Opinion: Newsom’s political theater over tariffs won’t help California businesses 

Containers are unloaded at the Port of Long Beach File photo by Lucy Nicholson Reuters Among California Gov Gavin Newsom s worst kept secrets are his presidential aspirations His chest thumping over suing the Trump Administration s tariff policies is yet another tell The governor has not long ago stated To our international partners California is a stable reliable partner We want your business But Newsom has made it clear he does not share that same attitude when it comes to businesses that already call California home Instead of supporting job creators Newsom and his allies in Sacramento continue to push bad policies that chase businesses out of the state A prime example is California s Private Attorney General Act PAGA allows employees to sue their employer for any perceived violation of the state s -page labor code This includes going after employers for accidental infractions such as missing a hyphen on a paystub PAGA alone has inspired more representative lawsuits than any other statute in America over the past year According to the California Department of Industrial Relations plaintiffs filed more than PAGA notices in a nearly increase over and a whopping increase over the eleven PAGA notices filed in Last year s reforms to the law were billed as the key to make it easier for businesses to operate under the PAGA regime In reality PAGA notices have matched their pace through the first three months of this year Litigating one of these PAGA notices can cost an employer hundreds of thousands of dollars costs so high that labor unions and the state have built in exemptions as a product And that s not to mention the settlement fees Now Democratic state Sen Scott Wiener not satisfied with the existing PAGA regime or the alternative process of filing a summary with the California Labor Commissioner s Office has introduced Senate Bill This bill creates yet another legal avenue to penalize employers this time through independent civil action If SB passes what little revision that PAGA did get after twenty years will be wiped out and we should expect the amount of harmful costly litigation to grow exponentially Thanks in part to Newsom s latest debacle of pushing a minimum wage in the fast-food restaurant industry the cost of doing business here is already one of the bulk burdensome in the country Adding an explosion of costly litigation resulting from policies like SB would put the nail in the coffin for businesses across the Golden State Defeating SB and repealing PAGA are essential policies towards sending the message to employers that California is open for business Right now this is a message that only exists between Newsom s ears Business owners can no longer shoulder the burden of PAGA in addition to the already high-cost of operating in California It s no wonder we ve seen a mass exodus of employers to states like Texas Nevada and Arizona When they go they take thousands of jobs with them and our population stagnates or even declines To Newsom and our legislators California businesses are stable and a reliable partner to California We want our governor and legislators to treat us like you want our business Tom Manzo is the president and founder of the California Business and Industrial Alliance