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By Howard Fine
Restaurants and other businesses across Orange County rang in the new year with added costs, thanks to a 75 cent hike in the state’s minimum wage to $7.50 an hour.
The minimum wage increase is by far the biggest new law of 2007 for businesses. It’s the first of two agreed to last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature. The second increase, to $8 an hour, kicks in Jan. 1, 2008.
Besides that, there aren’t many other laws taking effect this month that broadly impact employers, though others target specific businesses.
“With the governor pledging to veto job-killing bills, we’ve been able to stop almost all these bills from becoming law,” said Vince Sollitto, spokesman for the California Chamber of Commerce in Sacramento.
Two other major laws did get through: Assembly Bill 32, a greenhouse gas emissions reduction mandate, and Senate Bill 1613, a ban on cell phone use without a hands-free device in most vehicles, including commercial trucks and fleet vehicles. They won’t kick in until mid-2008 at the earliest.
Instead, employers in specific sectors are facing targeted new laws this month.
Among them is AB 881, a requirement that all roofers,even sole proprietors,carry workers’ compensation insurance.
“This is really aimed at the underground economy, but it will hit husband-and-wife teams hard, and some of those are our members,” said Michael Shaw, assistant state director of the California chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business.
Another law, SB 1759, requires more stringent background checks for some healthcare workers. AB 409 allows authorities greater latitude to suspend licenses for cosmetologists, barbers and manicurists to protect the public.
Car washes are in the state’s crosshairs with the passage of SB 1468, a one-year extension of a previous law that regulated the hiring and payment of car wash workers. That previous law was set to expire last week.
Probably the most far-reaching of the industry-specific laws for consumers is AB 2987, which opens local cable markets to competition. The law was pushed by AT
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