(a) There is hereby established in state government a panel to conduct a study regarding the creation of an Association of Cooperative Labor Contractors for the purpose of facilitating the growth of democratically run high-road cooperative labor contractors. The panel shall be assisted in this task by staff from the Labor and Workforce Development Agency or a subsidiary department thereof selected by the Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development.

(b) The panel shall consist of all of the following members:

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(1) The secretary or the director of a subsidiary department thereof selected by the secretary.

(2) The Director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.

(3) An appointee of the Speaker of the Assembly.

(4) An appointee of the President pro Tempore of the Senate.

(5) A representative from the Future of Work Commission selected by the Governor.

(c) In preparing the study, the panel may retain outside experts on high-road jobs, worker cooperatives, business formation, and other topics pertinent to the association.

(d) The study shall consider, at a minimum, how to do all of the following:

(1) Advance the goals of the Future of Work Commission within the association.

(2) Incentivize the growth of the association and its members.

(3) Promote tenets of democratic worker control, including, but not limited to, uniform hiring and ownership eligibility criteria, worker-owners working most hours worked, most voting ownership interest being held by worker-owners, most voting power being held by worker-owners, and worker-owners exercising their vote on a one-person, one-vote basis.

(4) Ensure that the association’s members offer high-road jobs, which include, but are not limited to, jobs with the right to organize and participate in labor organizations and jobs with minimum labor standards, such as a minimum wage in excess of the otherwise applicable minimum wage, a compensation ratio between the highest and lowest paid employees, minimum health expenditures, minimum retirement expenditures, and protections for individuals who have gone through the criminal justice system.

(e) In preparing the study, the panel shall engage in a stakeholder process by which it consults with, at a minimum, organized labor, worker cooperatives, and business groups that can assess the opportunities and challenges associated with expanding workplace democracy in the major sectors of the economy throughout the state.

(f) The panel shall complete the study and make it publicly available on the internet no later than June 30, 2024.

(Added by Stats. 2022, Ch. 808, Sec. 1. (AB 2849) Effective January 1, 2023.)