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Freshman files: Assemblymember Liz Ortega

Labor unions have been at the center of Assemblymember Liz Ortega’s life since early childhood and the centerpiece of her career.

So it’s natural that her top priorities in the state Assembly are also labor aligned, including legislation mandating that high school students learn about labor laws.

Ortega, 45, learned at a young age that her family had health insurance because her parents had union jobs, her mother doing laundry for hotels and her father as a dishwasher and then a second job, this one a union position as a janitor at the Oakland Coliseum.

California Public School Students Will Learn About Labor Rights Under First-of-Its-Kind Law

A.B. 800 empowers young people with the information and tools they need to understand their rights as workers.

While Republican-controlled state legislatures have rolled back child labor protections this year, Democratic lawmakers and rights advocates in California on Monday celebrated Gov. Gavin Newsom's signing of a first-of-its-kind law that they say will make young people less vulnerable to workplace abuses by teaching them about labor protections.

ORTEGA ANNOUNCES NEW LAW TO PREVENT CHILD LABOR EXPLOITATION

A new law was signed over the weekend to prevent child labor exploitation.

SACRAMENTO ― California high school students will learn about their rights at work and how to defend themselves against workplace abuses under a first-of-its-kind law just signed by Governor Gavin Newsom over the weekend.

AB 800, authored by Assemblymember Liz Ortega (D-San Leandro), creates a Workplace Readiness Week at all public high schools to teach students about their workplace rights, protections for minors on the job, and how to join or start a union. 

California Should Make Narcan Free

Opinion by Assemblymember Liz Ortega, Special to The Sacramento Bee

The opioid epidemic has been a slow-moving disaster that has claimed far too many lives in our communities, but the recent emergence of fentanyl has created a perfect storm leading to pandemic-level death rates.

The wreckage wrought on our communities is marked primarily by its toll on human life: More than 6,000 Californians died by overdose from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids in 2021.

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article276450351.html