“I have sought counsel from community members and constituents. After much discussion and reflection, the most prudent decision to avoid another costly special election in Los Angeles and ensure our community is not left without any representation in the state Assembly would be for me to resign at the end of the legislative session,” said Bocanegra in a statement.

According to the L.A. Times, the resignation came after it presented an article to the assemblyman’s office Friday afternoon in which six women accused him of sexual harassment.

It was revealed last month that Bocanegra had been disciplined in 2009 for “inappropriate and unwelcome physical contact” with and “inappropriate and unwelcome verbal remarks” directed at a legislative staffer at an after-work event.

Elise Flynn Gyore said Bocanegra, who was then chief of staff for then-Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, “menaced me that evening,” groping her and following her in a threatening manner.

Bocanegra was first elected to the Assembly in 2012, then narrowly defeated in 2014. He then won in a rematch in 2016.

Assembly Bill 357 affects California food and retail businesses with at least 10 stores and 500 employees that change or cancel a worker’s scheduled shift or require an employee to be “on call” to work. Those businesses must provide the following extra compensation for changed schedules:

• One hour of pay at the employee’s regular hourly rate if less than seven days’ notice but at least 24 hours’ notice is given to the employee.
• Two hours of pay for each shift of four hours or less if less than 24 hours’ notice is given.
• Four hours of pay for each shift of more than four hours if less than 24 hours’ notice is given.

When those businesses require an employee to be available to work but the employee is not called in to work, it must provide two hours of pay for a shift of four hours or less and four hours of pay for shifts of more than four hours.

In addition, AB357 prohibits these businesses from firing or discriminating against employees because they receive CalFresh food assistance or either receive CalWORKS cash aid or are a parent, guardian or grandparent of children who receive CalWORKs cash aid. The bill also allows employees to leave work for eight hours twice a year without pay to attend appointments at a county human services agency.

The Chamber of Commerce argues that the bill “dramatically increases the cost of doing business for a broadly defined ‘food and general retail establishment’ in California by exposing employers to significant penalties and litigation for accommodating employee and business scheduling demands, creating a new protected classification for employees, and a new leave of absence for employees.”

The Chamber has labeled it a job killer because it:

• “Creates significant penalties against employers for schedule changes, which will limit flexibility.
• “Discourages employers from offering additional work to part-time employees.
• “Creates new leave of absence for employees.
• “Creates a new, protected classification of employees.
• “Subjects employers to multiple threats of extensive litigation.”

CalChamber Policy Advocate Jennifer Barrera told the committee on April 22 that a similar ordinance is due to go into effect in San Francisco in July. “Why don’t we let that work out first in San Francisco before we impose this on a statewide mandate in California and to counties and cities that are not reflective of San Francisco?” she said.

Also speaking against the bill was Angie Manetti, representing the California Retailers’ Association.

“We believe this bill seeks to mandate a rigid, one-size-fits-all scheduling model for food and retail establishments,” she said. “Retail by nature is dynamic and highly competitive. As such, retailers are constantly undertaking the challenge of balancing the needs of employees, responding to customer demands, all while enhancing our customer experiences.

“AB357 fails to contemplate these unique needs. The bill instead creates a significant administrative burden for retail employers and doesn’t take into consideration the rapidly changing business environment of retail establishments.

“The reality is that retailers and employers need a predictive schedule in place just as much as our employees do. We do this to the best of our ability and provide as much flexibility that we can. Stores must consider, number one, employee scheduling requests. There’s also sales forecasts that are considered, store productivity, workload, in-store events, merchandise deliveries and customer traffic patterns. Additionally, at any given time those factors can change due to unexpected scenarios.”

Manetti agreed with Barrera that the state should wait to see how San Francisco’s scheduling regulations work out. But the bill’s author, Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, who also authored the San Francisco legislation, responded that there has been significant interest from legislators around the state in implementing it statewide.

“We are not talking about a job killer policy,” Chiu said. “In fact, we know the minimum wage, health care, sick leave – those were also called job killer policies. I would suggest there’s a lot about this policy that helps people to maintain and to take on second jobs or third jobs, to actually be job creating.

“Major employers like Costco, like Starbucks, like Wal-Mart … understand it’s good for business. When you are an employee and you have a predictability in scheduling, you are a more productive employee, you’re a happier employee, and you do better and you want to work hard.”

Chiu said there more than three million low-wage food and retail workers in California. Eighty percent of them have unstable schedules, he said, and 40 percent receive a week or less notice on their upcoming schedule.

A co-author of the bill, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, said that one out of five California children live in poverty, and their mothers have to work two or three part-time jobs to make ends meet.

“We see [reliable scheduling] as being critical in how we reverse California poverty levels,” she said. “California has the highest poverty rate in the nation. They need security to say ‘this is when you work.’ It’s not unreasonable to ask employers to give some sense of predictability on how their schedule is going to be and how they manage their lives.”

Two grocery workers, one of whom has two college degrees, also testified in support of the bill. They said not having a predictable schedule makes it difficult to attend college on off days.

Unlike most so-called “job killer” bills, AB357 did not break down strictly along party lines. One Democrat, Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, voted against it. Although he agrees with Chiu that it’s not a job killer, he said he’s concerned that it will have an impact on businesses in his Silicon Valley district.

The committee approved the bill, 4-3. It will next be considered by the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Women who work for the California State Assembly face a glass ceiling, substantial pay inequities and limits to their career advancement. Female employees are paid less than their male counterparts, are less likely to serve in leadership roles and remain stuck in secretarial positions, a CalWatchDog.com analysis of legislative payroll data has found. The evidence is staggering.

* Women are 9 times more likely to work as a secretary.

* Men are nearly twice as likely to serve as a highly-paid chief consultant.

* The 10 highest-paid employees of the state Assembly are all men.

* Women fill only 35 percent of the Assembly’s chief-of-staff positions, the top staff slot for each elected representative.

* The average woman employed by the Assembly makes $5,640 less per year than the average man.

* Men represent 62 percent of the Assembly’s Top 100 highest-paid employees. The Top 50 highest-paid men make, on average, $19,880 more per year than the Top 50 highest-paid women.

The analysis of payroll data comes one day after Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg urged the Capitol to “talk about gender, talk about the biases we all hold” in a speech to the California Women’s Legislative Caucus. The best-selling author of “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” has been campaigning to address the lack of women in leadership positions in government and business. The Assembly’s payroll data suggest the state Legislature lags the private sector in issues of gender equity.

“We don’t have equality here in the Capitol,” Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, who leads the women’s caucus, told the Los Angeles Times.

Top 10 Highest-Paid Employees: All Men

No matter how you slice the data, women who work for the state Legislature are at a professional disadvantage. Men comprise 62 of the Assembly’s Top 100 highest-paid employees.

The 50 highest-paid male employees of the Assembly earn $19,880 more per year than the 50 highest-paid female employees. That equates to 86 cents earned by women at the top for every dollar earned by men. The top 50 men earn an average annual salary of $141,071, while the top 50 women take home $121,190 per year.

The starkest inequities, however, are in the top 1 percent of Assembly employees. The 10 highest-paid employees of the state Assembly are all men, according to state payroll records for the period ending on May 31, 2013. The highest-paid female employee of the lower house, Fredericka McGee, ranks 11th on the Assembly’s payroll. Despite serving as the Speaker’s top legal advisor, McGee earns $28,752 less per year than the Assembly’s highest-paid man, Christopher Woods. That equates to roughly 85 cents on the dollar, 1 cent better than the state’s average.

McGee’s lower compensation also reflects her lower status within Speaker John Perez’s office. When CalWatchDog.com requested the names and titles of his senior staff, the speaker’s office initially replied with four individuals that go “to the senior staff meeting.” Those staff members are Greg Campbell, chief of staff; Rick Simpson, deputy chief of staff; Arnie Sowell, policy director; and Chris Woods, the speaker’s budget person.

“Oh and you might as well throw in his Chief Counsel, Fredericka McGee,” Steven Maviglio, a spokesman for the Speaker, replied in a subsequent email.

Chief of Staff & Chief Consultant Positions: Overwhelmingly Filled by Men

The Speaker’s office isn’t the only boys’ club in the Capitol. An overwhelming majority of top staff positions are filled by men. Women fill only 35 percent of the Assembly’s chief-of-staff positions, the top staff slot for each elected representative; 68 employees are classified as a chief-of-staff, according to state payroll records as of May 31, 2013. Men fill 44 of those positions, while women account for just 24 of the top staff slots.

Men not only fill more of these leadership positions, but also earn more money than their female counterparts. The average male chief of staff earns nearly $6,000 more per year than his female counterpart. The average female chief of staff earns slightly more than six-figures per year, $100,309. Men take home, on average, $106,231 each year.

A notable outlier is Assembly Republican leader Connie Conway, whose caucus is led by Chief of Staff Deborah Gonzalez. The senior staff to the Assembly GOP Caucus boasts a majority of females, with Gonzalez joined by Richard Mersereau, policy director; Eric Swanson, fiscal director; Erin Guerrero, director of member support & outreach; and Sabrina Lockhart, communications director.

Chief Committee Consultants: Twice as Likely to Be Filled by Men

The Assembly’s committees proved no better at pay equity. Men are nearly twice as likely to serve as a highly paid chief consultants. Assembly payroll records list 53 employees with the chief consultant job classification. Women fill 19 of those positions; men nearly double that figure, at 34. As with chiefs of staffs, male chief consultants made more than their female counterparts — nearly $9,000 more per year.

Assembly committees are arguably the most segregated by gender. Out of 32 committee secretary positions, 31 are filled by women.

Although not as lopsided as committees, secretarial positions in the Assembly are overwhelmingly filled by women. Women fill 33 executive secretary positions, men just three. Overall, women fill 90 percent of the Assembly’s 122 secretarial roles. Or, put in different terms, women are nine times more likely to be classified as a secretary.

CalWatchDog.com analyzed payroll data for the state Assembly’s 1,175 employees listed as of May 31, 2013. The annual payroll for the state Assembly is $70.5 million.

Pay for Executive Secretaries in the California Assembly

Katy Grimes: Despite losing two important Republican Assembly seats in the election and handing state Democrats a supermajority, California’s Assembly Minority Leader  Connie Conway, a Republican, was surprisingly and handily reelected to her leadership position Thursday.

“It was a Connie Conway love fest,” said one Capitol staffer who asked to remain anonymous.

Republican Assembly incumbents and candidates who were presumed to win across the state were left out to dry, while other races where Republicans appeared not to have a chance were supported by the Republican Caucus, according to Republican insiders.

Many in and around the Capitol were speculating last week that Conway would be replaced if she did not voluntarily step aside, as is the time-honored practice whenever there are election losses under a Legislative leader.

Republican Assemblyman Martin Garrick stepped aside as minority leader of the Assembly after losing only one seat in the 2010 general election.

Money makes the world go round

Money and politics go together like heroin and drug addicts; they have the same effect on most politicians. Legislators are far too invested in acquiring and keeping their jobs.

Critics of Conway said they were most upset over the loss of two key Assembly races. Assemblyman Chris Norby, R-Fullerton, who was expected to win reelection, trailed on election night, and is losing as absentee ballots are still being counted.

Norby’s opponent, Fullerton Mayor Sharon Quirk-Silva, a Democrat, received an infusion of money the last week of the election. Capitol insiders close to the Republican Caucus said that Norby requested help and more money to fight off the attacks, but was left hanging.

Republican Assembly candidate Pedro Rios ran for and lost the 32nd Assembly District in Kern County. Rios was not supported by the Republican Caucus during the primary, nor during the general election. And Rios lost to the Democrat.

Meanwhile, in Sacramento, the Republican Caucus focused on the newly drawn 8th Assembly District race between Democrat Ken Cooley and Republican Peter Tateishi. But Tateishi’s campaign, as well as Tateishi, was virtually MIA in the district. And Tateishi lost.

Hollow promises

While Gov. Jerry Brown has been promising that he will ensure that California does not spend beyond its means, the Democrats now have the supermajority ability to override the governor’s vetoes.

It looks like business as usual in Sacramento, full of hollow promises and unholy deals, with rancorous Republican leadership now leading a superminority.