Big Wins for Industrial Workers, Ratepayers, and Infrastructure Funding
The legislative session just wrapped up. Here’s what you need to know.
The 2025 legislative session in Sacramento officially came to a close on Saturday, September 13. As of this publication’s deadline, Gov. Gavin Newsom still needed to click his executive pen and get to adding his John Hancock to the bills on his desk. That said, the California building trades and the Golden State’s labor movement at large saw significant legislative victories in housing, the energy sector, worker protections, and more.
Haney’s Housing Headway
Gov. Gavin Newsom prepares to sign bills at a news conference at Morrison Planetarium on Friday, September 19.
Assemblymember Matt Haney (D–San Francisco) advanced a pair of bills this session that make it easier — and fairer — for “adaptive reuse” projects to get going. In other words: Converting vacant office buildings into residential units will become more viable under Haney’s legislation.
AB 507 encourages adaptive reuse of existing buildings while ensuring strong labor standards, with projects higher than four stories required to employ a skilled-and-trained workforce.
Said Haney in a press release: “This is how we bring our downtowns back. The demand for urban housing is sky-high, but the path to converting these empty offices is full of roadblocks. AB 507 clears that path and makes it easier to build homes where we need them most.”
Haney chairs the Assembly Committee on Downtown Recovery.
Meanwhile, AB 1445 expands a funding mechanism statewide that allows cities and counties to create tax-increment financing districts for adaptive reuse projects. Building on last year’s AB 2488, from former assemblymember Phil Ting (D–San Francisco), which established a similar district for the city and county of San Francisco, AB 1445 requires that project funds comply with labor standards or be subject to a project labor agreement.
Together, the two bills represent a significant step toward unlocking office-to-housing conversions across California, while protecting workers and strengthening local financing tools.
“There are a lot of vacant office buildings in San Francisco and other downtown cores,” said State Building and Construction Trades Council of California (SBCTC) Chief-of-Staff Jeremy Smith. “A lot of our members built the office buildings, and, hopefully, now it’ll turn into housing, also done by our members.”
The SBCTC sponsored the two Haney bills.
Cap-and-Invest: Derailing Trump’s High-Speed Rail Shenanigans
Two bills dealing with the not-so-sexy topic of cap-and-invest will nonetheless have a long-lasting impact on the California environment, good jobs, and high-speed rail.
AB 1207 by Jacqui Irwin (D–Thousand Oaks) and supported by the SBCTC extends Cap-and-Invest, formerly known as Cap-and-Trade, through 2045. Companion legislation, Senate Bill 840 from Monique Limon (D–Santa Barbara), provides a framework for how AB 1207 funds will be spent. This includes a $1 billion annual spend for high-speed rail.
The consistent investment helps fortify high-speed rail against federal funding cuts, providing thousands of jobs in the process.
We Have the Power
Several SBCTC-sponsored or -supported bills addressed issues of power creation.
AB 527, from Diane Papan (D–San Mateo), exempts geothermal exploratory projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, so long as prevailing wage is paid and a skilled-and-trained workforce employed. AB 531, from Chris Rogers (D–Santa Rosa), expands the California Energy Commission’s expedited permitting program to cover geothermal power plants of any size or multiple plants on one site, with the same labor standards applied.
The operating engineers co-sponsored both bills.
SB 237, from Tim Grayson (D–Concord) streamlines permitting for oil exploration in Kern County, creating jobs and helping with oil supply issues.
… and Safety
While many bills that were passed ultimately involve union job creation, ensuring those workplaces remain safe was also a priority.
SB 283, from John Laird (D–Santa Cruz), the Clean Energy Safety Act of 2025 requires battery energy storage facilities to have emergency action plans.
SB 20, from Caroline Menjivar (D–Van Nuys), is the Silicosis Training, Outreach and Prevention (STOP) Act. It addresses workers contracting illnesses from silica dust. It bans the dry cutting of artificial stone, requires the use of wet methods and Cal/OSHA training, strengthens enforcement with stop-work orders and penalties, and improves the reporting of silicosis cases.
“It’s a big health and safety win,” SBCTC Chief-of-Staff Smith said.
Not Collateral Damage
Beyond building trades issues, the California Federation of Labor scored some victories with its package of worker protection bills.
AB 288, from Tina McKinnor (D–Inglewood) protects the rights of workers in California to organize, should something happen to the National Labor Relations Act or the National Labor Relations Board.
The teamsters co-sponsored the bill.
“AB 288 is a game-changer for workers in California,” said Peter Finn, co-chair of Teamsters California, in a statement. “More than 70% of workers want to be in a union, but big tech corporatists like Jeff Bezos are flouting federal law and trampling workers’ organizing rights. With the right to organize guaranteed under state law, we can show the nation that a strong economy is built through solidarity, not CEOs’ arrogance.”
The Cal Labor Fed also organized a big push in support of SB 7, from Jerry McNerney (D–Stockton). The No Robo-Bosses Act requires advanced notice and human oversight of automated decision-making systems.
Cal Labor Fed President Lorena Gonzalez said the following in a statement:
“Bosses should have souls. We need commonsense guardrails to ensure human oversight of algorithms when workers are disciplined or fired. We can’t allow robo-bosses to go unchecked while workers are treated like collateral damage of new technologies in the workplace.”