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Committee amends emergency "Back to Work" ordinance, raises employer threshold and forwards to Board without recommendation
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Summary
The committee adopted sponsor amendments to an emergency ordinance giving laid‑off workers a temporary right to reemployment, raising the employer coverage threshold in the amendments to 100 employees, exempting health-care operations and removing a 90‑day retention requirement; it forwarded the amended ordinance to the full Board as a committee report without recommendation (3–0).
The Government Audit and Oversight Committee on June 18 accepted amendments to an emergency "Back to Work" ordinance that would give certain employees laid off because of the COVID‑19 pandemic a right of first refusal to be rehired if their former employer fills the same or a substantially similar position. After adopting sponsor changes, the committee forwarded the measure to the Board of Supervisors as a committee report without recommendation.
Chair Gordon Marr described the ordinance as “bold” and said the intent is to prioritize rehiring laid‑off workers by seniority and to extend basic recall protections to unrepresented employees. Marr said the ordinance, as amended, applies to employers with 100 or more employees (increased from the introduced threshold of 10), exempts health‑care operations, removes a 90‑day retention mandate, creates an OEWD‑managed hotline and allows notifications by email or text before mailing.
Joshua Arce, director of Workforce Development in OEWD, presented layoff metrics to the committee. He said OEWD recorded 352 WARN notices affecting 324 businesses and 38,994 employees from Feb. 25 through the week ending June 5, with roughly 29,633 listed as temporary and about 4,600 as permanent. Arce also cited state unemployment insurance claim counts of about 159,193 San Franciscans filing new claims in the period under review. Arce said OEWD has infrastructure — a multilingual hotline and partnerships with community job centers — and will support implementation in the ordinance's first phase.
Katie Wichet, a staff attorney with Legal Aid at Work, described increased demand for legal services and emphasized the long‑term harms of prolonged unemployment for families and children. She said legal aid has handled a surge of calls and that long‑term unemployment can depress future wages and public‑health outcomes.
During public comment, numerous workers and labor organizers called in to support the ordinance and ask the Board to act, citing instances where employers rehired at lower wages or conducted anti‑union campaigns. The California Restaurant Association urged amendments or opposition, warning the ordinance could impede restaurant reopening by requiring seniority-based rehiring and lengthy response times for offers.
Supervisor Marr moved to accept the sponsor’s amendments; the committee approved them and then voted to forward the amended emergency ordinance to the Board as a committee report without recommendation by unanimous roll call (Peskin, Haney, Marr). The Board will consider the ordinance at its June 23 meeting.
