Bill Text: CA AB735 | 2023-2024 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Workforce development: utility careers.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Failed) 2024-02-01 - From committee: Filed with the Chief Clerk pursuant to Joint Rule 56. [AB735 Detail]
Download: California-2023-AB735-Introduced.html
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2023–2024 REGULAR SESSION
Assembly Bill
No. 735
| Introduced by Assembly Member Berman |
February 13, 2023 |
An act to add Section 49605 to the Education Code, and to amend Section 14005 of, and to add Article 5 (commencing with Section 14050) to Chapter 3 of Division 7 of, the Unemployment Insurance Code, relating to workforce development.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 735, as introduced, Berman.
Workforce development: utility careers.
(1) Existing law, the California Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, requires the California Workforce Development Board to assist the Governor in the development of a high road economy that offers an educated and skilled workforce with fair compensation and treatment in the workplace. In this regard, existing law requires the board to assist in the administration, promotion, and expansion of, as well as field assistance for, high road training partnerships, as defined.
This bill would establish the High Road Utility Careers (HRUC) program, to be administered by the board, to connect existing resources with individuals interested in careers in the utility sector and ensure a continued reliable workforce for California utilities. The bill would require the board to administer the HRUC program through partnerships with
statewide water, wastewater, and energy utility associations and to coordinate the program with existing and future programs and initiatives administered by the board, including high road training partnerships, in order to align interested individuals with available resources. The bill would require the HRUC program, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to dedicate funding and resources toward accomplishing specified goals, including connecting workers to high-quality jobs or entry-level work with defined routes to advancement and increasing skills and opportunities while expanding pipelines for low-income populations.
(2) Existing law requires the State Department of Education to develop a career guidance model for science and technology for use in school district counseling programs in order to provide information to pupils in grades 7 through 12, regarding the potential for employment, educational requirements, and other matters pertaining
to careers in the fields of science and technology.
This bill would require the department, by January 1, 2025, to partner with regional and statewide trade associations, among other groups, to develop and distribute informational materials for career guidance to pupils in grades 9 through 12, regarding the potential for employment, educational requirements, and other matters pertaining to careers in these utilities.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: NOBill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
Section 49605 is added to the Education Code, immediately following Section 49604, to read:49605.
No later than January 1, 2025, the State Department of Education shall partner with regional and statewide trade associations and industry groups for water, wastewater, and electric utilities, and with vocational training programs offered through unions and nonprofit, community-based organizations, to develop and distribute informational materials for career guidance to pupils in grades 9 through 12, regarding the potential for employment, educational requirements, and other matters pertaining to careers in these utilities. Interested pupils shall be directed to the Employment Development Department for potential placement in utility jobs.SEC. 2.
Section 14005 of the Unemployment Insurance Code is amended to read:14005.
For purposes of this division:(a) “Board” means the California Workforce Development Board.
(b) “Agency” means the Labor and Workforce Development Agency.
(c) “Career pathways,” “career ladders,” or “career lattices” are an identified series of positions, work experiences, or educational benchmarks or credentials with multiple access points that offer occupational and financial advancement within a specified career field or related fields over time. “Career pathways,” “career ladders,” and “career lattices” offer combined programs of rigorous and high-quality education, training, and other services that do all of the following:
(1) Align with the skill needs of industries in the economy of the state or regional economy involved.
(2) Prepare an individual to be successful in any of a full range of secondary or postsecondary education options, including apprenticeships registered under the National Apprenticeship Act of 1937 (29 U.S.C. Sec. 50 et seq.), except as in Section 3226 of Title 29 of the United States Code.
(3) Include counseling to support an individual in achieving the individual’s education and career goals.
(4) Include, as appropriate, education offered concurrently with and in the same context as workforce preparation activities and training for a specific occupation or occupational cluster.
(5) Organize education, training, and other services to meet the particular needs of an individual in a manner that accelerates the educational and career advancement of the individual to the extent practicable.
(6) Enable an individual to attain a secondary school diploma or its recognized equivalent, and at least one recognized postsecondary credential.
(7) Help an individual enter or advance within a specific occupation or occupational cluster.
(d) “Cluster-based sector strategies” mean methods of focusing workforce and economic development on those sectors that have demonstrated a capacity for economic growth and job creation in a particular geographic area.
(e) “Data driven” means a process of making decisions about investments and
policies based on systematic analysis of data, which may include data pertaining to labor markets.
(f) “Economic security” means, with respect to a worker, earning a wage sufficient to support a family adequately, and, over time, to save for emergency expenses and adequate retirement income, based on factors such as household size, the cost of living in the worker’s community, and other factors that may vary by region.
(g) “Evidence-based” means making use of policy research as a basis for determining best policy practices. Evidence-based policymakers adopt policies that research has shown to produce positive outcomes, in a variety of settings, for a variety of populations over time. Successful, evidence-based programs deliver quantifiable and sustainable results. Evidence-based practices differ from approaches that are based on tradition, belief, convention, or anecdotal
evidence.
(h) “High-priority occupations” mean occupations that have a significant presence in a targeted industry sector or industry cluster, are in demand, or projected to be in demand, by employers, and pay or lead to payment of a wage that provides economic security.
(i) (1) “In-demand industry sector or occupation” means either of the following:
(A) An industry sector that has a substantial current or potential impact, including through jobs that lead to economic self-sufficiency and opportunities for advancement, on the state, regional, or local economy, as appropriate, and that contributes to the growth or stability of other supporting businesses, or the growth of other industry sectors.
(B) An occupation that currently has
or is projected to have a number of positions, including positions that lead to economic self-sufficiency and opportunities for advancement, in an industry sector so as to have a significant impact on the state, regional, or local economy, as appropriate.
(2) The determination of whether an industry sector or occupation is “in-demand” under this subdivision shall be made by the board or local board, or through the regional planning process in which local boards participate under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, as appropriate, using state and regional business and labor market projections, including the use of labor market information.
(j) “Individual with employment barriers” means an individual with any characteristic that substantially limits an individual’s ability to obtain employment, including indicators of poor work history, lack of work experience, or access
to employment in nontraditional occupations, long-term unemployment, lack of educational or occupational skills attainment, dislocation from high-wage and high-benefit employment, low levels of literacy or English proficiency, disability status, or welfare dependency, including members of all of the following groups:
(1) Displaced homemakers.
(2) Low-income individuals.
(3) Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, as those terms are defined in Section 3221 of Title 29 of the United States Code.
(4) Individuals with disabilities, including youths who are individuals with disabilities.
(5) Older individuals.
(6) Ex-offenders.
(7) Homeless individuals, as defined in Section 14043e-2(6) of Title 42 of the United States Code, or homeless children and youths, as defined in Section 11434a(2) of Title 42 of the United States Code.
(8) Youth who are in, or have aged out of, the foster care system.
(9) Individuals who are English language learners, individuals who have low levels of literacy, and individuals facing substantial cultural barriers.
(10) Eligible migrant and seasonal farmworkers, as defined in Section 3322(i) of Title 29 of the United States Code.
(11) Individuals within two years of exhausting lifetime eligibility under Part A of Title IV of the Social Security Act (42
U.S.C. Sec. 601 et seq.).
(12) Single parents, including single, pregnant women.
(13) Long-term unemployed individuals.
(14) Transgender and gender nonconforming individuals.
(15) Any other groups as the Governor determines to have barriers to employment.
(k) “Industry cluster” means a geographic concentration or emerging concentration of interdependent industries with direct service, supplier, and research relationships, or independent industries that share common resources in a given regional economy or labor market. An industry cluster is a group of employers closely linked by common product or services, workforce needs, similar technologies, and supply chains in a given regional
economy or labor market.
(l) “Industry or sector partnership” means a workforce collaborative, convened or acting in partnership with the board or a local board, that does the following:
(1) Organizes key stakeholders in an industry cluster into a working group that focuses on the shared goals and human resources needs of the industry cluster and that includes, at the appropriate stages of development of the partnership:
(A) Representatives of multiple businesses or other employers in the industry cluster, including small and medium-sized employers when practicable.
(B) One or more representatives of a recognized state labor organization or central labor council, or another labor representative, as appropriate.
(C) One or more representatives of an institution of higher education with, or another provider of, education or training programs that support the industry cluster.
(2) The workforce collaborative may include representatives of any of the following:
(A) State or local government.
(B) State or local economic development agencies.
(C) State boards or local boards, as appropriate.
(D) A state workforce agency or entity providing employment services.
(E) Other state or local agencies.
(F) Business or
trade associations.
(G) Economic development organizations.
(H) Nonprofit organizations, community-based organizations, or intermediaries.
(I) Philanthropic associations.
(J) Industry associations.
(K) Other organizations, as determined to be necessary by the members comprising the industry sector or partnership.
(m) “Industry sector” means those firms that produce similar products or provide similar services using somewhat similar business processes, and are closely linked by workforce needs, within a regional labor market.
(n) “Local labor federation” means a
central labor council that is an organization of local unions affiliated with the California Labor Federation or a local building and construction trades council affiliated with the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California.
(o) “Sector strategies” means methods of prioritizing investments in competitive and emerging industry sectors and industry clusters on the basis of labor market and other economic data indicating strategic growth potential, especially with regard to jobs and income, and exhibit the following characteristics:
(1) Focus workforce investment in education and workforce training programs that are likely to lead to jobs providing economic security or to an entry-level job with a well-articulated career pathway into a job providing economic security.
(2) Effectively boost labor
productivity or reduce business barriers to growth and expansion stemming from workforce supply problems, including skills gaps and occupational shortages by directing resources and making investments to plug skills gaps and provide education and training programs for high-priority occupations.
(3) May be implemented using articulated career pathways or lattices and a system of stackable credentials.
(4) May target underserved communities, disconnected youths, incumbent workers, and recently separated military veterans.
(5) Frequently are implemented using industry or sector partnerships.
(6) Typically are implemented at the regional level where sector firms, those employers described in subdivisions (j) and (l), often share a common labor market and
supply chains. However, sector strategies may also be implemented at the state or local level depending on sector needs and labor market conditions.
(p) “Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014” means the federal act enacted as Public Law 113-128.
(q) (1) “Earn and learn” includes, but is not limited to, a program that does either of the following:
(A) Combines applied learning in a workplace setting with compensation allowing workers or students to gain work experience and secure a wage as they develop skills and competencies directly relevant to the occupation or career for which they are preparing.
(B) Brings together classroom instruction with on-the-job training to combine both formal instruction and actual paid work
experience.
(2) “Earn and learn” programs include, but are not limited to, all of the following:
(A) Apprenticeships.
(B) Preapprenticeships.
(C) Incumbent worker training.
(D) Transitional jobs, as described in paragraph (5) of subsection (d) of Section 3174 of Title 29 of the United States Code, as that section read on January 1, 2021, and subsidized employment with an employer of record, which may include, but not be limited to, an employment social enterprise or a worker cooperative, particularly for individuals with barriers to employment.
(E) Paid internships and externships.
(F) Project-based compensated learning.
(r) “High road” means a set of economic and workforce development strategies to achieve economic growth, economic equity, shared prosperity and a clean environment. The strategies include, but are not limited to, interventions that:
(1) Improve job quality and job access, including for women and people from underserved and underrepresented populations.
(2) Meet the skill and profitability needs of employers.
(3) Meet the economic, social, and environmental needs of the community.
(s) “High road training partnership” means an initiative or project that models strategies for developing
industry-based, worker-focused training partnerships, including labor-management partnerships. High Road Training partnerships operate via regional, industry- or sector-based training partnerships comprised of employers, workers, and their representatives including organized labor, community-based organizations, education, training, and social services providers, and labor market intermediaries. High Road Training partnerships demonstrate job quality standards and employment practices that include, but are not limited to, the following:
(1) Provision of comparatively good wages and benefits, relative to the industry, occupation, and labor market in which participating workers are employed.
(2) Payment of workers at or above local or regional living wage standards as well as payment at or above regional prevailing wage standards where such standards exist for the occupations in
question.
(3) A history of investment in employee training, growth, and development.
(4) Provision of opportunities for career advancement and wage growth.
(5) Safe and healthy working conditions.
(6) Consistent compliance with workplace laws and regulations, including proactive efforts to remedy past problems.
(7) Adoption of mechanisms to include worker voice and agency in the workplace.
(t) “High road construction careers” are high road training partnerships that invest in regional training partnerships comprised of local building trades councils, workforce, community, and education interests that connect to state-approved
apprenticeship programs, that utilize the standard Multi-Craft Core preapprenticeship training curriculum and provide a range of supportive services and career placement assistance to women and people from underserved and underrepresented populations.
(u) “Career advancement” means demonstrated progression along a career ladder as evidenced by both wage growth and occupational advancement.
(v) “Employment social enterprise” means a nonprofit or for-profit organization that meets all of the following requirements:
(1) Is organized as a social purpose corporation or a benefit corporation, or as an organization incorporated within a larger organization.
(2) Demonstrates evidence of a mission to provide and to access employment and social supports with
on-the-job and life skills training to a direct labor force comprised of individuals with a “barrier to employment,” as that phrase is defined in Section 3102 of Title 29 of the United States Code, as that section read on January 1, 2021.
(3) Is evidence-based and utilizes data-driven policies in implementing procedures and measuring outcomes.
(4) Produces or assembles goods or provides services, or a combination of both.
(w) “Worker cooperative” has the same meaning as defined in Section 12253.5 of the Corporations Code.
(x) “High Road Utility Careers program” or “HRUC” means the program established in Article 5 (commencing with Section 14050) of Chapter 3.
SEC. 3.
Article 5 (commencing with Section 14050) is added to Chapter 3 of Division 7 of the Unemployment Insurance Code, to read:Article 5. High Road Utility Careers Program
14050.
For purposes of this article, the following definitions apply:(a) “California Workforce Development Board” or “board” means the California Workforce Development Board established pursuant to Article 1 (commencing with Section 14010).
(b) “HRUC program” or “HRUC” means the High Road Utility Careers program.
(c) “Utilities” includes private and public entities that provide electric, gas, water, wastewater, sewer, trash, recycled water, or telecommunication services in California.
14051.
(a) There is hereby established the High Road Utility Careers program, to be administered by the California Workforce Development Board.(b) The primary purpose of HRUC is to connect existing resources with individuals interested in careers in the utility sector and to ensure a continued reliable workforce for California utilities.
(c) For purposes of administering the HRUC, the board shall do all of the following:
(1) Administer the HRUC program through partnerships with statewide water, wastewater, and energy utility associations. The board shall coordinate, where possible, and share resources, tools, and
information with these partners.
(2) Coordinate the HRUC program with existing and future programs and initiatives administered by the board, including high road training partnerships and the Breaking Barriers to Employment Initiative, in order to align interested individuals with available resources.
(3) Partner with public schools, including, but not limited to, high schools, technical colleges, community colleges, universities, and continuing education schools to promote career placement in the utility sector.
14052.
The HRUC program shall do all of the following:(a) Partner with regional and state trade associations, industry groups, vocational training programs offered through nonprofit, community-based organizations, and unions to promote training on essential job duties required for working in utilities and on diversity, equity, and inclusion. The board shall partner with public schools, including, but not limited to, high schools, technical colleges, community colleges, universities, and continuing education schools to promote career placement in the utility sector.
(b) Prioritize supportive services and career placement assistance to people from underserved and underrepresented populations.
(c) Provide individuals interested in employment within the utility sector with the services needed to enter, participate in, and complete broader workforce preparation, training, and education programs, and, ultimately, to obtain and retain employment.
(d) Build systems and policies to advance equity, access to skills and economic opportunity, and job quality.
(e) Through a network of trainings, workshops, classes, and presentations, seek to educate the potential workforce on regional and statewide opportunities in utility work.
(f) (1) Seek to create regional partnerships across California with utility members.
(2) These regional partnerships shall work together to
collect existing content, and create new content, to reach potential candidates with an emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
14053.
Upon appropriation by the Legislature for this express purpose, the HRUC program shall dedicate funding and resources toward accomplishing all of the following goals:(a) Connecting workers to high-quality jobs or entry-level work with defined routes to advancement.
(b) Increasing skills and opportunities while expanding pipelines for low-income populations.
(c) Prioritizing upward mobility for residents of low-income communities.
(d) Addressing worker, employer, and industry needs.
(e) Developing workforce
development programs or providing research, planning, and development, or both.
(f) Connecting workers to existing resources and services.
(g) Developing regional strategies to support workers and communities in adapting to and creating new workforce opportunities.
