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Helping Businesses Prosper and our Community Thrive!
Your investment in the Oceanside Chamber is making a difference in our community! The Chamber's mission is to "stimulate economic prosperity and foster a vibrant community." Here's a quick overview if what your investment in the Chamber allowed us to accomplish in the recent weeks...
Workforce Development
Earlier this year, the Chamber launched a new Workforce Development Task Force comprised of representatives from the business and education communities including Genentech, Tri-City Medical Center, California State University San Marcos, and MiraCosta College. Priorities of the taskforce include:
- Guiding the Chamber’s new workforce development coordinator in conducting outreach to local businesses and organizations to understand their recruitment needs and required skill sets.
- Collaborating with regional training and education programs to ensure job seekers—from high school students to Veterans and military spouses as well as adults re-entering the workforce due to Pandemic-era layoffs— are receiving employer-driven job training that produces enriching employment experience.
- Convening stakeholders to bridge the gap between employers with open jobs and job-ready candidates and identifying and addressing barriers to employment.
- Providing insight and strategic direction for the Chamber’s short- and long-term workforce development Advancing Oceanside initiative.
Economic Recovery
In March, the Chamber launched a new Economic Recovery Task Force made up of representatives from the business community, arts and culture district, City of Oceanside, Visit Oceanside and MainStreet Oceanside. Key focus areas for the task force will include the following…
- Promoting economic recovery and development through the cultural arts
- Encouraging City leadership to dedicate resources to the beautification and safety of Oceanside’s “gateway” entry points
- Creating a year-round “stay and play local” culture
- Promoting business friendly policies to help businesses accommodate “pent-up demand”
- Convening business and community leaders to address the issue of homelessness
- Advocating for the American Rescue Plan funding to be used in part to support economic recovery
Public Policy/Business Advocacy
State Legislation
The Oceanside Chamber of Commerce signed on to numerous statewide coalition letters on business related legislation including…
- Opposed SB 213 which expands costly presumption of injury. Significantly increases workers’ compensation costs for public and private hospitals by presuming certain diseases and injuries are caused by the workplace and establishes an extremely concerning precedent for expanding presumptions into the private sector.
- Opposed AB 1316, anti-charter legislation, which would fundamentally damage the operations and missions of California’s 1,300 charter public schools and erode services for hundreds and thousands of California’s most vulnerable students. AB 1316 ignores changes made in recent legislation and instead creates wasteful and duplicative overregulation. Among other negative fiscal impacts, AB 1316 imposes costly new mandates and requirements and diverts $153 million per year in Local Control Funding Formula funds from students and provides them, instead, to their authorizers.
- UPDATE: AB 1119 which the Chamber opposed, has now become a 2-year bill and will not be proceeding to the Assembly floor for a vote. AB 1119 adds any individual with “family responsibilities” as a protected class to the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), which creates an automatic basis for an individual in that new classification to challenge any adverse employment action. This bill also imposes a burdensome new accommodation requirement on employers for any employee who has “family responsibilities,” which could include daily or weekly time off requests and unexpected schedule changes. FEHA applies to employers with five or more employees and includes a costly private right of action, exposing small employers to litigation who make any mistake in the application of these new mandates.
- Opposed SB 727 which would expand liability for businesses that use subcontractors. Contractors would now also be liable for a subcontractor’s liability related to Unemployment Insurance withholdings/deductions/contributions or the failure to maintain workers’ compensation coverage.
- Supported AB 927 which helps California Community Colleges to proactively meet the changing workforce needs of our businesses. The legislation will make the current 15 community college baccalaureate degree programs permanent and allows for the expansion of the program into other communities. The pilot program, which allowed MiraCosta College to offer a baccalaureate degree in biomanufacturing, has been a huge success for our region.
- Opposed AB 1074 which is an unprecedented expansion of current law with the potential to further harm the already decimated lodging industry. Specifically, this measure expands statutory contractor-retention policies to apply to “hotel services including guest service, food and beverage, or cleaning performed within the State of California, including any subcontracts for janitorial or building maintenance services or hotel services.” However, as written, every function a hotel contractor performs to the benefit of its guests would be subject to retention including; booking systems, website disability-access programs, pool cleaning services, hotel advertising services which offer special pricing, and every other potential service the guest interacts with.
- Supported AB 61 which supports restaurants impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by providing temporary regulatory flexibility to help facilitate outdoor dining, and take-out and delivery options in a manner consistent with public health guidance. AB 61 contains some of the most successful elements of emergency pandemic relief and expands them for one year after the COVID-19 state of emergency is lifted. Expanded outdoor dining will continue to be critical for so many community restaurants as they are forced to continue to fight for their economic survival.
Serving as a Champion for our Community
The Chamber continued its Advancing Oceanside Podcast in order to bring attention to the businesses and non-profit organizations serving our community. April’s interviews focused Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness. These interviews featured Jacqueline Farkas with Social Media Boutique, Vishnu Sneller with Minuteman Press Oceanside, and Greg Anglea with Interfaith Comunity Services.
The podcasts can be viewed on the Chamber's YouTube Channel, IGTV, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
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