California Grocers Assn. v. City of Los Angeles

Filed 7/18/

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA

CALIFORNIA GROCERS )

ASSOCIATION, )

) Plaintiff and Respondent, ) ) S176099 v. ) ) Ct.App. 2/5 B206750

CITY OF LOS ANGELES, )

) Los Angeles County Defendant and Appellant; ) Super. Ct. No. BC351831 )

LOS ANGELES ALLIANCE FOR A )

NEW ECONOMY, )

) Intervener and Appellant. ) ____________________________________)

The City of Los Angeles, like numerous other municipalities in California and elsewhere, regulates the ability of certain employers to summarily replace the workforce upon acquiring a new business. Is such a worker retention ordinance preempted as intruding upon either matters of health and safety already regulated by the state or matters of employee organization and collective bargaining fully occupied by federal law? We conclude it is not. As well, we conclude the challenged ordinance is fully consistent with both the state and federal equal protection clauses. As the Court of Appeal found the ordinance preempted, we…

The City of Los Angeles, like numerous other municipalities in California and elsewhere, regulates the ability of certain employers to summarily replace the workforce upon acquiring a new business. Is such a worker retention ordinance preempted as intruding upon either matters of health and safety already regulated by the state or matters of employee organization and collective bargaining fully occupied by federal law? We conclude it is not. As well, we conclude the challenged ordinance is fully consistent with both the state and federal equal protection clauses. As the Court of Appeal found the ordinance preempted, we reverse.

Factual and Procedural Background

In December 2005, the City of Los Angeles (City) adopted the Grocery Worker Retention Ordinance (Ordinance). (L.A. Ord. No. 177231, adding *187 ch. XVIII, § 181.00 et seq. to L.A. Mun. Code.) 1 For grocery stores of a specific size (15,000 square feet or larger) that undergo a change of ownership, the Ordinance vests current employees with certain individual rights during a 90-day transition period. First, the incumbent owner is to prepare a list of nonmanagerial employees with at least six months’ employment as…

I respectfully dissent, finding City of Los Angeles Ordinance No. 177231 is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) ( 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq.).

In my view, the ordinance intrudes on the collective bargaining process in an extraordinary and fundamental way, at its very source. It determines the individual workers who will comprise a new employer’s workforce for the first 90 days of its operation. During those 90 days, the new employer must provide employment to a group of workers it did not choose. In addition, the new employer must provide to this mandated workforce specified benefits (such as termination for cause only) for which the workers did not bargain and to which the new employer did not agree. I recognize that governments, *212 including states and municipalities, have the authority to impose minimum employment standards of general application—including restrictions on hiring and firing. Consequently, an employer has no absolute right to choose its employees by, for example, discriminating on the basis of some group characteristic or union membership. But federal labor law does not permit a government mandate that an employer hire either a particular worker…