Volunteer activities such as this Compton Creek cleanup can continue without peril thanks to CA bill AB2690. Photo: Bill Groak/Pacific Communications Group

Great news! California Assemblyperson Loni Hancock's bill, AB 2690, unanimously passed in the Assembly and the Senate and was signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger.

The bill corrected the section of the California Labor Code that was misinterpreted to require volunteers be paid for restoration, construction and clean up efforts. The closing language in the new law embodies the importance of the action: "In order to encourage citizen initiative and volunteer action in state service and to eliminate all legal disincentives and impediments to volunteering on public works projects, it is necessary that this bill take place immediately."

Now that the Governor has signed the bill in to law, environmental agencies such as the California Coastal Conservancy and the State Water Resources Control Board, can go back to awarding grants to cost-effective, volunteer driven, clean-up and restoration efforts. Also, non-profit environmental groups such as Heal the Bay can now continue with volunteer programs without the fear of losing grant funding due to "unacceptable" use of volunteers (see Background below).

Heal the Bay thanks Assemblyperson Hancock, Governor Schwarzenegger, and all the legislators, volunteer groups and common-sense union leaders for eliminating "paid volunteers" from the state's vocabulary. Also, a special thanks to the over 1000 Heal the Bay volunteers and members that sent letters to the Governor urging him to eliminate California's anti-volunteer policies.

Background

Late in 2003, the Department of Industrial Relations ruled that volunteer labor in most cases can't be used in projects that use public funds. In fact, the department fined a Sacramento-area nonprofit environmental group $33,000 in part because the organization used student volunteers to help restore a stream bed.

The decision was based on the prevailing wage law, passed in 1989. The law was developed to keep non-union contractors from underbidding union groups for public works projects. According to the law, volunteer work can only be used when a public works project: is entirely directed and completed by unpaid people; will be used primarily by community-based organizations; won't have an "adverse impact" on employment; and has been reviewed and approved by the director of Industrial Relations for compliance with all of these regulations.

In 1999, the precedent for the 2003 decision was set in a case involving the Lewis Center for Earth Sciences, run by the Partnership for Academic Excellence in Apple Valley. The City of Apple Valley received $2 million from the state, and partnered with the Partnership for Academic Excellence to build the Lewis Center for Earth Sciences. The decision in this case stated that even though the nonprofit Partnership for Academic Excellence foundation was in charge of the project and the hiring of all contractors, because it was using state funds, the project counted as a "public works project" and the center had to pay prevailing wages.

The real turning point for the issue came in 2003, when the Sacramento Watersheds Action Group put together a project to restore Sulphur Creek, in Redding, using state grant money. The organization partnered with nearby Shasta College to have students earn class credit in watershed restoration for removing vegetation and repairing weakened and eroded creek banks. A local labor group complained, and the state investigated. The state determined that 60 workers - some paid and some volunteers - all should have been paid between $12 and $50 per hour. The Sacramento Watersheds Action Group had to pay fines and back wages.

While this case was different from what organizations like Heal the Bay do - in that students were required to participate in the project for class credit, and operated heavy machinery such as backhoes - it did set a precedent that could have devastated groups like Heal the Bay.

For example, based on the DIR's decision, the State Water Resources Control board put together a series of guidelines that regulate how environmental organizations that use grant funds from the state can use volunteer labor. The most damaging of those guidelines was that the environmental groups must send each grant application through the Director of the DIR to ensure compliance with existing labor laws as interpreted in these recent cases.

For Heal the Bay, this meant that, just like the Sacramento Watersheds Action Group, in most cases our use of volunteers could be ruled unacceptable and we could lose all grant funding. Fortunately, bill AB 2690 will prevent this from happenning.