The California Legislature finished it’s 2026-2027 biennial legislative session in the wee hours of September 1 and adjourned until early December. As we’ve reported in earlier editions of “Under the Capitol Dome,” the Legislature was as busy as ever in the second half of the biennium.

Labor Budget Trailer Bill Reprieves Sheep & Goats, Leaves Autonomous Tractors Problem Unsolved:  On August 31, the Legislature passed AB 187 (Assembly Budget Committee), the session-ending employment policy trailer bill on unanimous votes of both houses.  AB 187 is expected to be signed by the Governor shortly.  AB 187 includes restoration of Labor Code Section  2695.4, originally passed in 2023, allowing herders of goats to be paid a monthly minimum wage (currently $4938 per month, plus travel and housing).  This provision of the Labor Code had sunset as of July 1, causing a situation where goatherders would have to be paid nearly $20,000 per month, virtually guaranteeing goats (and probably sheep managed alongside goats) would be unavailable for employment to conduct wildfire fuels control through prescribed grazing.  As re-enacted on AB 187, sheep and goat wage parity will be in place until Jan. 1, 2029. 

Missing from AB 187 was a compromise measure allowing use of autonomous agricultural equipment by revising outdated Cal/OSHA standards requiring a human driver on self-propelled equipment used in agricultural workplaces – making California the only state to forbid use of such equipment and forbidding its use only in agricultural workplaces.  Language agreed by agricultural employers and legislative leaders would have allowed use of such equipment on a state-wide, ag industry-wide basis and require reporting of use of such equipment, injuries or incidents involving such equipment and any resulting employee displacement.  Labor opposition appears to have doomed this compromise.      

Legislature Passes Workplace Technology Restraints, Tech Displacement Notice Bills:  On August 28, the California Senate passed AB 1883 (Bryan), severely restraining the use of workplace safety and management tools like productivity monitoring technology or worksite access monitoring, giving enforcement authority to the Labor Commissioner and establishing a private right of action allowing employees to sue employers for alleged violations on a party-line vote (28-9).  On August 30, the California Assembly passed SB 947 (McNerney) targeting and regulating low-risk applications of automated decision-making systems and imposing compliance burdens and legal risk on employers using modern workforce management tools. SB 947 passed on a party line vote of 53-14.  SB 951 (Reyes) which expands the California WARN (Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification) Act by imposing burdensome plant closing notification-like requirements for reductions in employment allegedly related to deployment of technology or automation passed the Assembly on August 31 on a party-line 56-15 vote. All await the Governor’s signature or veto. FELS parent organization, California Farm Bureau opposes all three due to burdens on employers. 

H-2A Minimum Wage, FLC Bonding and Penalty Expansion Bills Pass Senate: On August 25, the California Senate passed AB 2646 (Krell), imposing a $19.75 state minimum wage on non-resident employees working in California because their employment has been approved by the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) (describing employees working in California on H-2A temporary agricultural worker visas) and California-resident employees doing the same work in the same county.  AB 2646 also includes an inflation adjustment keyed to the social security benefits cost-of-living adjustment that will become effective on Jan. 1, 2027.  AB 2646 passed the Senate on a 30-9 party-line vote.  A few days earlier on August 27, the Senate passed by a party-line 28-10 vote AB 2227 (Connolly), significantly increasing the cost of surety bonds California-licensed farm labor contractors must obtain, and significantly raising the risk that FLCs cannot timely respond to judgement demands imposed by the Labor Commissioner, and adding onerous new penalty amounts for violation of requirements for FLCs and employers working with FLCs with no option for the Labor Commissioner to consider the severity of the violation or its impact on workers (for example, very high penalties could be imposed on an FLC operating with a valid license who does not physically possess the license document because the Labor Commissioner has failed to promptly provide it).  Both now proceed to the Governor for signature or veto.