreds of allegations, pending at the NLRB and the NLRB is hearing 62 separate cases where administrative law judges found that Starbucks had broken labor laws.

Delays due to understaffing at the National Labor Relations Board only embolden corporations to violate the law. California workers simply cannot afford to leave their ability to organize up to chance and the whims of billionaire union-busters.

AB 288 respects federal labor law but ensures that if the federal government is unable to act, the state is able to step in and ensure workers’ right to organize.

The California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, the California Teamsters Public Affairs Council, and the Boilermakers Union are co-sponsors of AB 288 and the bill is supported by dozens of California unions representing workers in every sector.

For more information, or to set up an interview to discuss the bill, please contact Shubhangi Domokos at  shubhangi@nullcalaborfed.org.

The California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO represents over 1,300 affiliated unions in California with over 2.3 million union members in trucking, retail, hospitality, janitorial, construction, health care, local and state government, education, arts and entertainment, warehousing and logistics, manufacturing, and a variety of other sectors.